Dick went to his cabin firm in the belief that he would lie awake half the night. But his brain soon refused to bother itself with problems which time might solve in a manner not yet conceivable, and he slept soundly until he was roused at an early hour. Day dawned bright and clear. A pleasant northwesterly breeze swept the smoke haze from off the town and kissed the blue waters of the land-locked harbor into white-crested wavelets. He took the morning watch, from four o'clock until eight, and all he had to do was to make sure that the men tried to whiten decks already spotless, and cleaned brass which shone in the sun the instant that luminary peeped over the shoulder of Notre Dame de la Garde. Although the _Aphrodite_ lay inside the mole, her bridge and promenade deck were high enough to permit him to see the rocky islet crowned by the Château d'If. He knew that the hero of Dumas' masterpiece had burrowed a tunnel out of that grim prison, to swim ashore an outcast, a man with a price on his head, yet bearing with him the precious paper whose secret should make him the fabulously rich Count of Monte Christo. It was only a soul-stirring romance, a dim legend transformed into vivid life by the genius of the inspired quadroon. But its extraordinary appositeness to the _Aphrodite's_ quest suddenly occurred to the young Englishman watching the sunlit isle. He was startled at the thought, especially when he contrasted his present condition with his depressed awakening in Brixton five days earlier. Then he laughed, and a sailor, busily engaged in polishing the glass front of the wheel-house, followed the direction of his gaze and half interpreted his daydream. "It's a bit of a change from the West India Dock Road, ain't it, sir?" he asked. Royson agreed with him, and the two conversed a while, but when the man led the chat round to the probable destination of the yacht, the second mate's thoughts fell from romance to reality. "You will be told soon enough where we're bound for," he answered sharply. "I'm sorry, sir, if I've said anything I shouldn't," said the other. "But the chaps forrard made out that there's a bit of a mystery in it, an' I argied they was talkin' nonsense." "You were quite right. The owner and a party of ladies will be on board to-day, and then you will find out our destination." "Ladies, you say, sir? That settles it. This is no Riff pirates job, then?"