On the 24th of May the _L’Escaut_ had left Antwerp with twenty-eight souls aboard. Aft there were Joan, Susan, Blessington, Sime, Dangle, and Merkel, with the captain, first officer, and engineer—nine persons, while forward were three divers, six assistants, a cook, a steward, four seamen, and four engine-room staff, or nineteen altogether. Once clear of the Scheldt Joan’s treatment had changed. Her food was no longer drugged, and when in a few days she got over the effects of the doses she had received, she found her jailers polite and friendly and anxious to minimize the inconvenience and anxiety she was suffering. They told her they did not wish her evil, and were taking her with them simply to prevent information as to themselves or their affairs leaking out through her. This, of course, she did not believe, since she did not possess sufficient information about them to enable her to interfere with their plans. But later their real motive dawned on her. Gradually she realized that Blessington had fallen in love with her, and though he was circumspect enough, her distrust of him was such that she felt sick with horror and dread when she thought of him. Nothing, however, had occurred to which she could take exception, and had it not been for her fears as to her own fate and her anxieties as to Cheyne’s, the voyage would have been pleasant enough. The _L’Escaut_ was a fast boat, and four days had brought them to the spot referred to in the cipher. After three days’ search they found the wreck, and all three divers had at once gone down. A week was spent in making an examination of the vessel, at the end of which time they had located the gold. It was in her stern, low down and not far from her port side. The divers recommended blowing her plates off at this spot, and ten days more sufficed for this. Through the hole thus made the divers were able to draw in tackle lowered from the _L’Escaut_, and the ingots of gold were slung to cradles and drawn up with really wonderful ease and speed. They had, moreover, been favored with a peculiarly fine stretch of weather, work having to be suspended on only eight days of the thirty-seven they were there.