The slickers of the crew were dripping and shiny, and we, too, soon looked like a flock of wet, disgruntled hens. To add to my discomfiture the professor brought up a newspaper and began consulting the shipping news, blandly telling us that if we captured the princess within forty-eight hours he could have her in Azuria in twenty days. I was glad when the paper got so wet that he had to throw it overboard. At luncheon we could not help being downcast, largely owing to the drizzle which, aboard a yacht, is indeed a spirit breaker. The few sporadic attempts we made at cheer did not get very far. But after a little, happening to glance at Tommy, I saw a look in his face that put me on my guard for something. There was no hoax about this, no "cut-upping." "Our conversation was interrupted this morning," he said, in answer to my unspoken question. "There were things I wanted to talk about--for instance, what'll we do when we catch up?" I had thought of this a hundred times without finding a very definite solution, as my fancies refused to reach beyond the moment I should stand face to face with Sylvia. But, after a fashion, I made answer: "We'll hand the scoundrel over to the law, I suppose, and take the Princess----" "That's just it," he interrupted me. "Take her where? That's the point I want to make." His voice was almost purring now--a sign with him of deadly earnestness. He was continuing: "Suppose she has a perfectly good home where she is! Suppose she doesn't see the virtues in our interference that we see! How do we know the man's a scoundrel, anyway?" "Bah!" Monsieur cried. "She wrote a message of danger! The man tried to blow us up! He made bad money that I have here!"--whereupon he thumped his breastpocket half a dozen times. "How do we know? _Pardieu_, I tell you!" "She wrote the message," Tommy admitted, "but everything else you say is guess. Even suppose you're right about it, where are our warrants? Where are the sworn officers to serve them?" "I have told you that I have the authority, the absolute authority!" "Oh, that doesn't amount to a damn," Tommy replied with supreme indifference, and for a moment I feared Monsieur was going to have a stroke of apoplexy. "Don't you see that we must possess proofs? And then we've got to board his yacht, don't we? Is he going to take a siesta while we stroll over the old tub? Your authority, gezabo, is a scrap of paper unless, first, he's the man who kidnapped your princess, and second, we can lay our hands on him. Now try to think!" "Think! There is nothing to think--only to do! You speak as a child! We must take that girl to her throne, to her rightful heritage! By every law of conscience, justice and humanity, there is nothing left for us to do! Absolutely we must obey!"