of the water. Kate shrieked with fear, and
staggered away from the porthole. Her first thought was to run out of the
stateroom and seek refuge somewhere--anywhere. But, with her hand on the
bolt with which she had fastened the door, she realized that she was as
safe where she was as she could be elsewhere, in the dreadful
circumstances--perhaps safer. But she was in deadly terror. As a roar
from the French boat was answered by another roar from the yacht, which
again shivered and leaped like a wounded thing, her knees gave way under
her, and she half fell, half crouched on the floor of the stateroom,
shuddering and moaning. The danger seemed as appalling, as hopeless to
escape from, as an earthquake which, go where you would, might tear
asunder the ground under your feet and bury you alive.

It was clear that the _Bella Cuba_ and the strange, ugly-looking
steamboat she had seen in the harbour, with its two unmasked cannon, were
waging fierce war upon one another. For all that Lady Gardiner knew,
Dalahaide was already on board, and the prison boat was giving chase; yet
that could not be true, surely, for suddenly the yacht's engines ceased
to move; it was as if her heart had stopped beating. Had the _Bella Cuba_
been struck? Was she sinking? Even if not, one of those horrible
cannon-balls might come crashing into the yacht's side at any moment,
and every one on board might be instantly killed.

Kate knew not what to do; whether to remain where she was, or to crawl
out into the cabin and try to find some one--even the hateful doctor--who
would tell her how great the danger was, and what one must do to be saved
from it. She forgot all about Loria, and Dalahaide, and her many
grievances, and only knew that she wished to be spared from death, no
matter whose schemes failed or succeeded, or who else lived or died.

The Countess de Mattos had not been asleep. Her headache, perhaps, had
kept her nerves at high tension, and made rest impossible. As she had
confessed to Virginia early that morning, on discovering the name of the
next landing-place, she did not like New Caledonia. The thought of the
place, and the secrets it must hold, oppressed her. She wondered, with a
kind of disagreeable fascination which invariably forced her weary mind
back to the same subject, whether the convicts' life was very terrible;
whether they lived long in this land of exile, or whether they were
notoriously short-lived. The climate must be tryin