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He laughed again, shouted an order, and the Egret leaped past them and on down the river. "Ghost boat, ghost boat!" The Haiti black, back on the scow, waking up from his sleep, had stared full in the eye of the Egret's searchlight, and now was staggering round, terror-stricken and dazed. "Knock him down somebody," called White calmly. "Ghost boat, ghost boat!" "Where?" "Down the uh! Oh, ma Dieu!"
A clear shaft of light pierced the moonmist ahead, lighting a broad space in the river from the next bend down to the tug. While they watched in fascination the light came nearer, flashing in their eyes, and behind it resounded the unmistakable hum of the Egret's engines. Compared to the crawling pace of the tug the yacht seemed to leap out of the night straight at them. "Yo hoo!" yelled White.
"Look out! Want to run us down?" A full-throated laugh rang out from the Egret's bridge as her course was changed slightly and her engines throttled down. On the bridge beside the searchlight Roger saw Garman's huge figure looming. "Ho, Payne!" came a hail. "Didn't see anything of the we're after, did you?" "Not to recognize by that description," replied Roger.
The money-lender heard all that passed and was filled with shame at having earned the contempt of the jackal; he feared more disgrace on the morrow, so he at once called the crow and made her return the egret's nestlings, and the next morning when the jackal came back it found that everything had been settled to the satisfaction of the egret. CXXI. The Jackal and the Hare.
Their long hair lay sleek across their bosoms and, to show that they were privileged to wait upon the Chief Woman, they had each a single egret's plume in the painted bandeau about her forehead. "Far-Looking was both aunt and chief to me," said the Princess; "it was not for me to question what she did. Our country had been long at war with Cofaque, at cost of men and corn.
She was approaching the squat little tug. Suddenly the girl held out her hand. "Good-by," she said. "Good-by?" he stammered, "Surely it isn't good-by?" The Egret's starboard ladder was gently chaffing the tug's fender. "It isn't good-by!" he said. "I am afraid it is." She watched him as he went over the side onto the tug's deck. The Egret, as if freed from a burden, shot sharply forward.
Roger looked across the bay at the last glimpse of the Egret's white hull as she sped into the mouth of the river. The setting sun glinted on paint and nickel and brasswork. It was fancy, perhaps, but he seemed to make out the figure of Annette still leaning over the starboard rail. "Yes I was," he said slowly.
It was one mass of rich embroidery, crossed by a jewelled belt, bearing a sabre set with precious stones, and upon his head he wore a little Astrakhan fur kepi, surmounted by an egret's plume, like a feathery fountain from a diamond jet.
Then she disappeared. A few minutes later the Egret's softly purring engines were edging her away from the pier, when: "Cormorant, ahoy!" called a man from her engine room. "Hey?" responded a gruff voice from a shack on shore. "Got that extra drum of gasoline there?" "Yep." "Bring it up on the Cormorant when you come." "Aw-right." The Egret was well away from shore now.
The second boat was a low, dirty forty-footer the Cormorant the boat to which the Swastika's passengers were to transfer for the trip up the river. A Japanese steward, in spick and span whites, came down the Egret's shiny gangway, entered the path leading to the Swastika's dock, and in a few minutes came hurrying back to his boat carrying a handbag.
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