The Honorable Percival

								

man if he can't take us the rest of the way."
"But we can't ride in a--"
"Yes, we can. We can ride on a broom-stick if we have to. Hurry!"
Percival plunged obediently into the street and made his request. He was
meeting with little encouragement from the driver, who evidently thought
he was mentally unsound, when Bobby came to his rescue. It was only by
resorting to some of those feminine tricks of persuasion which the
suffragists assure us are quite immoral that she succeeded in carrying
her point.
Ten minutes later the curiosity of the main thoroughfare of Honolulu
was raised to fever-heat by the singular spectacle of an austere and
distinguished-looking Englishman and a pretty, if somewhat disheveled,
young girl dangling their feet from the end of a dilapidated wagon that
was being driven at a breakneck speed toward the wharf.
For once in his life Percival was indifferent to appearances. Everything
else sank into insignificance beside the one supreme necessity of
catching that steamer. There would not be another sailing for the Orient
for ten days. The prospect of ten days in this lotus-land alone with a
perilously pretty girl who had evidently taken an enormous fancy to him
filled him with alarm. What possible explanation could he offer to
Sister Cordelia, that august representative of the family waiting in
Hong-Kong to minister to his broken and bleeding heart?
A violent lurch of the wagon caused him to grasp Bobby's arm to steady
her, and as he did so she got a glimpse of his rueful countenance.
"Cheer up!" she cried. "There's no use looking like that even if we
are left."
"Like what?"
"Like a trout on a hook."
He shot a glance at her. Was it possible that she had divined his state
of mind? Woman's intuition was a thing of which he stood in deadly awe.
But they were arriving at the dock, and there was no time to indulge in
subtleties. He sprang from the wagon before it came to a halt.
"The Saluria!" he demanded wildly of a man in uniform. "Has she
sailed?"
"The Saluria?" repeated the man with maddening deliberation.
"Let's see. Yellow funnels, ain't she? Yep, that's her a-going out of
the harbor now."

VI
IN THE WIND-SHELTER

When Mrs. Western, anxiously watching the passengers come aboard from
the last launch, had failed to see Bobby Boynton, she was partly
reassured by young Vaughn, who was quite confident he had seen her on
the dock. Not being satisfied, however, she made a tour of the crowded
decks, looking into the music room, the writing-room and even the
smoking-room, It was not until she went below and peeped into Bobby's
empty cabin that she became seriously alarmed. Hurrying back on deck,
she found, to her consternation, that the gang-planks had been lifted
and the ship had weighed anchor. In great excitement she rushed to the
bridge to find the captain, but he was not there. Five interminable