The yacht came to a standstill in a few minutes, and the gig was waiting at the foot of the gangway ladder. They spent a very pleasant hour ashore, and what they saw, you may read of in your Murray and Baedeker, wherefore there is no need to set it down here. When they came aboard again, lunch was almost ready, and the steward presented his master and the Professor with quite exceptional cocktails in the smoking-room. Then they went and had a wash, and the mellow gong sounded. I am not very fond of those descriptions in stories which read like extracts from an upholsterer's price-list, nor yet those accounts of meals that, after all, are only menus writ large, so it may suffice to say that the saloon of the _Grashna_ was an arrangement of sandal-wood panels, framed in thin silver filigree, and hung with exquisite little masterpieces in water-colour, and black and white, and crayon, mostly sea-scapes, with here and there a beautiful head with living eyes which followed you everywhere; that the rich yellow of the panels was enhanced by _portieres_ and curtains of deep golden-bronze silk, and that the domed ceiling was of pale, sky-blue enamel spangled with the constellations of the northern heavens, which at night lit up the whole saloon with a soft electric radiance. As for the lunch, it was as nearly perfect as the best-paid chef afloat could make it, after his master had asked him as a personal favour to do so. They ran back quietly to Copenhagen at twenty knots, and Oscarovitch and the Professor went ashore to send off a few telegrams, leaving Nitocris, for her own reasons, to make herself at home on the yacht. They returned in time to dress for dinner and enjoy a stroll on the broad upper deck, and watch the sunset over the town and the quickly-increasing sparkle of the myriad lights on shore and sea. When they came up after dinner, these lights were only represented by a luminous haze glimmering under the stars to the northward. The _Grashna_ was heading nearly due south at an easy speed towards the Baltic Islands. Something told both Nitocris and her father that the decisive hour would come soon, and they were both prepared for its advent. CHAPTER XXIII THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE PROFESSOR