第22章

``Why, it's the `Vesta'!'' exclaimed Hope, wonderingly.``Ithought she wasn't coming for a week?''

``It can't be the `Vesta'!'' said the elder sister; ``she was not to have sailed from Havana until to-day.''

``What do you mean?'' asked Langham.``Is it King's boat? Do you expect him here? Oh, what fun! I say, Clay, here's the `Vesta,' Reggie King's yacht, and he's no end of a sport.We can go all over the place now, and he can land us right at the door of the mines if we want to.''

``Is it the King I met at dinner that night?'' asked Clay, turning to Miss Langham.

``Yes,'' she said.``He wanted us to come down on the yacht, but we thought the steamer would be faster; so he sailed without us and was to have touched at Havana, but he has apparently changed his course.Doesn't she look like a phantom ship in the moonlight?''

Young Langham thought he could distinguish King among the white figures on the bridge, and tossed his hat and shouted, and a man in the stern of the yacht replied with a wave of his hand.

``That must be Mr.King,'' said Hope.``He didn't bring any one with him, and he seems to be the only man aft.''

They stood watching the yacht as she stopped with a rattle of anchor-chains and a confusion of orders that came sharply across the water, and then the party separated and the three men walked down the hill, Langham eagerly assuring the other two that King was a very good sort, and telling them what a treasure-house his yacht was, and how he would have probably brought the latest papers, and that he would certainly give a dance on board in their honor.

The men stood for some short time together, after they had reached the office, discussing the great events of the day, and then with cheerful good-nights disappeared into their separate rooms.

An hour later Clay stood without his coat, and with a pen in his hand, at MacWilliams's bedside and shook him by the shoulder.

``I'm not asleep,'' said MacWilliams, sitting up; ``what is it?

What have you been doing?'' he demanded.``Not working?''

``There were some reports came in after we left,'' said Clay, ``and I find I will have to see Kirkland to-morrow morning.Send them word to run me down on an engine at five-thirty, will you?

I am sorry to have to wake you, but I couldn't remember in which shack that engineer lives.''

MacWilliams jumped from his bed and began kicking about the floor for his boots.``Oh, that's all right,'' he said.``I wasn't asleep, I was just--'' he lowered his voice that Langham might not hear him through the canvas partitions--``I was just lying awake playing duets with the President, and racing for the International Cup in my new centre-board yacht, that's all!''

MacWilliams buttoned a waterproof coat over his pajamas and stamped his bare feet into his boots.``Oh, I tell you, Clay,''

he said with a grim chuckle, ``we're mixing right in with the four hundred, we are! I'm substitute and understudy when anybody gets ill.We're right in our own class at last! Pure amateurs with no professional record against us.Me and President Langham, I guess!'' He struck a match and lit the smoky wick in a tin lantern.

``But now,'' he said, cheerfully, ``my time being too valuable for me to sleep, I will go wake up that nigger engine-driver and set his alarm clock at five-thirty.Five-thirty, I believe you said.All right; good-night.'' And whistling cheerfully to himself MacWilliams disappeared up the hill, his body hidden in the darkness and his legs showing fantastically in the light of the swinging lantern.