here is nothing to prevent her from coming
about and running back to Jacksonville."

"What if she should do that?" asked the owner of the stray yacht.

"We are in the dark as to the intentions of her captain; and everything
depends upon them," I answered.

"What can his intentions possibly be?" inquired the colonel, knitting
his brow, as he recurred once more to the well-worn topic for at least
the twentieth time.

"It is quite impossible to conjecture his motives. He has either made a
mistake in regard to his instructions, or he means to run away with the
Islander."

"What mistake could he have made in regard to his instructions?"
demanded the colonel, who had not admitted the possibility for an
instant of any mistake. "Last night I wrote his instructions to be
ready to sail at seven, and sent them off to him by the young man who
was with you."

"Did you write seven this morning, sir?" I asked.

"I think I did, though I should not be willing to swear to it," replied
the colonel, looking a little blank at the idea of such a mistake.

"If you simply said seven, he may have taken it to mean seven this
evening," I suggested.

"He could not have thought we intended to go down the river and cross
the bar in the night."

"I should say not; but Captain Blastblow is a very brilliant man, and
has been around Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope so many times that
he ought to know what he is about," I replied, letting out a little of
my pique at the commander of the Islander for his implications against
me.

"Allowing that I wrote 'seven P.M.,' or that I did not write either
morning or evening, what is Captain Blastblow doing down here?"
demanded Colonel Shepard, warmly.

"If he understood that you were not to sail till this evening, he may
have brought the Islander out here to try her, and enable him to get
accustomed to her ways before he took on board his passengers. That is
all the explanation I can suggest, but I don't think it will hold
water. He knows very well, for he has been around Cape Horn several
times, that if he comes out here in a fog, he may not be able to get
back to Jacksonville in time to take you on board to-night, or even
to-morrow or next day."

"If Captain Blastblow had any doubt in regard to my orders, he could
have sent one of his men up to my house, and ascertained just what I
intended," said the owner, rather wrathfully.

"That is what I should have done; but Captain Blastblow has had