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.

The next day was a counterpart of its forerunner, except that it got more on my nerves. I had pegged through it in the hope that she might at least dine with us—for this was to be our last dinner on the Whim, Gates saying we would land about the following noon. But, happening upon Echochee and asking her this, she almost snapped my head off in saying that her mistress had no such intention.

Growing more desperate as the afternoon waned, I tried again to approach Doloria's stateroom from the far end of the passageway, but Monsieur, glancing over his book, arose and came toward me. The expression in his face plainly said that if I attempted to force him aside he would command her to keep her door locked—and I knew that she would obey. Therefore, ready to abandon hope, I wandered up and sought a secluded place along the rail where, unobserved by steersman and forward watch, I could swear a little, and look more glum, and feel quite natural. It was here that Tommy passed me on his way to the cabin.

"Time for dinner," he said, stopping and laying down something that had been under his arm.

"Don't want any dinner," I growled.

His face, for the first time in three days, broke into a beatific smile, and for a moment I was disposed to punch it, thinking, of course, that he meant to guy me. But he saw this intention and sprang back, holding his palms outward in an attitude of alert protest; yet the smile continued, now to be followed by a low, pleased laugh.

"Don't get mad," he gurgled. "I'm not laughing at you—only at things."

"In the circumstances I consider that personal," I glared at him.

"Well, you needn't, honest! To-night I'm presenting the gezabo with a treasure box, and had really intended asking you to keep away from dinner. That's why I'm laughing—your unintentional acquiescence is a good omen!"

"Treasure box of what?" I demanded, knowing this was some of his tomfoolishness, and irritated that he should have any heart for it.

"Keep your head down," he winked good-humoredly. "You'll know soon enough."

"Tommy," I now excitedly caught him by the arms, "you've got a scheme! What is it, old man? Tell me quick!" I shook him happily, for there was something about his mysterious air that began to inspire me with hope.

"Very simple, son; very simple," he chuckled. "Surprisingly simple, and that's why it'll get across. You sit in the cockpit and observe without being observed, but I'll need your help in one thing: when you see me get up and walk around my chair, you beat it, pronto, for this very spot where we are now—and wait here. Understand? It's a nice secluded spot, so you just wait till I come."

"Yes, but——"

"Never mind! Just do what your Uncle Tom says. Now it's dinner time and I reckon Monsieur's starved—he always is! So I'll take my treasure box—oh, by the way, you're not supposed to be in the cockpit, so don't stir around!"

As he picked the thing up I saw that it was a little iron safe about ten inches square—everybody knows the kind. Although small, it was heavy and quite complete, possessing a combination lock of no small merit. In the captain's quarters that Tommy and I now used as a dressing room I had noticed a safe similar to this, and asked if it were the same, whereupon he laughed, saying:

"Yes. Gates keeps his pipes in it, but I got him to flip the combination on 'em for to-night. Well, here goes!" And a few minutes later as he descended the stairs, I, with repressed excitement, stepped back to the cockpit, taking a chair where I could see without being seen.

The dinner had scarcely begun when Monsieur, looking about, asked:

"Where's my boy Jack?"

"Where's Jack?" Tommy repeated, in a voice unnecessarily loud, I thought. "Didn't you know about Jack? Why, he's in bad shape—maybe die, for all I know!"

I must say that the professor looked genuinely concerned, and would have left at once to doctor me had not Tommy sternly interposed. Across the carpeted floor of the dim passageway that led past the staterooms I now saw a thin streak of light, as if some one had quietly opened a door an inch or so. Since this happened to come from Doloria's room, I suspected the Indian woman of listening.

"Don't you go near him or he'll jump overboard, I tell you," Tommy was saying. "He wouldn't let you, and you couldn't help him, anyhow; no one can, poor old Jack! When the Princess stopped speaking to him, and he saw the game was up,—well, his heart kind of broke!"

"Pardieu, I am sorry—I am sorry," the professor shook his head.

"Don't let's talk about it," Tommy replied, as dolefully as the loud tone would permit. "I can't look at his suffering—really I can't! It almost kills me! And there's no remedy, now!" And, when finally the conversation had been diverted to other channels, the streak of light disappeared.

