s a couple of sovereigns each, and tell our
men that I don't want them to talk about the affair. I will see you
about it again."

Frank was not long in getting into dry clothes, and a few minutes
later Bertha came in.

"Are you none the worse for it, dear?"

"Not a bit, Frank. That champagne has thoroughly warmed me. What a
sudden affair it all was. Is everyone safe?"

"Yes, they stuck to the oars, and all our crew were picked up. It
was a bad start, was it not? But it has never happened to me
before, and I hope that it will never happen to me again."

"Some people would be inclined to think this an unlucky beginning,"
said Bertha, with a slight tone of interrogation.

"I am certainly not one of them," he laughed. "I had only one
superstition, and that is at an end. You know what it was, dear,
but the spell is broken. He had a long run of minor successes, but
I have won the only prize worth having, for which we have been
rivals."

Some days later the body of a sailor was washed ashore near Selsey
Bill. An inquest was held, and a verdict returned that the man had
been murdered by some person or persons unknown; but although the
police of Portsmouth, Southampton, Cowes, and Ryde made vigilant
inquiries, they were unable to ascertain that any yacht sailor
hailing from those ports had suddenly disappeared.

There was much discussion, in the forecastle of the Osprey, as to
the identity and motives of the man who had first got into
conversation with Jackson, and then asked him to take a drink,
which must have been hocussed, for Jackson remembered nothing
afterwards. It was evident that the fellow had done it in order to
take his place. He had staved in the boat, and, as they supposed,
afterwards swam to shore; but the crime seemed so singularly
motiveless that they finally put it down as the work of a madman.

It was not until the day before the Osprey anchored again in Cowes,
three months later, that Bertha, on expressing some apprehension of
further trouble from Carthew, if he had survived the wound George
Lechmere gave him, learned the true account of the sinking of the
gig, as she went on board at Southampton on her wedding day.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE QUEEN'S CUP***

******* This file should be named 17436.txt or 17436.zip *******

This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/4/3/17436

Updated editions will replace th