Going to the companionway door, I peered into the cabin. The wretched Dragot, bedecked in smoking jacket and spectacles, looking uncommonly like a monkey, I thought, was lounging behind a book. He knew that the nearer uncertainty approaches a certainty the more fatal will be the result of its upsetting; that, whereas a scheme jumbled in its infancy may recover, the slightest maladjustment on the threshold of success often spells irrevocable ruin. He was taking no chances. CHAPTER XXVI A TREASURE BOX Late that afternoon we got under way, setting our course for Key West. But it was a glum company aboard. The Princess remained in her stateroom; Tommy's grouch for Monsieur had grown out of all proportion, so the professor's gay mood lost much of its bloom; Echochee, whenever she left her mistress, scowled at us as though we were pirates; Gates, knowing that my plans had become miserably pied, grumbled over trifles; Bilkins sniffled, and the mate walked about with curses fairly bristling from him like pin-feathers. Heaven knows how wretched I was! If a group of people were ever out of tune, we had struck the original discord. Of us all, the cook maintained both equanimity and cuisine in perfect taste, else I hesitate to think what might have been the fate of the good yacht, _Whim_. Sometime during the night we reached Key West, and early next morning Gates called me to go ashore. I had requested this. There were the telegram and letter to be sent; and candy, flowers, fruits, magazines, souvenirs, and anything suitable I might find, to lay at Doloria's shrine. Had it not been for the stubbornness of a fellow who insisted that he was under contract, I would have had a moving picture show aboard for her. By eight o'clock we were again away, sailing lazily eastward before a light breeze. Three days of this inert weather, or possibly less, should bring us to Miami. There Monsieur had expressed his intention of wiring the Roumanian, or some other, consul; then he would entrain with my little Princess, and--well, that would be the end. All that day we poked along. Surreptitiously I had sent several notes down by Bilkins, but the only reply they got was an angry negative shake of Echochee's head. The old Indian would divulge nothing beyond the fact that her Lady was well. I then thought of knocking at Doloria's door to get a word with her, but the professor, always in the cabin on guard, sat where he could frustrate any such plan. He had stayed there the previous night until a late hour, and was back at his post quite an hour before breakfast. She did not appear at luncheon, nor during the long and wearisome afternoon.