My one desire was to rescue my love from her loathsome captors; of little else did I pause to think.

Yet Rattray's visit left its own mark on my mind; and long after he was gone I lay puzzling over the connection between a young Lancastrian, of good name, of ancient property, of great personal charm, and a crime of unparalleled atrocity committed in cold blood on the high seas.

That his complicity was flagrant I had no room to doubt, after Eva's own indictment of him, uttered to his face and in my hearing.

Was it then the usual fraud on the underwriters, and was Rattray the inevitable accomplice on dry land?
I could think of none but the conventional motive for destroying a vessel.

Yet I knew there must be another and a subtler one, to account not only for the magnitude of the crime, but for the pains which the actual perpetrators had taken to conceal the fact of their survival, and for the union of so diverse a trinity as Senhor Santos, Captain Harris, and the young squire.
It must have been about mid-day when Rattray reappeared, ruddy, spurred, and splashed with mud; a comfort to sick eyes, I declare, in spite of all.