"By Jove, yes! Things slump when we get no mail. But go on--I'm
listening," he added, as an orderly came up, saluted, and handed him a
paper.

"Well," I said, "let's cross to the other side. I don't want the sentry
to overhear."

"As you like--but why such mystery?" he asked as we walked together to
the other side of the spick-and-span quarter-deck of the gigantic
battleship.

"You'll understand when I tell you the story." And then, standing
together beneath the awning, I related to my friend the whole of the
curious circumstances, just as I have recorded them in the foregoing
pages.

"Confoundedly funny!" he remarked with his dark eyes fixed upon mine. "A
mystery, by Jove, it is! What name did the yacht bear?"

"The _Lola_."

"What!" he gasped, suddenly turning pale. "The _Lola_? Are you quite
sure it was the _Lola_--_L-O-L-A_?"


"Absolutely certain," I replied. "But why do you ask? Do you happen to
know anything about the craft?"

"Me!" he stammered, and I could see that he had involuntarily betrayed