The completing of all these arrangements carried the time on to the last week of July; and on the 28th day of that month the _Thetis_ steamed down the Tyne on her way to Cowes, Jack having decided to give as much vraisemblance as possible to his apparent ownership of the vessel, and to the pretence that he was yachting for health's sake, by putting in the month of August in the Solent, during which the order for arms, ammunition, etcetera, would be in process of execution. Although Jack was not a racing man--the _Lalage_ being of altogether too ancient a type to pose as a racer--he was by no means unknown in the yachting world, and he found a host of acquaintances ready and willing to welcome his appearance in Cowes Roads, especially coming as he did in such a fine, handsome little ship as the _Thetis_; and for the first fortnight of the racing the new steamer, with her burgee and blue ensign, was a quite conspicuous object as, with large parties of friends, both male and female, on board, she followed the racers up and down the sparkling waters of the Solent. Jack was precisely of that light-hearted, joyous temperament which can find unalloyed pleasure amid such surroundings, and he threw himself heart and soul into the daily gaieties with an abandon that was sufficient, one would have thought, to have utterly destroyed all possible suspicion as to the existence of ulterior motives. Yet, happening to be ashore one afternoon with a party of friends, he was startled, as they walked down the High Street at Cowes, to see coming toward him a man whom he believed he had met somewhere before. The individual did not appear to be taking very particular notice of anything just at the moment, seeming indeed to be sunk deep in thought; but when he was about ten yards from Jack's party he suddenly looked up and found the young man's eyes fixed enquiringly upon him. For an instant he stopped dead, and an expression of mingled annoyance and fear flashed into his eyes; then he turned quickly and sprang, as if affrighted, into the door of a shop opposite which he had paused. But in that instant Jack remembered him; he was "Mr Mackintosh, of Inveraray!"