esn't anybody know about it up at Healthful House?

"Not a soul."

It was not likely that Gaydon, whose eyes and ears were bandaged, but
who preserved all his sang-froid, could have recognized the voices of
the Count d'Artigas and Captain Spade. Nor did he have the chance to.
No attempt was immediately made to hoist him on board. He had been
lying in the bottom of the boat alongside the schooner for fully
half an hour, he calculated, before he felt himself lifted, and then
lowered, doubtless to the bottom of the hold.

The kidnapping having been accomplished it would seem that it only
remained for the _Ebba_ to weigh anchor, descend the estuary and make
her way out to sea through Pamlico Sound. Yet no preparations for
departure were made.

Was it not dangerous to stay where they were after their daring
raid? Had the Count d'Artigas hidden his prisoners so securely as to
preclude the possibility of their being discovered if the _Ebba_,
whose presence in proximity to Healthful House could not fail to
excite suspicion, received a visit from the New-Berne police?

However this might have been, an hour after the return of the
expedition, every soul on board save the watch--the Count d'Artigas,
Serko, and Captain Spade in their respective cabins, and the crew in
the fore-castle, were sound asleep.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SCHOONER EBBA.

It was not till the next morning, and then very leisurely, that
the _Ebba_ began to make preparations for her departure. From the
extremity of New-Berne quay the crew might have been seen holystoning
the deck, after which they loosened the reef lines, under the
direction of Effrondat, the boatswain, hoisted in the boats and
cleared the halyards.

At eight o'clock the Count d'Artigas had not yet appeared on deck.
His companion, Serko the engineer, as he was called on board, had not
quitted his cabin. Captain Spade was strolling quietly about giving
orders.

The _Ebba_ would have made a splendid racing yacht, though she had
never participated in any of the yacht races either on the North
American or British coasts. The height of her masts, the extent of
the canvas she carried, her shapely, raking hull, denoted her to be a
craft of great speed, and her general lines showed that she was also
built to weather the roughest gales at sea. In a favorable wind she
would probably make twelve knots an hour.

Notwithstanding these advantages, however, she must in a dead calm
necessarily s