"Ah, the saints be blessed, the Excellency is safe," he said. But they must not delay a minute, he added. The Excellency must return to the waiting boat! A slight but unexpected ill-fortune had befallen them, connected with the to-be-execrated Troublesome one, and it would not be safe for the Imperial Highness if the Excellency should land tonight. She had sent him to say that the Excellency was to keep out at sea for two days, and return steaming past, and if he saw a white flag flying from the villa roof, then at night he was to anchor and come ashore at this same time. If not, for the moment he must go on back to Constantinople, where news and further instructions would be sent him. As he spoke Dmitry indicated the return path, and bid the Excellency follow him, and hasten, hasten. This was a terrible blow to Paul, but the thought that he might bring danger to his beloved one made him not hesitate a moment. They descended the path in silence, and as he stepped into the boat the old servant whispered, the Imperial Highness had bid him assure the Excellency that all was well, the meeting was only deferred, when they should have several days together in safety. "The saints protect the Excellency," the faithful creature added. Then, when Paul was safely in the boat, he stood back to make sharply three times the sea-bird's cry. The weird minor notes floating out on the night seemed a wailing echo of the agonised disappointment in Paul's heart--more than once a mad impulse to go back convulsed his being before he reached the yacht--but it was not till afterwards that he remembered as a strange circumstance the fact that with Dmitry's first words at the nail-studded door Vasili had vanished into darkness. CHAPTER XXIX The two days out at sea were a raging impatience to Paul, in which he learnt to understand all the torments of Tantalus. To know and feel her near, and yet not to be allowed to get to her! It was an impossible cruelty. The two grey-headed men's hearts ached for him, and Captain Grigsby delivered himself of this aphorism: "Say what you will, Charles, but youth pays the devil of a long price for its pleasures. Here you and I snored like a couple of porpoises all last night, while the boy paced the deck and cursed everything." And Sir Charles had only grunted, for he was feeling very deeply for his son. There was a fresh breeze blowing when the time was up and they sighted land again, and long before any possible shore could be examined, Paul stood--his strongest glasses in his hand--on the look-out. At length they came in full view, and alas! there could be no mistake, the flagstaff upon the villa roof was empty. To the day of his death Paul will keep a vivid picture of the pure white-columned house. No semi-Oriental architecture met his view, but a beautiful marble structure in the graceful Ionic style, seeming a suitable habitation for his Queen.