n the
room in it, her brown face and strong, sunburnt arms making an odd
contrast with pale-blue silk and fluffy chiffon. The occupation was
fascinating. There were some frocks which the Queen had scarcely seen.
She had, she supposed, chosen the material and the shape, had, it was
likely, tried them on during the hurried days before sailing for
Salissa. But she had forgotten what they were like, forgotten that she
possessed them. It was a joy to see them spread out before her eyes or
actually draped on Kalliope's slender figure.

Neither girl noticed that shortly after six o'clock the _Ida_ slipped
round the corner of the reef and dropped anchor in the harbour.
Phillips, standing with Captain Wilson and Gorman on the bridge,
scanned the palace steps, the balconies, the windows, and then, with
eager eyes, the shores of the bay, for a sight of the Queen. Captain
Wilson and Gorman stared with surprise and curiosity at the German
steamer. Gorman had no special knowledge of ships, but he recognized
that the vessel before his eyes was not an ordinary tramp. He was
startled and interested to see any such vessel in the harbour of
Salissa. Captain Wilson, a puzzled frown on his face, wondered at the
odd way the steamer was moored and her nearness to the cliffs.
Phillips, who had no eyes at all for the strange steamer, seized the
line attached to the _Ida's_ whistle, and blew three long blasts. He
hoped to announce his arrival to the Queen, wherever she might be.

Captain Wilson, perplexed by the look and position of the German
steamer, was irritable. He ordered Phillips off the bridge. But the
whistle had done its work. The Queen and Kalliope ran to the balcony.
They waved joyful greetings to the _Ida_, Kalliope an odd figure in a
pale-grey evening dress. Phillips, standing on the deck below the
bridge, waved back. It was a joyful moment. A few minutes later his
joy was turned to sorrow of an almost unbearable kind. Captain Wilson
forbade him to go ashore. A boat was lowered and Gorman was rowed off
to the palace--to the gates of paradise. Phillips bitterly regretted
that he had blown his blasts of greeting on the syren. But, in fact,
it was not for that he was punished. Captain Wilson was simply in a
very bad temper. The sight of Salissa always annoyed him. The position
of the German steamer irritated him vehemently. She lay dangerously
near the cliffs in a position in which no seaman would willingly put
his ship. She was abs