Mr. Bangs went on to Vienna the night before our departure, taking with him Helene Marie Louise Antoinette, a rather shocking arrangement you would say unless you had come to know the British lawyer as well as we knew him. They were to proceed by the early morning train to this obscure seaport. Colingraft Titus elected to accompany his sister the entire length of the journey, with the faithful Blake and Rosemary. Billy Smith was to meet us a few miles outside the town for which we were bound, with a word of warning if there was anything sinister in the wind. I heard afterwards from Poopendyke that the departure of the Countess and Rosemary from the castle in the grey; forlorn dawn of that historic fourteenth was attended by a demonstration of grief on the part of the four Schmicks that was far beyond his powers of description, and he possesses a wonderful ability to describe lachrymose situations, rather running to that style of incident, I may say. The elder Schmicks wailed and boo-hooed and proclaimed to the topmost turrets that the sun would never shine again for either of them, and, to prove that she was quite in earnest about the matter, Gretel fell off the dock into the river and was nearly drowned before Jasper, Jr., could dive in and get her. Their sons, both of whom cherished amorous feelings for Blake, sighed so prodigiously all the way down the river that the boat rocked. Incidentally, during the excitement, Jinko, who was to remain behind and journey westward later on with Mrs. Titus and Jasper, Jr., succeeded after weeks of vain endeavour in smartly nipping the calf of Hawkes' left leg, a feat of which he no doubt was proud but which sentenced my impressive butler to an everlasting dread of hydrophobia and a temporary limp. It was nearing five o'clock when the boat slipped into view around the tree-covered point of land and headed straight for our hiding place on the bank.