About four o'clock the wind dropped and the engines were called on. With the night the wind rose again but veered to the south. The _Cigno's_ lights were clearly visible at about three miles' distance. Her white masthead light watched the Aphrodite without blinking, while her red and green eyes suggested to Irene's fancy some fabled monster of the deep waiting to pounce on the yacht if she deviated an inch from her seaward course. The girl snatched a few minutes' talk with Royson. Von Kerber, it seemed, had persuaded her grandfather that Alfieri was the paid agent of rival archeologists who had got wind of the Sabaean hoard, and were able to secure the help of the Italian Government. She was convinced that the ill treatment meted out to them at Massowah had only confirmed the old gentleman's determination to best his opponents at all costs. The burking of his cablegrams, made known by the Baron, was the last straw in an aggravated load. The yacht was going to Aden to enable him to lodge a complaint with the proper authorities, but she would leave almost at once for French Somaliland, where a _kafila_ would be collected and a dash made across the Italian frontier. And Dick gathered that Irene herself was inclined to let affairs run their natural course. He agreed with her, which was to be expected, seeing that he was four-and twenty, and in love. He cudgeled his brains for some pretext to discuss rings and the manner of wearing them, but his wit failed him there. Irene on the deck of her grandfather's yacht differed in several important particulars from the tremulous girl who clung to him during that blissful journey of the previous night. He tried to clear up this vital point with Tagg. "Did you ever give a young lady an engagement ring?" he asked, after judiciously leading his chief to discourse on the frailties of the sex. "Well," said Tagg reflectively, "it all depen's on the way you take' it. I once gev' a girl a Mizpah ring, which fancied, when she saw'r it in a pawnshop window. Next time I met her she tole me she'd swopped it for a dress improver. The feller she was goin' to marry didn't like the motter as comin' from me, you see, but the funny thing was she never said a word about him when she saw'r me buyin' the ring. Since then, I've kep' me money in me pocket." Royson took the morning watch, from 4 A.M. till 8. Stump joined him soon after dawn, and appeared to be anxious about the yacht's exact position. So far as Dick could judge from the chart, they were in safe waters; nevertheless, the stout skipper did not rest content until the tall peak of Jebel Aduali opened up clear of Jebel Ash Ali, with Sanahbor Island bearing west.