The men laid themselves to their oars, and, rowing swiftly, soon cleared the distance between the island and the yacht. The captain was standing on the deck to welcome the owner. “Glad to see you, sir!” he exclaimed. “So am I to see you, Gamble,” Hanson answered, as he reached his side. “But where is the bonny bride?” “Oh, she is with friends in Washington. I am going to her now.” “And not to the Mediterranean?” “Yes, afterward. But, Gamble, what is the meaning of those clouds rising in the west? They have a strange, uncanny look.” “Yes, sir, they have. They indicate ugly weather. I was just thinking we had better run into Snowden Inlet and anchor for the night.” “Nonsense! The _Roma_ can weather any storm that could ever rise. We must sail for Washington immediately. I have no time to lose.” “The impatience of a young husband is excusable,” laughed the captain, and he went forward and gave the necessary orders—fatal orders, they proved to be! The _Roma_ sailed away from the Isle of Storms, and that was the last seen or heard of her, or of her owner, for many days. I must be brief here. The terrible storm struck them at midnight, near the mouth of the bay. The small crew worked and struggled heroically with wind and waves, but to no purpose. The _Roma_ foundered at sea. Hanson, his captain and crew barely escaped with their lives by taking to an open boat, in which they were tossed about all night in the tempest, and from which, when it was about to break up under them, they were picked up by a merchant ship, bound from Baltimore to San Francisco. Thus it happened that while Hanson’s friends were speculating as to what course his pleasure cruise on the _Roma_ had taken, the yacht was at the bottom of Chesapeake Bay, and her owner, with all her crew, was bound on a long, compulsory voyage around Cape Horn, and was suffering the tortures of the damned through seasickness, cold, wet, exposure and deathly peril. It was not until the first week in April that the ship reached San Francisco. Hanson had not a cent of cash with him, but he had boundless credit. By this he obtained money enough to pay off his captain and crew and to make preparations to return to Washington by the overland route as fast as steam, by day and night, could carry him. All through his long journey the question that racked him was: How should he find Roma? CHAPTER XI ON HER TRACK Hanson, having traveled day and night, reached Washington city on the morning of April 15th. Naturally inferring that Amos Merritt, her late guardian, and her counsel, would be the most likely to know Roma’s present abode, Hanson only took time to engage a room at an East End hotel, change his clothes and eat his breakfast, before he threw himself into a hack and drove to the old lawyer’s office.