And, therewith, Milsom left the bridge and ran down on to the fore deck, from which he was presently hoisted to the fore-masthead in a boatswain's chair bent on to a whip rove through the sheave-hole at the masthead. By the time that he was up there the low, mangrove-clothed cays were visible from the bridge; then Jack gave orders for the helm to be ported, and a quarter of an hour later the yacht shot into smooth water between Bushy and Hicacal Cays, and Milsom took in hand the conning of the craft, following the trend of the channel by eye from his lofty lookout, with a couple of leadsmen in the forechains to further help him. But there was no difficulty, for, once inside the cays, the water was both smooth and clear, and Milsom was able to follow unerringly the line of deepest water. As he had anticipated, the unwonted spectacle of so trim and handsome a little vessel as the _Thetis_ attracted the interested attention not only of the lightkeepers but also of the fishermen inhabiting the little cluster of huts near the cottage of the former; but that could not be helped, and, after all, they probably concluded that the yacht was bound to Sagua la Grande, and would think no more about her. And a quarter of an hour later she had slipped round a projecting point, out of sight, and was safely riding at anchor in her hiding-place. As Milsom had foreseen, they reached their destination with some hours of daylight in hand, and the moment that the anchor was down all hands went to work and routed out from the secret recesses of the ship a heterogeneous assortment of light iron rods, bars, angles, and sheets; wood framing and planking; and great rolls of canvas, painted a light, smoky-grey tint, which Milsom asserted would render a vessel practically invisible at a distance of three miles, and the precise composition of which had cost him weeks of anxious thought and study. Then the crew were divided into three gangs; and while one party busied itself, under Macintyre, in sorting out, bolting together, and fixing in position those portions which were to effect a transformation in the appearance of the yacht's bows, another party, under Milsom, was similarly employed in altering the appearance of the vessel's handsome stern, and the third party, under Perkins, was clothing the brightly varnished masts in tight-fitting canvas coats, painted in the all-pervading grey which was to be the colour of the vessel when the work of disguising her should be complete; fixing a bogus fighting top on the ship's foremast; enclosing the chart-house in a casing which should give it the semblance of a conning tower; getting a couple of light signalling yards aloft; and painting the several boats grey. When the men knocked off work at sunset, a great deal had been done; but it was not until six bells in the forenoon watch next day that the work of transformation was finally completed to Milsom's satisfaction, and then the _Thetis_--temporarily