red him
with a nod.

"The King Louis of Messina, so the chasseur at the hotel tells me, is
stopping there en suite," the stranger added, with an interrogative air
of one who volunteers an interesting fact, and who asks if it is true
at the same moment.

"I can't say, I'm sure," Gordon replied. "I only arrived here
yesterday."

The stranger bowed his head in recognition of this piece of personal
information, and, putting on his helmet, picked up his umbrella as
though to continue his stroll. As he did so his eyes wandered over the
harbor and were arrested with apparent interest by the yacht, which lay
a conspicuous object on the blue water. He pointed at it with his
umbrella.

"One of your English men-of-war is in the harbor, I see. She is very
pretty, but not large; not so large as many," he said.

Gordon turned his head obligingly and gazed at the yacht with polite
interest. "Is that a man-of-war? I thought it was a yacht," he said.
"I'm not familiar with the English war-vessels. I am an American."

"Ah, indeed!" commented the affable stranger. "I am French myself, but
I think she is a man-of-war. I saw her guns when I passed on the
steamer from Gibraltar."

Gordon knew that the steamer did not pass within half a mile of where
the yacht lay at anchor, but he considered it might be possible to see
her decks with the aid of a glass.

"You may be right," he answered, indifferently. As he turned his eyes
from the boat he saw a woman, dressed in white, and carrying a parasol,
leave the gardens of the Hotel Bretagne, and come toward them along the
beach. The Frenchman, following the direction of his eyes, saw her
also, and regarded her instantly with such evident concern that Gordon,
who had recognized her even at that distance as the Countess Zara, felt
assured that his inquisitor held, as he had already suspected, more
than a tourist's interest in Tangier.

"Well, I will wish you a good-morning," said the Frenchman, hurriedly.

"Good-morning," Gordon replied, and taking a cigar from his case, he
seated himself again upon the rampart. As he walked away the stranger
glanced back over his shoulder, but Gordon was apparently absorbed in
watching the waves below him, and had lost all interest in his chance
acquaintance. But he watched both the woman and the Frenchman as they
advanced slowly from opposite directions and drew nearer together, and
he was not altogether surprised, when the in man was withi