"You're wrong this time, old chap!" interrupted Vickers. "He's a bad 'un--but he's on our side now--I'm convinced. It is a game he's playing, and a deep one, and I don't know what it is, but it's for our benefit--Chatfield's simply transferred his interest and influence to us--that's all. For his own purposes, of course. And"--he suddenly paused, gazed seaward, and then jumped to his feet. "Chatfield!" he called quietly. "You needn't light any fire. Here's a steamer!" CHAPTER XXIII THE YACHT COMES BACK Chatfield, his arms filled with masses of dried bracken and coarse grass, turned sharply on hearing Vickers's call and stared hard and long in the direction which the young solicitor pointed out. His small, crafty eyes became dilated to their full extent--suddenly they contracted again with a look of cunning satisfaction, and throwing away his burdens he drew out a big many-coloured handkerchief and mopped his high forehead as if the perspiration which burst out were the result of intense mental relief. "Didn't I know we should be rescued from this here imprisonment!" he cried with unctuous joy. "Thought they'd pinned me here for best part of a week, no doubt, while they could get theirselves quietly away--far away! But it's my experience 'ut them as has served the Lord's never deserted, Mr. Vickers, and if you live as long as--" "Don't be blasphemous, Chatfield!" said Vickers, curtly. "None of that! What we'd better think about is the chance of that steamer sighting us. We'll light that fire, anyway!" "She's coming straight on for the island," remarked Copplestone, who had been narrowly watching the approaching vessel. "So straight that you'd think she was actually making for it." "She'll be some craft bound for Kirkwall," said Vickers, pointing northward to the main group of islands. "And in that case she'll probably take this channel on our west; that fire, now! Come on all of you, and let's make as big a smoke as we can get out of this stuff." The weather being calm and the grass and bracken which they heaped together as dry as tinder, there was little difficulty about raising a thick column of smoke which presently rose high in the sky. But Audrey, turning away from the successful result of their labours, suddenly glanced at Copplestone with a look that challenged an answer to her own thoughts. They were standing a little apart from the others and she lowered her voice. "I say!" she murmured. "I don't think we need have bothered ourselves to light that fire. That vessel, whatever it is, is making for us. Look!"