Only a woman could get herself out of such a fix. On her beam-ends in Sicily without a cent, unable to get anything from her husband or from home, and nevertheless to arrive in Malta--it’s a mystery to you and me who are, nevertheless, old hands at travelling. She pawned her gold watch and a ring with a stone; then she found out in some way that there was a sailing-vessel carrying cork and sulphur which would sail for Malta the next day. By this means she made a day, as the mail-boat stops at all the ports and the wind-jammer went straight across without a stop. I should like to know how she humbugged the old Sicilian skipper to take her. Anyway, she brought it off. Besides she’s pretty, the minx, although she’s only about as big as a pat of butter and she knows how to use her eyes. She thinks and talks of nothing but her husband, but in order to get to him she knows very well how to smile and jolly people along. She says that with the Sicilian skipper she had only to point to her heart and the word “Malta” in the telegram and that that finished him! Well, I should like to have seen it. At Malta she took a row-boat in order to make a tour of the port. She had never seen her husband’s cruiser and all that she knew of it was that it had three funnels, two masts, and a ram. She was sure of this much from a poor snap-shot she carried. So she pointed out to the boatman all the ships with three funnels and he went up to them. As the names are painted out since the war, she asked everywhere, “Is this the cruiser _Bayard_?” Then someone would explain that the _Bayard_ was not at Malta; but she was afraid they were fooling her and kept on searching. Finally she was forced to see that the _Bayard_ was not there. She was told that it had left three days before, but that in time of war no one knew where a ship went and that only the Admiral could tell her--if he happened to be in a good humour that day; unfortunately he was more apt to be abusive. That didn’t matter; she asked where she might see the Admiral! They laughed in her face, and told her that this Admiral was a bachelor and nothing enraged him more than to have his officers see their wives, because he said that war is war and peace is peace. Finally she had the name of the Admiral’s ship. Well, I should like to have seen the collision between the lady and the Admiral! All she will tell is that he asked her if she was clean off her head, and said that her husband had done very wrong to telegraph his whereabouts and that he was going to give strict orders that such a thing must not occur again; that there was nothing for her to do but make for France at once; that it was useless to chase her husband over the “vasty deep” when the war would perhaps be over before she had caught up with him.