Don Hermoso, "punctual to the minute,
or, rather"--glancing at his watch--"a few minutes before your time! We
duly received your wire in Paris this morning, and came on forthwith. I
am delighted to learn that everything has gone so smoothly. Do I
understand that you are now ready to sail for Cuba?"

"Certainly, Don Hermoso," answered Jack; "we can be under way in half an
hour from this, if you like; or whenever you please. It is for you to
say when you would like to start."

"Then in that case we may as well be off at once," said Don Hermoso.
"For the first fortnight or three weeks of our tour through Switzerland
we were undoubtedly the objects of a great deal of interested attention,
but latterly we have not been so acutely conscious of being followed and
watched; everything that we did was so perfectly open and frank that I
think the persons who had us under surveillance must have become
convinced that their suspicions of us were groundless, and consequently
they relaxed their attentions. And I believe that we managed to get
away from Paris this morning without being followed. If that is the
case we have of course managed to throw the watchers off the scent, for
the moment at least, and it will no doubt be wise to get away from here
before it is picked up again. I hope that you, Senor, have not been
subjected to any annoyance of that kind?"

"No," said Jack laughingly, "I have not, beyond meeting at Cowes with
that man who called himself Mackintosh--of which I informed you in one
of my letters--I have had little or no cause to believe that I have
become an object of suspicion to the Spanish Government. It is true
that a race for steam-yachts was got up, a little while before I left
the Solent, under circumstances which suggested to me that an attempt
was being made to ascertain the best speed of the _Thetis_; but the
attempt might have existed only in my imagination, and if it was
otherwise, the plan was defeated, so no harm was done. But my partner
has been a good deal worried recently by the incursions of a number of
inquisitive strangers, who have obtruded themselves upon him and invaded
our works with what he considers very inadequate excuses. His fixed
impression is that a whisper was somehow allowed to get abroad that
arms, ammunition, and stores were to be shipped from our yard for the
use of the Cuban insurgents, and that the inquisitive strangers were
neither more nor less than emissaries of the