Sometime later Tommy, with, a fine show of indifference, said over his demitasse:

"By the way, if we land to-morrow this is your last chance to open that treasure box."

"Treasure box?"

"Yes, the little safe I found tucked down in Efaw Kotee's trunk. Jack and I intended to tackle it to-night, but since he's knocked out I've lost interest."

"I had not heard of this," the professor cried, his eyes sparkling with all manner of hope and enthusiasm.

"Oh, you heard of it, but just forgot. Anyhow, here it is." He lifted it from the floor and placed it on the table. "You're welcome to its secrets; I'm satisfied to get home with a whole skin." Whereupon he reached for a recent Key West newspaper, tilted back his chair and settled down to read.

Monsieur's fingers closed feverishly around the little safe as though it might have held the secret of perpetual youth. After examining it minutely, he sprawled over and prepared to open it by listening for the little metal tumblers to fall into their notches while he slowly turned the combination knob. Tommy, I guessed at once, had neatly anticipated this after seeing him try it on the big safe in Efaw Kotee's house and hearing his boast that he could have accomplished it in time. Now, just as he got his ear flattened to the iron door and was almost choking for breath in an agony of listening, the newspaper began to rustle.

"It gets my goat," Tommy irritably exclaimed, "to have a front-page story carried to the inside, where half the time I can't find it!"

Monsieur, raising his head, politely waited for the noise to cease, as no one could hear the delicate sounds he sought with a newspaper carrying on that way about his head. Yet, when quiet had been once more restored and he was ready to try again, Tommy began another hunt for news.

"Think you can work it?" he casually asked, over his shoulder.

"I—I might, with less noise," the professor suggested.

"Hope my paper doesn't bother you. This is the only place I have to read since I gave up my room, you know."

Several times more, as Monsieur was holding his breath momentarily expecting the mystery of the combination to dissolve, the paper seemed to be stricken with an ague, till at last, hugging the safe to his chest, he indignantly stalked down the passageway and slammed the door of his room after him.

Tommy now arose and walked around his chair, and as I was leaving for my appointed place I saw him start on tiptoe in the direction of Doloria's stateroom.

Ten minutes later he appeared in the cockpit, helped her to the deck, and together they approached. Yet as they drew near the place I was standing she stopped, looking at me in pretty surprise, but came forward again with hands outstretched, saying:

"Oh, Jack, I thought you were terribly, dangerously ill!" And before I could reply Tommy was gurgling, with a fatuous grin:

"Why, hullo, Jack! I see you're up!"

"Are you better?" she asked, letting her hands rest in mine.

"D'you know," here Tommy interposed, not giving me a chance to answer, "that old whiz-bang devil told Doloria that if she spoke to you, or answered your notes, he'd have you jailed for interfering with a foreign country's accredited agent? Sure, he did! He stuffed her poor little head full of trumped-up international law that hadn't a grain of truth in it—to scare her, see? She was afraid to budge!"

"He did that?" I cried.

"Oh, yes, but it doesn't matter now," she said hurriedly. "Are you really better?"

"Dear me, dear me"—it was Tommy again—"I've come up without my cigarettes! You'll excuse me?" He bowed to her, and left without awaiting the royal consent.

The silence was a trifle awkward when he went, and our eyes seemed to be glued to the spot where he disappeared; but now I turned to her.

"I suppose Echochee was listening to his conversation with Monsieur, and told you. Tommy's full of ideas, but this is his masterpiece because it unlocked your prison."

"It was I who listened—purposely," she said, without a trace of embarrassment, but laughed a little strangely as she asked: "You weren't ill, at all?"

"Yes, I honestly was—with unhappiness; but not as near dead as he pretended."

"And you're in no danger by talking to me?"

"The greatest danger—but not from man-made prisons."

"Oh, it feels so good to be up in this fresh air," she said irrelevantly, raising her face to the sky and taking a deep breath.

"He was a scoundrel to keep you shut in down there," I declared; and then she told me of the old fellow's fabrications, really such atrocious lies that for a while I was undecided whether to thrash him or laugh. As it turned out, I laughed; because she did.

