Florence’s heart leaped within her as the possibilities danced before her mind’s eye. Let her only dare to go ahead and she would have money and wealth. Why not? A princess! Sharply she drew her breath at the thought. A princess! She! Florence Lee! She who had faced beggary a few short weeks before! Princess Yves Napraxine! Princess Yves Napraxine! Again and again she wrote the words on the flyleaf of a book that lay in her lap. Princess Yves Napraxine! If it could be! If it could be! A step on the deck aroused her. Hastily she closed the book, with its tell-tale writing, and looked up to see Wilkins close at hand. Rapidly he strode to the rail and gazed toward the boats; then he turned abruptly back and sat down beside the girl. “They’re getting mighty contiguous,” he declared. “I reckon they’ll oscillate on it to-night. Well, it don’t matter; everything’s ready.” Curiously Miss Lee gazed at him. “What in the world are you talking about?” she demanded. Wilkins withdrew his eyes from the dancing water and fixed them on the girl. For a moment he looked her in the face; then he deliberately winked. Miss Lee struck at him. “Don’t get fresh,” she ordered severely. “I don’t allow gentlemen to wink at me except over a cold bottle. Speak out and quit making signs.” Wilkins chuckled. “Say! You’re all to the good,” he remarked. “I’m ready if you are.” “Ready for what?” “To foreclose on that there promissory note of yourn--that one about the gold. I’m ready to start for New York if you are. Fact is, I’m off to-night!” “To-night!” “Sure thing! It’s me for the broad Atlantic by the light of the moon this very night. Say, don’t you want to shake this gang and come along?” The girl paled slightly. “Tell me what you mean right away,” she ordered crisply. Wilkins pointed over the water. “You see that right-hand boat pronouncin’ around yonder?” he questioned. “Well, near’s my specification goes, the _Orkney_ lies just about under her. Unless they’re too terrible promiscuous, they’ll find her mighty soon, and then there’ll be goings on worse’n a locoed bronco.” “How do you know?” The girl was leaning over him, every muscle tense with excitement. “How do you know where the _Orkney_ is, and why will there be trouble when it is found?” she demanded. “Because--say, I guess you didn’t see a slim, limpy fellow with a black hirsute adornment on his chin up in the village the day we was up there, did you? Well, that fellow was Bill, my brother Bill, the one that wrote the epizootle that brung us here. He wasn’t drowned in the _Orkney_--Bill wasn’t born to be drowned. Everybody else was, but he got on terra cotta, and he’s been hibernating here ever since, waiting his chance to get away with the gold.” “The gold!” “Yes! Bill’s got it. How he done it, I don’t know. But he’s got it. Bill’s a man of his hands, Bill is! He’s got all them nuggets out of the ship and cached ’em ashore. There ain’t a speck of dust left on the _Orkney_. Bill’s got it all!”