Antonia’s practised eye at once discerned that she was fully equipped for sea. With sails ready to be unfurled at a moment’s notice, she could sweep out unchallenged and trackless as the falcon on her ensign, before the freshening south wind which was even now curling the waves with playful but increasing power. With lightning rapidity she divined the full extent of the girl’s imprudence and the Count’s villainy. In the same sudden mental effort she resolved, at all hazards, to save her companion from the consequences of her inconceivable folly. ‘I did vorm de resolution dat I shall bezeegh you and Miss Folledon to honour me by paying me von last leetle visit on board de _Valgon_, dis afdernoon. Mine goot friend Paul, he was goming, but de business—dat pete noir—he brevent him. He ask me to peg Miss Frankstein if she vill, zo also Miss Folledon, vizout her fader, to my so-poor-yet-highly-to-be-honoured graft go. Dere is izes, one small collation, a few friend. Surely you will join dem?’ Here the Count beamed the irresistible smile which had through life served him well, and advancing, held out both hands to the young ladies. ‘Oh, do let us go!’ said the reassured weakling. ‘It would be so pleasant. It is such a delightful afternoon. I should like it of all things.’ But Antonia more than ever distrusted the Count, _et dona ferentes_. She disliked his eye, his wily words, the appearance of his swarthy crew, the evidently sea-fitted appearance of the yacht. She felt more than ever convinced that he had matured a deliberate plot to carry off an unsuspecting girl. Such in truth was the unpardonable sin with which the Herr von Schätterheims had resolved to conclude his Australian career. Unable to meet the many pressing claims upon his finances, the holders of which, he had reason to know, were meditating an advance in line; having failed in the daring speculations in which, by means of humble foreign agents, he had invested the small capital with which he had arrived, and the incredibly large loans which his assurance and reputation for wealth had enabled him to procure,—he had conceived the desperate plan which Antonia’s quick intuition had discovered. He had determined, by force or fraud, to carry off Harriet Folleton, trusting that the irrevocable _coup_ once made, time and other considerations would tend to the ultimate wresting of her immense fortune from her father’s hands.