"You are not your father's son if you refuse to go with us;" and the Admiral sent home this charge with fist against palm. "'Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!'" parroted the girl drolly. "You will go, Mr. Fitzgerald." "Do you really want me to?" cleverly putting the decision with her. "Yes." There was no coquetry in voice or eye. "When do you expect to go?" Fitzgerald put this question to the admiral. "As soon as we can coal up and provision. Laura, I've just got to smoke. Will you gentlemen join me?" The two young men declined. "We can go straight to Funchal in the Madieras and re-coal. With the club-ensign up nobody will be asking questions. We can telegraph the _Herald_ whenever we touch a port. Just a pleasure-cruise." The admiral fingered the Legion of Honor. "And here was Alladin's Lamp hanging up in my chimney!" He broke in laughter. "By cracky! that man Donovan knows his business. He's gone without putting back the bricks. He has mulcted me for two days' work." "But crossing in the yacht," hesitated Fitzgerald. He wished to sound this man Breitmann. If he suggested obstacles and difficulties it would be a confirmation of the telegram and his own singular doubts. "It is likely to be a rough passage," said Breitmann experimentally. "He doesn't want me to go." Fitzgerald stroked his chin slyly. "We have crossed the Atlantic twice in the yacht," Laura affirmed with a bit of pride; "once in March too, and a heavy sea half the way." "Enter me as cabin-boy or supercargo," said Fitzgerald. "If you don't you'll find a stowaway before two days out." "That's the spirit." The admiral drew strongly on his cigar. He had really never been so excited since his first sea-engagement. "And it comes in so pat, Laura. We were going away in a month anyway. Now we can notify the guests that we've cut down the time two weeks. I tell you what it is, this will be the greatest cruise I ever laid a course to." "Guests?" murmured Fitzgerald, unconsciously poaching on Breitmann's thought. "Yes. But they shall know nothing till we land in Corsica. And in a day or two this fellow would have laid hands on these things and we'd never been any the wiser." "And may we not expect more of him?" said Breitmann. "Small good it will do him." "Corsica," repeated the girl dreamily. "Ay, Napoleon. The Corsican Brothers' daggers and vendetta, the restless island! It is full of interest. I have been there." Breitmann smiled pleasantly at the girl, but his thought was unsmiling. Versed as he was in reading at a glance expression, whether it lay in the eyes, in the lips, or the hands, he realized with chagrin that he had made a misstep somewhere. For some reason he would have given much to know, Fitzgerald was covertly watching him. "You have been there, too, have you not, Mr. Fitzgerald?" asked Laura. "Oh, yes; but never north of Ajaccio."