Constable Ward would
step out, unpin the paper, replace it with a new one, and bring it
indoors to the Commandant who was thus enabled to form his crews with
despatch.

It was during one of these intervals (the Court House door being open
for a moment) that Councillor Tregaskis, happening to glance out at the
crowd from his raised chair, and over the heads of the crowd at the
line of distant blue water sparkling in the afternoon sunshine, jumped
up from his seat with an exclamation:

"A yacht, by Gorm!"

"Eh? What?" Fully half the Councillors turned towards him, and craned
their necks for a view through the doorway. "A yacht?" The Commandant
laid down his pen and stood up, raising himself a-tip-toe on his dais
in the endeavour to gain a glimpse of the horizon from the window high
on his right.

"A steam yacht!"

The Councillors stared one at another, wondering if this new arrival
could have any possible connection with the Lord Proprietor's
disappearance.

"What's her flag?" demanded Mr. Rogers.

"She carries no ensign," reported Mr. Tregaskis; "but a
reddish-coloured square flag--a house-flag, belike. And yet, seemin' to
me, she don't look like a private-owned craft."

"She's the Admiralty yacht from Plymouth," announced Mr. Rogers,
confidently. He had set a chair close to the window and climbed upon
it. "Yes, yes--the old _Circe_; I could tell her in a thousand....
She's slowing down to anchor; and see, there's the gold anchor on her
flag! Listen, now ... there goes!..." Through the open doorway, across
the clear water, their ears caught the splash of a dropped anchor, and
the music of its chain running through the hawse-pipe.

The Commandant rapped the table.

"Gentlemen," said he, "oblige me by returning to your places and
resuming our business. We shall not advance it just now by catching at
hopes which may be baseless, though I admit the temptation. That these
visitors bring us any news of the Lord Proprietor or any that bears,
even remotely, upon his disappearance is--to say the least of
it--highly improbable. On the other hand, it is certain that by
detaining Mr. Rogers here we hinder him in the discharge of those
courtesies which, as Inspecting Commander, he will be eager to pay to
the newcomers. I suggest, then, that we briefly conclude the inquiry,
in which he has given us so much help, and allow him to put off to the
yacht, while we, restraining our curiosity, take further counsel for
the inte