matter of common gossip."

Frank agreed that it would certainly be better, and more bearable
than having to answer questions about Bertha to every visitor who
called on her. He crossed that evening to Ostend, and at ten
o'clock next morning George Lechmere received the following
message:

"Make inquiries as to small brigantine that looked like converted
yacht: had very large yards on foremast. I saw her pass Cowes on
Tuesday afternoon. Let Hawkins go to Portsmouth and Southampton.
Find out yourself whether she anchored between Osborne and Ryde. If
not, inquire at Seaview whether she passed there going east.
Telegraph result tomorrow morning to my chambers. Shall cross again
tonight."

Lechmere had the gig at once lowered, and started, with four hands
at the oars, eastward, while the captain went ashore in the dinghy
to leave for Southampton by the next boat. The tide was against
Lechmere, who, keeping close in round the point, steered the boat
along at the foot of the slopes of Osborne, and kept eastward until
he reached the coast-guard station at the mouth of Wootton creek.

"Oh, yes, we noticed her," the boatswain in charge replied in
answer to his question. "We saw her, as you say, on Tuesday
afternoon, going east. We could not help noticing her, for she was
something out of the way. We should not have thought so much of it,
if she had not come back again just before dusk the next day, and
anchored a mile to the west. We kept a sharp lookout that night,
thinking that she might be trying to smuggle some contraband
ashore; but everything was quiet, and next morning she was gone.
The man who was on the watch said he thought that he made her out
with his night glass going east at about eleven o'clock; but it was
a dark night, and it might have been a schooner yacht or a brig."

"You don't happen to know whether she stopped at Ryde the first
time she passed?"

"Yes; having been all talking about her, we watched to see if she
was going to anchor there or keep on to the east. She lowered a
boat as she passed, and two men landed. They threw her up into the
wind and waited until the boat came off again. The men did not come
back in her. They hoisted the boat up again and went east. She
stopped off Seaview; then she came back and sent the boat ashore,
and two men went off in her. Of course, I can't say whether they
were the same. It was as much as I could do to make out that there
were two of them, though our glass is