that certain of the people were known as "The Favorite Children"—of the oak, of course—and that they had mysterious powers over the dead and living things of the marsh and forest.
"I was kindly treated in that place, and because of the hospitality of his countrymen I wanted to do something for the poor Lithuanian whom I had seen standing so dejected at the wharf. I knew that something epically tragic was happening to him; I was young and perverse, I wanted a hand in it.
"I left the sloop to the charge of my mate and followed the policeman and his prisoner. They reached the city prison two blocks ahead of me. The police in New Orleans are not fastidiously accommodating but I knew a word or two that softened the heart of the desk sergeant, and I was admitted to the range where the Lithuanian was jailed.
He refused to talk to me. He shook his head and muttered. When I pulled a roll of bills from my pocket and said, 'Out?' his face brightened a little, but he relapsed into melancholy despair. I was determined to help him, though, and I offered to place a cash bond for him.
The desk sergeant accepted it, and I left the station with my protege in tow. For all he knew, I suppose, I was another policeman—or something worse.
His face didn't light up until I landed him on the deck of the sloop, and then he looked curiously at me.
"'Ven you go?' he asked.
"'When do you want?'
"'Qvick,' he panted. 'Qvick.'
There was no point in my staying; I was leaving some time that day anyhow, and I was inclined to do as he asked. So we put off, and when we got out into the bay, he came to me and put himself on his face before me, trying to kiss my shoes.
I picked him up.
"'What was the hurry, brother?' I asked.
"His English was terrible, and I won't try to mimic it. But I made out that a Chinese hatchetman was following him because of something he had done in Pell Street, and that the delay of a few hours would have meant his death. He asked my name, and I told him, and he engraved it with the point of a safety-pin into the flesh of his forearm.
"I had seen that before. A Chinese by the name of Nun Chang Ng wrote my name on his arm once, and about a year later a yellow Greek who was jumping from a balcony to my back in Salonika died in the air—a bullet in his heart.
"We put in at Tampa a few days later, and my Lithuanian left me to join a tramp bound for Rio Janiero. Before he left he gave me a tarnished talisman with an oak tree engraved on it (I lost it the next day) and he prophesied that we would meet again.
"You haf save me,' he said. 'Some day maybe I'm gif you what you gif me.'
"I forgot him.
"Three years later I found him in Singapore, watching for a job. I needed a man, and he was ready to serve me.
"I must explain the situation to you. I was carrying out the commission of a New England banker whose wife wanted a Hindu room in her palace in Vermont. The man was disgustingly wealthy, and what his wife said went. They weren't going to do the thing in a cheap way; they were going to get their stuff out of some genuine Hindu temple. They were willing to pay whatever it cost, and when they discovered that the stuff they wanted couldn't be bought, they decided to have it anyhow.
"And so the stuff was taken out of a down-country principality of India, and it was brought to me in Singapore, one jump ahead of the emissaries of the priest of the temple. The emissaries had orders to negotiate only after the stuff was back in the temple. It was dangerous business, but exhilarating.
"My job was to get the stuff to a little island in the East Indies. Somebody else was to carry it away from there.
"I had been waiting a month before the stuff reached me, and I was eager to sail.
"THE CRAFT with which I had supplied myself was the crankiest, foulest old tub that you can imagine. I bought her because I was low in funds, because she was cheap, and because she would suffice for the work I had to do. I didn't want to be seen around Singapore with too nice a boat. There were reasons that I won't need to go into.
"I had her from a tramp captain; she was too old and soaked and rickety for his purposes. She ran against my taste, but I knew she would do. I expected no trouble at all at sea; if I had any apprehensions it was concerning what I would find at the appointed island,
"I knew that we would be chased, but I figured that the priest's men would try to learn my destination and beat me there, rather than chase a day or two behind me across the water. I knew very well that there was a chance of their finding out whither I was bound. Such things have mysterious ways of getting abroad.
"So the looks of my craft didn't matter, and I judged her to be capable of what speed we needed. As long as it was humanly possible to live and navigate in her, she would have to do. As I say, I had small choice.
"When I got her she was lousy with rats. They were nasty, but I did not consider them especially important. I set my men to cleaning up the boat as much as possible during our weeks of waiting, but there was little use.
"On the day the treasure was loaded into my hold, a new swarm of the rats set sail for us from the rotten base of a nearby wharf, and they boarded us like a band of pirates.
"My men were not ill pleased to sail with the rats. It is more than a waterfront superstition that a vessel that leaves port with rats in her hold goes with the kindest of omens.
"It was a nice omen, but a most unpleasant condition. I did not realize until a day out how thick the pests were. They were eternally underfoot; they were everywhere.
"Fearless as dogs, they were, and their temerity gave them the appearance of tameness. They wouldn't run from a man, I can assure you that it is not an aid to the digestion to sit in a cabin stinking of mould, eating ship's food while a regiment of rats sits at the edges of the room, squatting in a dozen attitudes, watching you masticate your meat.
"We got on familiar terms with them. I gave up trying to reduce the numbers by violent means when it became apparent that killing didn't seem to diminish their numbers.
"There was one malicious old patriarch among them whom I took to be the leader. He had a rabbinical look; gray and hairy as an old ape, and solemn as a mayor at a flag-raising.
"This particular rat, gentlemen, dogged me. He followed me upon the bridge; he was squatting on the floor beside my bunk when I woke in the morning. At first I was amused with him, and often tossed him scraps from my table, which he munched in solemn dignity, never taking his eyes from my face. But at length I grew to hate him. I could not explain to myself why I had fastened my dislike upon so inconsiderable a thing as a rat. Nevertheless, I hated him more than I will ever hate any living thing again—more than I have hated any living thing but one.
"He knew it. His beady eyes, which night or day did not seem to leave my
