[Frontispiece: Tongues of flame reached hungrily for them, licking above Dan's red-gold hair, but never touching the girl.]
Author of "From the Depths of Things," "Two Tramps," "The Bounder," "The Sacrifice," etc.
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England
_Thanks are due Mr. Arthur W. Little, president of the Pearson Publishing Company, for permission to use in this novel several incidents in the life of Dan Merrithew which originally appeared in "Pearson's Magazine."_
CHAPTER TOC I. THE GIRL ON THE "VEILED LADYE" II. DAN'S SEARCH FOR THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT III. A FIGHT IN THE DARK IV. DAN STAKES HIS LIFE, AND WINS V. THE LOSS OF THE "FLEDGLING" VI. THE BRAVE AND THE FAIR VII. DAN IS COMMANDED TO A PARTY VIII. WITS VERSUS MACHINE GUNS IX. AN ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION X. THE WRAITH IN THE MOONLIGHT XI. THE BURNING OF THE "TAMPICO" XII. ALONE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE XIII. NIGHT ON THE DERELICT XIV. DAN AND VIRGINIA XV. CONCLUSION
Tongues of flame reached hungrily for them, licking above Dan's red-gold hair, but never touching the girl . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
"Oh, father," broke in the girl, "tell him it was noble!"
In the flash of an eye, Dan was making for the assassin
Opposite, smiling at him as though they had breakfasted together for years, was the radiant girl
The big coastwise tug _Hydrographer_ slid stern-ward into a slip cluttered with driftwood and bituminous dust, stopping within heaving distance of three coal-laden barges which in their day had reared "royal s'ls" to the wayward winds of the seven seas.
Near-by lay Horace Howland's ocean-going steam yacht, _Veiled Ladye_, which had put into Norfolk from Caribbean ports, to replenish her bunkers. There were a number of guests aboard, and most of them arose from their wicker chairs on the after-deck and went to the rail, as the great tug pounded alongside.
Grateful for any kind of a break in the monotony of the long morning, they observed with interest the movements of a tall young man, in a blue shirt open at the throat and green corduroy trousers, who caught the heaving line hurtling from the bow of the nearest barge, and hauled the attached towing-cable dripping and wriggling from the heavy waters.
He did it gracefully. There was a fine play of broad shoulders, a resilient disposition of the long, straight limbs, an impression of tiger-like strength and suppleness, not lost upon his observers, upon Virginia Howland least of all. She was not a girl to suppress a thought or emotion uppermost in her mind; and now she turned to her father with an exclamation of pleasure.