sw'n would call them farmers for
being such a time over it. Meanwhile they clung idly for a moment,
partly to rest and partly to look at something worth seeing.

The squall was blowing out, there was nothing behind it and away on the
port quarter the almost setting sun had broken through the smother and
was lighting the sea.

There, set in a thousand square acres of snowcapped tourmaline, white as
a gull and beautiful as grace itself, was running a vessel under bear
poles. The two yellow funnels, the cut of the hull, told Ponting what
she was. He had seen her twice before and no sailor who had once set
eyes on her could forget her.

"See that blighter," he yelled across to Raft. "Know her?"

"Should think I did, she's the _Gaston de Paree_--a yacht--seen her in
T'lon."

Then they came down, crawling like weary men, and on deck no one abused
them for their slackness or the time they'd been over their job. The
_Albatross_ was running easy and the Bo'sw'n with others was taken up
with a momentary curiosity over the great white yacht.

No one knew her but Ponting, who had for several years acted as deck
hand on some of the Mediterranean boats.

"I know her," said he ranging up beside the others. "She's the _Gaston
de Paree_, a yot--seen her in T'lon harbour and seen her again at Suez,
she's a thousand tonner, y'can't mistake them funnels nor the width of
them, she's a twenty knotter and the chap that owns her is a king or
somethin'; last time I saw her she was off to the China seas, they say
she's all cluttered up with dredges and dipsy gear, and she mostly
spends her time takin' soundin's and scrabblin' up shell fish and
such--that's his way of amusin' himself."

"Then he must be crazy," said the Bo'sw'n, "but b'God he's got a beauty
under him--what's he doin' down here away?"

"Ax me another," said Ponting. Raft stood with the others, watching the
_Gaston de Paris_ from whose funnels now the smoke was coming festooned
on the wind, then he went below to shed his oilskins and smoke.

She had ceased to interest him.

CHAPTER III

THE GASTON DE PARIS

Old Ponting was right in all his particulars, except one. The owner of
the _Gaston de Paris_ was not a king, only a prince.

Prince Selm, a gentleman like his Highness of Monaco with a passion for
the deep sea and its exploration. The Holy Roman Empire had given his
great grandfather the title of prince, and estates in Thuringia gave him
money enough to