crime, and just dropped that
envelope so as to give a clue? There always are clues, aren't there?
Oh, I am glad you found it."

As she spoke there came a thin high sound, a ghostly wail. It echoed
back from the walls, repeating itself. The sound was broken among the
pillars, came confusedly to the listening ears. The waters stirred
uneasily, sucking at the walls and the pillars with a kind of fierce
intensity. Her hand sought his arm, caught it, held it tightly.

"It's the steamer's syren," said Phillips. "They must be signalling."

She loosed her hold of his arm and turned from him.

"How can you say such a thing? Just when I thought it was the ghost of
the murdered king crying for vengeance."

"I am sure they're signalling for us," he said. "We'd better go."

CHAPTER VIII

The Queen, closely followed by Phillips, hurried through the cellars,
along narrow passages, up a dozen different flights of stairs. They
lost themselves several times. Twice they arrived by different routes
at the large central kitchen. Twice they left it by different doors.
They grew hot with laughter and bewilderment. Then they heard the
steamer's syren and grew hotter still with impatience. At last,
breathless and flushed, they reached the steps at which they had
landed.

Eight boats lay clustered round the steamer. One of them was her own,
a heavy white boat, carvel built, with high freeboard. Four men sat in
her, resting on their oars. The other seven were island boats, gaily
painted red and green, high prowed, high sterned. The biggest of them
had a mast stepped right forward, a mast which raked steeply aft,
across which lay the yard of a lateen sail. Six oarsmen sat in her.
The other island boats were smaller. There were only two rowers in
each. They had the same high bows and high sterns curving inwards, the
same low freeboard amidships where the rowers sat. In them were many
women and children.

On the deck of the _Ida_ stood a little group of men. Captain Wilson's
neat alert figure was easily recognizable. Mr. Donovan's white Panama
hat was unmistakable. Phillips declared that the smaller man who stood
beside Mr. Donovan was Smith, the steward. A little apart from them
stood a tall bare-headed man. He had a long white beard. There seemed
to be some kind of consultation going on. When the Queen and Phillips
appeared on the steps below the castle the group on the steamer broke
up. Captain Wilson, Mr. Donovan and Smith to