If Mr. Kemble knew of any instances where the yacht _Eagle_, alias _The Cloud_, alias _Fortune_, had proved her marvellous speed to the chagrin of certain officers of the law, and had demonstrated her ability to run away from pursuers in both light and heavy weather, he refrained, for reasons best known to himself, from mentioning them. He gave, instead, a quiet assent to the truth of Captain Sam’s praise. While tea was being served at the hotel, the yacht entered the cove, and, rounding to gracefully with a little shower of spray, dropped anchor about midway between the wharf and the bluff opposite. The sails were furled, with, strangely enough, the exception of the mainsail, which was not even lowered. She would doubtless drop this sail later, unless, by any chance, she should decide to put out again during the night. The men who had brought the yacht across the bay did not come ashore. A thin column of smoke that presently wreathed out of a funnel in the cabin indicated that the yachtsmen were cooking a meal in the galley aboard. They were thorough yachtsmen, Mr. Kemble explained, as he paid his bill and said good-bye to Colonel Witham and Mrs. Carlin. They hardly ever left the yacht, he said, except to buy provisions, or some other errand of necessity. Mr. Kemble did not specify what other errands of necessity he had in mind. The colonel saw just how it was, he said. He was sorry, moreover, to lose Mr. Kemble as a guest. In fact, he was the kind of guest that just suited the colonel, as he went early to bed, minded his own business, and was quiet. Good qualities in a summer boarder, in the colonel’s estimation. There was no one to bid Mr. Kemble good-bye, save the colonel and Mrs. Carlin, as he had made few acquaintances. Henry Burns would have bid him a pleasant voyage if he had been there, but Henry Burns was not to be found. “He will be sorry not to have been here to say good-bye to you,” Mrs. Carlin explained, politely. “He often expressed the greatest sympathy for your lameness. I cannot imagine where he is, and he has had no supper, either.” “Bright boy, bright boy, that,” responded Mr. Kemble. “Lives just out of Boston, does he? Must look him and his aunt up this fall, and see if I can’t get my friend, Brooks, the broker, interested in him. Well, good-bye,” and, hobbling away, quite briskly for him, Mr. Kemble followed a boy who carried his satchel down to the wharf, and was rowed out to the yacht. A voice from the cabin bade him welcome, and he disappeared down the companionway. Early that evening, and shortly after Mr. Kemble had gone aboard the _Eagle_, for such was the name painted freshly in gilt on the yacht’s stern, Miles Burton and the three boys, Bob, Henry Burns, and George, held a consultation in the shadow of the woods near the haunted house. Mason, in the meantime, was hidden near the head of the rickety old stairs at the landing on the bluff, watching for any movement aboard the _Eagle_.