however. You are a baronet as certainly
as I am a lawyer. I presume you would like us to take whatever action is
necessary?"

"By all means. This afternoon I am leaving Sydney, for a week or two,
for the Islands. I will sign any papers when I come back."

"I will bear that in mind. And your address in Sydney is----"

"Care of the Honourable Sylvester Wetherell, Potts Point."

"Thank you. And, by the way, my correspondents have desired me on their
behalf to pay in to your account at the Oceania the sum of five thousand
pounds. This I will do to-day."

"I am obliged to you. Now I think I must be going. To tell the truth, I
hardly know whether I am standing on my head or my heels."

"Oh, you will soon get over that."

"Good-morning."

"Good-morning, Sir Richard."

With that, I bade him farewell, and went out of the office, feeling
quite dazed by my good fortune. I thought of the poor idiot whose end
had been so tragic, and of the old man as I had last seen him, shaking
his fist at me from the window of the house. And to think that that
lovely home was mine, and that I was a baronet, the principal
representative of a race as old as any in the country-side! It seemed
too wonderful to be true!

Hearty were the congratulations showered upon me at Potts Point, you may
be sure, when I told my tale, and my health was drunk at lunch with much
goodwill. But our minds were too much taken up with the arrangements for
our departure that afternoon to allow us to think very much of anything
else. By two o'clock we were ready to leave the house, by half-past we
were on board the yacht, at three-fifteen the anchor was up, and a few
moments later we were ploughing our way down the harbour.

Our search for Phyllis had reached another stage.

CHAPTER V

THE ISLANDS, AND WHAT WE FOUND THERE

To those who have had no experience of the South Pacific the constantly
recurring beauties of our voyage would have seemed like a foretaste of
Heaven itself. From Sydney, until the Loyalty Group lay behind us, we
had one long spell of exquisite weather. By night under the winking
stars, and by day in the warm sunlight, our trim little craft ploughed
her way across smooth seas, and our only occupation was to promenade or
loaf about the decks and to speculate as to the result of the expedition
upon which we had embarked.

Having sighted the Isle of Pines we turned our bows almost due north and
headed for the New Hebrides. Every ho