n't let them land. Can you make her out,
MacWilliams?"

A long, white ship was steaming slowly up the inlet, and passed within
a few hundred feet of the cliff on which they were standing.

"Why, it's the 'Vesta'!" exclaimed Hope, wonderingly. "I thought she
wasn't coming for a week?"

"It can't be the 'Vesta'!" said the elder sister; "she was not to have
sailed from Havana until to-day."

"What do you mean?" asked Langham. "Is it King's boat? Do you expect
him here? Oh, what fun! I say, Clay, here's the 'Vesta,' Reggie
King's yacht, and he's no end of a sport. We can go all over the place
now, and he can land us right at the door of the mines if we want to."

"Is it the King I met at dinner that night?" asked Clay, turning to
Miss Langham.

"Yes," she said. "He wanted us to come down on the yacht, but we
thought the steamer would be faster; so he sailed without us and was to
have touched at Havana, but he has apparently changed his course.
Doesn't she look like a phantom ship in the moonlight?"

Young Langham thought he could distinguish King among the white figures
on the bridge, and tossed his hat and shouted, and a man in the stern
of the yacht replied with a wave of his hand.

"That must be Mr. King," said Hope. "He didn't bring any one with him,
and he seems to be the only man aft."

They stood watching the yacht as she stopped with a rattle of
anchor-chains and a confusion of orders that came sharply across the
water, and then the party separated and the three men walked down the
hill, Langham eagerly assuring the other two that King was a very good
sort, and telling them what a treasure-house his yacht was, and how he
would have probably brought the latest papers, and that he would
certainly give a dance on board in their honor.

The men stood for some short time together, after they had reached the
office, discussing the great events of the day, and then with cheerful
good-nights disappeared into their separate rooms.

An hour later Clay stood without his coat, and with a pen in his hand,
at MacWilliams's bedside and shook him by the shoulder.

"I'm not asleep," said MacWilliams, sitting up; "what is it? What have
you been doing?" he demanded. "Not working?"

"There were some reports came in after we left," said Clay, "and I find
I will have to see Kirkland to-morrow morning. Send them word to run
me down on an engine at five-thirty, will you? I am sorry to have to
wake you, but I coul