She had moved to the rail and rested her arms on it, leaning over and looking pensively down at the water. I, also, went to stand by her, but, in turning, my eyes happened to glance through one of the cabin portlights at Tommy. He was seated comfortably in a deep chair, Doloria's box of candy stood on the table within easy reach, the newspaper was in his hands, a cigarette hung from his lips, and Echochee was just bringing him the basket of fruit I had taken so much care at Key West to have made attractive.

"Picture of Tommy hurrying down for his cigarettes," I whispered. "Peep at him!"

As she leaned forward and the light fell on her serious face, the attractive curves of mischief, always so maddening, touched the corners of her mouth.

"Isn't he a dear," she murmured. "And there's nothing in the safe but the captain's old pipes?"

"That's all. Tommy's waiting to soothe the professor when he makes that discovery, and keep him from coming on deck."

She laughed guardedly, but there was no great spirit of fun in either of us, and again we turned back to our contemplation of the water, for a long time looking down at it in moody silence. I instinctively felt that she had not altered her decision.

In the distance off our starboard bow a hairlike line of slowly brightening silver, forerunner of the climbing moon, touched the far horizon. It resembled a shining lake upon a great dark waste, and I told her it was my love trying to light my life that had turned to night without her.

I know we were subdued by the witchery that comes with watching for the moon, because when its dome appeared her fingers gently tightened on my sleeve; nor did we speak until it stood serenely balanced upon the world's edge, sending to our feet a silvery pathway that twinkled on the waves. And then, by the merest accident of our position as the yacht changed its course among the keys, two far-off pine trees, appearing to move out side by side across the sea, stopped in the center of the moon. She caught her breath at the unusual beauty of this. That sigh from her, and the mystic night, all but drove me mad. My senses swayed with the throb of some vast indwelling orchestra.

"Let's take the silvery path," I whispered, putting my arms about her. "Look, it leads to the gate of our Secret world, where we first found happiness!"

"Oh, dear Jack," she pleaded—but I would not be stopped, and words stumbled over each other in my agony to persuade her.

"It's Fate—your destiny! I can't change it, neither can you! It spoke to us beneath our two big pines on the Oasis; it's speaking to-night—saying you shall never leave me!"

"Oh, but Jack, that's so impossible! He'll make me go!"

I saw the glitter of tears upon her cheeks, and answered fiercely:

"He can't, when I love you as I do!"—and whispered over and over: "Sweetheart, sweetheart, I love you!"

She had not moved. The moon, by this time high enough to have mustered its forces, frosted the yacht into the semblance of a dream-ship, and we might, indeed, have been sailing upon some phantom lake in fairyland. My eyes were pleading for hers until she raised them—and then they could not turn away. Held and blended by a mesmeric force, they began to give and answer question for question, secret for secret. I saw the quick pulsations in her throat, which seemed to be beating in my veins, instead.

"Oh, Jack," she whispered, laughing tremulously, with a subdued madness that was made for such a night as this, "let me go back to Echochee!"

But I could only answer as I had before:

"I love you—I love you!"

"Darling, darling Jack," she begged, taking my cheeks in her palms, "you mustn't—you really mustn't! Let me go, dear!—Oh, I believe my throne is—is tottering!"

"And my reason with it!" I cried, drawing her quickly, passionately, up to me.

For a long time a silvery yacht glided across a silvery sea, while in far-off Azuria a throne did totter and fall; but ten thousand loyal subjects smiled in their sleep that night at a strangely happy dream, wherein their little Princess was pressing upon the lips of an unknown beggar the seal of her eternal sovereignty.

When again we thought of the moon it had climbed surprisingly high, making our shadow on the spotless deck seem like a black rug beneath our feet.

"Is it awfully late?" she whispered.

"The moon's still up, sweetheart," I said.

"Is it, dear?" she murmured, adorably sighing her contentment at this evidence that the night must yet be very young, indeed.

And, finally, when moving stealthily like two happy thieves we went down into the cabin, she blew a kiss to the sleeping Thomas Jefferson Davis, then gave both hands impulsively to me, and disappeared into her room. After the door had closed, and I felt she would not open it again, I shook Tommy's shoulder. He blinked at me, mumbling:

"Must have been asleep."

"Must have been," I grinned down at him.

And, when he saw my grin, he sat straight up and grinned back at me—for it is in this way that men sometimes understand each other.