programme. His ship arrived in port precisely
at the appointed hour. He was able to go on immediately to San Francisco.
There he was just in time to catch a boat for Samoa. He wired to his
friend, Monsieur de Letz, the French Consul, that he was coming, and
received an enthusiastic welcome. The Consul was a bachelor, approaching
middle age, was intensely bored with the monotony of life on an island of
the Pacific, and was ravished with the chance of entertaining a personage
so brilliant in the great far-away world as the Marchese Loria. He had a
charming house, and a good cook; some wine also, and cigars of the best.
Loria arrived at dinner-time, and afterward, smoking and talking in the
moonlight on a broad verandah, the guest led up to the question he was
half dying to ask.

"Have you heard any exciting news lately?" he airily inquired, in a tone
that hovered between pleasantry and mystery.

"Does one ever hear exciting news in this place?" groaned the French
Consul. "Nothing has happened for years. Nothing is ever likely to happen
again now that we have become so dull and peaceful here."

"No news of another visitor?"

"Another visitor?"

"A gentleman from New Caledonia."

"_Mon Dieu!_ How did you know that?"

"Is it then so difficult to know, _mon ami_?"

"One hopes so. It is not good that these things should leak out and reach
the public ear. The information is very private. The authorities at home
and abroad do all they can to keep it dark, and yet it seems----"

"My ear isn't exactly the 'public ear,' as I'll presently explain. But it
is a fact, then, that a convict has escaped from the Ile Nou, and you
have got word that he is likely to turn up here on board a steam yacht?"

"It is a fact. I see you have the whole story. But how did you get it?"

"I'll tell you that later. First, just a question or two, if you don't
mind, for I happen to be interested in the affair. How long ago did the
fellow get away--or rather, when may the yacht, the _Bella Cuba_, be
expected here, if at all?"

"She might come in to-morrow."

Loria gave a long sigh. He was lying back in a big easy-chair and sending
out ring after ring of blue smoke, which he watched, as they disappeared,
with half-shut eyes. One would have fancied him the embodiment of happy
laziness, unless one had chanced to notice the tension of the fingers
which grasped an arm of the chair.

"What will happen when she does come in?"

"Oh, trouble for me