said to be glorious, and you can stop on board and read novels, while
the rest of us do our sight-seeing, which won't take us very long."

"Sight-seeing in a prison!" exclaimed the Countess. "You English and
Americans are strange. We Latins, we never give ourselves pain that can
be avoided. There is enough that is unpleasant in life without that. Ugh!
I would rather do without butter and milk than buy it of convicts, who
may poison us in sheer spite because we are more fortunate than they.
Could we not turn round, and get back to Sydney without starving?"

"No, it couldn't be managed," said Virginia.

Manuela turned pleading eyes upon Roger and George. They were men; they
knew more about such things than women; besides she could usually make
men do what she wished. But for once she found creatures of the opposite
sex who were not to be melted by her pleading. They agreed with Virginia
that it was impossible now to avoid New Caledonia.

"And how long shall we stay?" plaintively inquired the Countess, when she
had been obliged to resign herself to the inevitable, which, to her
credit, she did with a very pretty grace. "Shall we leave again to-night,
with our poisoned food?"

"Wait till you have seen the rocks in the harbour," answered George. "If
they're as bad as the book says, they must be something to see. Anyhow,
it's only possible to get in or out between sunrise and sunset. I'm
afraid, Countess, you'll have to put up with it till to-morrow."

"Oh!" Manuela sighed a long sigh. She asked no more questions, she made
no more protests. She turned her back upon New Caledonia, and appeared to
dismiss the land of lost souls from her mind.

"Well," said Roger, when he and Virginia had walked away, leaving the
Countess and George Trent to the flirtation which was so embittering the
daily life of Lady Gardiner. "Well, was I right or wrong about this
woman?"

"Wrong," firmly answered Virginia.

"You say that still, after the way she took your _grand coup_? But this
is only because you hate giving up, beaten."

"I'm not beaten yet," the girl returned doggedly. "I hoped for something
different--yes, I admit that. But her game means as much to her as ours
does to us. She's playing it for all it's worth. If she weren't such a
wretch, I should have admired her pluck. How she held her ground! Taken
by surprise as she was, almost her first thought was whether we had
purposely caught her in this trap, or whether she had only