"Oh, yes, we noticed her," the boatswain in charge replied in answer to his question. "We saw her, as you say, on Tuesday afternoon, going east. We could not help noticing her, for she was something out of the way. We should not have thought so much of it, if she had not come back again just before dusk the next day, and anchored a mile to the west. We kept a sharp lookout that night, thinking that she might be trying to smuggle some contraband ashore; but everything was quiet, and next morning she was gone. The man who was on the watch said he thought that he made her out with his night glass going east at about eleven o'clock; but it was a dark night, and it might have been a schooner yacht or a brig." "You don't happen to know whether she stopped at Ryde the first time she passed?" "Yes; having been all talking about her, we watched to see if she was going to anchor there or keep on to the east. She lowered a boat as she passed, and two men landed. They threw her up into the wind and waited until the boat came off again. The men did not come back in her. They hoisted the boat up again and went east. She stopped off Seaview; then she came back and sent the boat ashore, and two men went off in her. Of course, I can't say whether they were the same. It was as much as I could do to make out that there were two of them, though our glass is a pretty good one. Is there anything wrong about the craft?" "Not that I know of; but there was a good deal of curiosity about her among the yachts, she being an out-of-the-way sort of craft; and I fancy there were some bets about her. There was an idea that she was seen going west two days later, and the governor asked me to take the boat and find out whether she had been noticed here or at Ryde. Thank you very much for your information. I have no doubt that it will be sufficient to decide any bets there may be about her." So saying, he took his seat in the gig again, and rowed back to the Osprey. The skipper returned in the evening. "No such craft has gone into Southampton or Portsmouth," he said; "so I have had my journey for nothing." "No, I don't think you have," George replied. "It is something to know that she is not in either of the ports now, and has been to neither of them." George returned in time to send off a full account of what he had learned from the coast-guardsman by the mail that would be delivered in London that night. On his return to town the next morning, Frank found the letter awaiting him; and at ten o'clock, after wiring to Hawkins and the steward to stock the yacht at once with provisions of all kinds for a long voyage, he went into the city and called upon the secretary at Lloyd's. After giving his name, he told him that he believed that a young lady had been carried off forcibly in the craft, which he minutely described, and that he was desirous of having a telegram sent to every signal station between Hull and the Land's End, asking if such a craft had passed.