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What bothered him was, not so much the turpitude of the business, as the seeming futility and madness of it, for even in those days before wireless talked it was next to impossible to steal a ship and make good. Every port in the world is a compound eye for scrutiny, the character of a ship is inquired into as carefully as her health. Harman knew the whole business. There is a cable from Papaleete to Suva, and from Suva to ’Frisco and beyond, and to-morrow morning Penhill had only to speak and the description of the Araya and the two vanished beachcombers would be in the hands of the San Francisco authorities before noon; before night all American seaboard ports would be closed to the Araya, and by next day at noon, the British Board of Trade would seal Australia and Hong Kong. Chinese ports would be notified in “due course.”

With every bolthole blocked, the Araya might still live free for years pottering among the less-known islands, they might even pile her on some rock and make their escape in the boats, but what would be the use of all that? No, the whole thing would have been futile and ridiculous but for the one thing that made it possible—Penhill. Penhill daren’t prosecute. The schooner was his, and he was the only man who could move, and he was tied. Davis said so. Davis had given details which made the matter clear to Harman, yet still he hesitated.