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so sure of himself now that he stood on a deck. She remembered how he had looked back in the drawing room of the Perry house.
    He was handsome in his way. His eyes were odd, very light against the darkness of his face, and his skin showed the marks of fever, but something about the triangle of his eyes and mouth reassured her.
    “It has been said,” murmured Peg Mannering, “that a wolf is more to be trusted than a snake, however charming.”
    “Must I be a wolf?” said Spar.
    “Aren’t you?”
    “No, I’m just a convict. Didn’t you hear Folston? Who is that man?”
    “He has great wealth, they say. He thinks he has enough to buy anything he wants.”
    “And you say he’s wrong.”
    “Yes. Gold tarnishes in his hands.”
    Spar looked at her intently. “Just why are you going to marry Tom Perry?”
    The direct shaft startled her. “That is out of my hands.”
    “But not out of mine,” said Spar.
    “What do you mean? You can’t do anything.”
    “Oh, I know. I’m just a convict and I’ll probably end up back in French Guiana. Larson will squeal, the New York immigration men will hold me, and I’ll be shipped back. That’s what happens when you fight the law. But right now . . .”
    “You mean . . .” she backed away from him. “You mean you’d kill him?”
    “No, nothing so crude. Convict, yes, but not a fool. If Tom Perry was removed, Folston would still be there. Folston has his eye on you. I know it. I can feel it. And your destination is not in your hands. Things haven’t changed much since the slave markets of the Barbary Coast .”
    “You . . . take a great deal upon yourself.”
    “And why not? What do I lose? I know where I’m headed. I may get out of it, and if I do, I have business back in Martinique. But while I still breathe clean air and while I still keep away from swamps, I can do a few things. It won’t make my lot any worse. I owe you a debt.”
    “Owe . . . me ”
    “Yes. Before I saw you, I had nothing but death on my mind. You made me wake out of a five years’ sleep. Just by looking at you, that’s all. I owe you for that. Wolves can look at queens.”
    Piqued, but not knowing why, Peg Mannering stepped back from him. “And queens can order wolves shot. Don’t forget that.”
    “I suppose so, Miss Mannering. I hope for his sake that Tom Perry—or Folston—can shoot quite straight and quite well.”
    He left her in the wing and went to the binnacle. Once more the helmsman drew away from him as though afraid, but Spar stood there, looking out through the spattered glass, watching the drive of rain across the decks.
    In three hours, the blow began to pick up. They were well out into the Caribbean and received the full lash of the wind. The yacht was plunging her bows into the waves, and sometimes the bows stayed down for seconds at a time, shuddering. Then it would soar skyward again, rolling with a sick lurch and once more head down.
    The deck was shifting under Spar’s widespread feet, but he held to nothing. He seemed to be enjoying the storm, enjoying the clean ferocity of it.
    From time to time, crashing sounds came from the main deck. Lashings were coming free and boats and rigging were giving way to crash through the darkness, reducing all to wet splinters in their path.
    No sea is rougher or blacker or more spiteful than the Caribbean in a storm. The mother of hurricanes was fast building up the velocity of wind and the height of waves. Even now large vessels were going ashore in the hammered ports of the Antilles.
    Sky and water met in the whirling embrace of blackness. Rain blotted out any light or gleam which remained. Combers raced across the decks, smashing into the masts and cabins and roaring back through the scuppers and into the sea.
    The velocity of the wind had increased until it was impossible to hear anything below a shout. The Diesels throbbed, pounding against the waves.
    Spar, aware though he was of their danger, grinned to himself. He