_The Lucky_ lay out in the stream, half a mile further inland. Lord Towyn rowed out to her, and found her joint-owners, two brothers, on board. He went over the vessel, and found it new and clean, and in fine order. The owners were willing to let the little craft with their services, and the young earl hired it for a week, paying in advance twice the sum the thrifty Scotsmen demanded for it. “She must be provisioned immediately,” said Lord Towyn. “Her destination is a secret, which I will tell you in the morning. I have three friends who will make the excursion with me. We shall want blankets, and all kinds of cooked meats and stores. We must leave Inverness at day-break. Come ashore with me, one of you, and I will select the stores we are likely to need.” One of the brothers accompanied the earl ashore, and conducted him to various shops, Lord Towyn keeping a keen look-out for Craven Black, in order to avoid him. Blankets and mattresses and bed linen were sent down to _The Lucky_; various kinds of cooked meats, including rounds of roast beef, roasted chickens, meat puddings, ham and veal pies, smoked salmon and boiled ham, were packed in hampers and sent aboard; and Lord Towyn added baskets of fruits, both dried and fresh, and jams and confitures of every sort in abundance, besides boxes of biscuits of every description. “It looks like a v’y’ge to Ingy,” said Macdonald, the one of the two brothers who had accompanied Lord Towyn ashore, contemplating the array of stores with kindling eyes. “We can provision a ship’s crew to Australy.” “Whatever is left, you will be welcome to,” said the earl, smiling. The young lord saw his new purchases deposited on board _The Lucky_, and himself attended to the arrangement of the little cabin, and then paying his waterman liberally, he returned to his hotel. The day had passed swiftly, and he found that it was nearly five o’clock of the short afternoon, and the street lamps were lighted, when he entered his hotel and went up stairs, two steps at a time, to his sitting-room. CHAPTER XXII. THE FINAL MOVE IMPENDING. The young Lord Towyn came into his sitting-room and the presence of his friends like a sunny south breeze, all hopefulness and gladness. He found Sir Harold walking the floor, his head bowed upon his breast, his face ghastly pale, his eyes haggard, his mind bordering upon distraction. The father’s anxieties concerning his missing daughter was almost more than the overstrung brain and tortured heart could bear. Mr. Atkins stood at the window, sullenly despairing. Ryan, completely at his wit’s end, sat before the blazing fire in a crouching attitude, and with crestfallen visage. Sir Harold, Atkins and Ryan turned, as by one impulse, toward the young earl, as he bounded lightly into the room. Their eyes expressed their wonder at the change a few hours had wrought in him. “You look like incarnate sunshine, Arthur,” said the baronet sadly. “Ah, the elastic spirit of youth!”