THE UNWILLING GUEST
of a war vessel steaming in a direction which would intercept the yacht. The Sylph did not slow down until a solid shot from a gun in the forecastle of the destroyer went ricochetting across her bows, when the engine was stopped and John Rizzio made slowly aft to where she stood . “Miss Mather,” he said briefly, “I must ask you to go below to your cabin at once.”
A glance at his face showed that her protests would have been useless and she went below to her own stateroom, the door of which was locked upon her. Through the heavy glass of her port-hole she saw the vessel approach until within hailing distance when a boat dropped from her side into which a boat’s crew and an officer clambered and rowed alongside. The vessel bore no flag, but the girl clearly heard the hail of the boarding officer and realized that the destroyer was an English vessel. Her hopes rose. Perhaps even now the Englishman would find something irregular in the yacht’s papers and would take charge, conveying her back to England. She waited for a long time and then heard the clatter of oars and saw the boat push off from the side of the yacht, while the officer, young, slender and windburned, stood up in the stern sheets of his boat.
“All right,” she heard him say, “sorry to have troubled you. Pleasant voyage. Good-by.”
Never had English sounded so good to her. But it was with a sigh of despair that she saw the boat reach the side of the war vessel and felt the steadily increasing rhythm of the engines of the yacht as she drove once more upon her way.
When the two vessels were at a distance from each other the key turned in the lock of the door and in
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