her was tempestuous and the sea was running high. Not until
the following day did the Admiralty decide to pursue the vessel which
had vanished so suddenly in full sail. It was then too late to
overtake her.

It was shortly afterwards that the sad news reached St. Petersburg
that the fugitive vessel had run upon the rocks of Dago. Her mainmast
and bowsprit were all that was ever picked up, so it was plain to all
men that the _Gladova Strela_, with her fifty men and seven guns, had
gone to the bottom. So after all, men said, things had perhaps
happened as they ought. At all events, the name of Captain Feodor Von
Ungern was utterly forgotten.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER III

The Observatory

It was in the following spring that the lofty tower arose on the
promontory of the Isthmus of Dago. The building was quite unnoticed
except by the inhabitants of the island. The ordinary track of vessels
was then far distant from the spot.

At that time the island of Dago still belonged to Finland. Although
under Swedish rule, it formed a small republic standing by itself, in
whose internal affairs no one interfered. The governor of the island
had, of course, made inquiries regarding the inhabitants of the
tower, and had learnt that they were foreign seamen, whose vessel had
been wrecked in the neighbourhood. Their commander was reported to be
a most cultured gentleman, capable of conversing fluently in Latin as
well as in Dutch. He had purchased the whole of the waste promontory
from the authorities of the island with hard cash, and had then had
the stupendous edifice built by his own men and in accordance with his
own plans. When it was completed the whole company lived together in
the tower. How many of them there might be was never exactly known,
for they never showed themselves outside their fortress walls. But
what, it was often asked, could be the occupation of the men within?
That, however, was a mystery to the islanders.

But the mystery of mysteries was: What did the inmates eat?

For to build such a tower some fifty men at least must have been
necessary. Even had they succeeded in bringing all their provisions to
land from their stranded vessel, these must have been consumed in a
very short time. They had already been living there a whole year, and
had never once come forth from their rocky retreat to buy provisions
in the neighbouring village. They could certainly not have lived on
sea-spiders and mussels al