il or a funnel on the western
horizon. Nothing since we left the Fleet behind us, far to the East. Yet
it is the hour. It is strange!'

Mr. Macrae was addressing Bude. They stood together on the deck of the
_Flora Macdonald_, the vast yacht of the millionaire. She was lying to
on a sea as glassy and radiant, under a blazing August sun, as the
Atlantic can show in her mildest moods. On the quarter-deck of the yacht
were piled great iron boxes containing the millions in gold with which
the millionaire had at last consented to ransom his daughter. He had
been negotiating with her captors through the wireless machine, and, as
Logan could not promise any certain release, Mr. Macrae had finally
surrendered, while informing Logan of the circumstances and details of
his rendezvous with the kidnappers. The amassing of the gold had shaken
the exchanges of two worlds. Banks trembled, rates were enormous, but
the precious metal had been accumulated. The pirates would not take Mr.
Macrae's cheque; bank notes they laughed at, the millions must be paid in
gold. Now at last the gold was on the spot of ocean indicated by the
kidnappers, but there was no sign of sail or ship, no promise of their
coming. Men with telescopes in the rigging of the _Flora_ were on the
outlook in vain. They could pick up one of the floating giants of our
fleet, far off to the East, but North, West and South were empty wastes
of water.

'Three o'clock has come and gone. I hope there has been no accident,'
said Mr. Macrae nervously. 'But where are those thieves?' He absently
pressed his repeater, it tingled out the half-hour.

'It _is_ odd,' said Bude. 'Hullo, look there, what's _that_?'

_That_ was a slim spar, which suddenly shot from the plain of ocean, at a
distance of a hundred yards. On its apex a small black hood twisted
itself this way and that like a living thing; so tranquil was the hour
that the spar with its dull hood was distinctly reflected in the mirror-
like waters of the ocean.

'By gad, it is the periscope of a submarine!' said Bude.

There could not be a doubt of it. The invention of Napier of Merchistoun
and of M. Jules Verne, now at last an actual engine of human warfare, had
been employed by the kidnappers of the daughter of the millionaire!

A light flashed on the mind, steady and serviceable, but not brilliantly
ingenious, of Mr. Macrae. 'This,' he exclaimed rather superfluously,
'accounts for the fiendish skil