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place by," said Roger. "He says it's nothing, and I hope that's the truth" (he actually did hope it now, at least for the moment); "as for me, I believe they've saved the yacht's barber a little trouble in cutting my hair on the left side, that's all; luckily no harm done to any of our men." All these scraps of conversation had been flung backward and forward inside five minutes. Then they were at the yacht's side. Maxime, forced to yield to his own weakness in the reaction now, was being helped on board, the others following. A slim, white figure, ethereal and spirit-like in the sheen of the moon, was waiting to give them welcome. Virginia stood on deck, weeping and laughing, Dr. Grayle by her side. "Thank heaven! Thank heaven!" she sobbed at sight of Maxime. The cry was for him, the look, the tears, the clasped hands, all for him. Roger and George came together for her in a second thought, and Roger knew; though he was not surprised, because he had guessed her secret, such joy of success as even he, being a man, had felt, was blotted out for him. * * * * * Down below, locked into their staterooms, Lady Gardiner and the Countess de Mattos had passed a strange and terrible hour, each in a different way. To Kate there was little mystery, though much fear. She had sulkily shut herself up, and, not dreaming what was appointed for the night, had finally dropped asleep, while meditating reprisals for the bad treatment she had received that day. But though her suspicions had not gone as far as an actual rescue in dramatic fashion, with the first shot from the prison boat which woke her from a sound sleep, she divined what was happening. Bounding from her berth, while hardly yet awake, she darted to her porthole, which was wide open. It faced the wrong way to afford her a glimpse of what was going on, but she could hear more firing at a distance, doubtless at the prison on the Ile Nou, the ringing of bells, and much tramping overhead on the deck of the yacht. She felt the throb of the engine too, and though the _Bella Cuba_ had been lying quietly at anchor in the harbour when Kate had fallen asleep, now she was moving at a rapid rate through the water, which gurgled past her sides. Kate had known, of course, that they had not come thousands of miles for nothing, and the moment she was certain that New Caledonia was to be the _Bella Cuba's_ destination she realized that an attempt w
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