And Roderic stood there a long time, his eyes fixed upon the inchoate outlines of the Sterling Castle, as one might gaze upon a vessel that bore his fate. Many thoughts occupied his mind--he lived over again the past with its joys and sorrows, and even attempted to raise the veil of the future to see whether it held a gleam of Paradise; but this must all remain surmise and uncertainty, since it is not given to mortal vision to see beyond the present. The night passed without an alarm. Evidently Shackelford was a man of discretion as well as astonishing boldness, for there is such a thing as uniting the two qualities. Roderic aroused early enough. The morning had just broken and the glowing eye of old Phœbus was glancing above the horizon when he proceeded to dress. This operation had been about completed when, by chance of course, he looked out of the port hole to see just how far they were from the steamer, since darkness had been upon land and water during the little drama of the preceding night. To his surprise he failed to behold the object of his solicitude. He rubbed his eyes and looked again--surely he must be dreaming, or else with a change of tide the steam yacht had headed another way, cutting him off from the view he had before obtained. And yet, so far as he could tell his lookout still faced the town and port, and he could swear the blockade runner should lie between. Mayhap Shackelford had taken his craft in to a dock for some purpose. Roderic snatched up his marine glasses and scanned the shore line. There was only disappointment awaiting him. The yellow and black funnel of the Sterling Castle was conspicuous only by its absence. One chance remained--that the steamer had changed her anchorage. He hurriedly completed his toilet and rushed on deck. A sweeping glance around told the story, for the blockade runner was no longer in the harbor. Captain Beven saluted from a point forward and beckoned him to approach. "Looking for the steamer--left port an hour or more before crack of dawn--yonder she goes, headed straight for the Antilles." Following the captain's extended finger Roderic saw the smoke of a steamer hanging on the horizon. Somehow his heart gave a leap after it, for the girl he adored was aboard the vanishing craft. "When do we follow, captain?" he asked, composedly. "Within six hours at the latest," was the reply and when that time had expired they too were moving over the trackless Atlantic headed due south west. CHAPTER XVI. THE INVASION OF SAN JUAN. Upon a stormy night, when the moon was utterly concealed by dark ragged masses of clouds that rolled up from the south in serried columns like an army advancing to battle, Roderic viewed the prospect from the deck of the Dreadnaught with the philosophical coolness that seemed a part of his nature; and yet he knew what one of these summer storms in the tropics meant as well as any man.