"What a large island!" exclaimed the Countess. "And we seem to be making for it. What can it be? Mr. Trent says perhaps it is a mirage. But I think that is his joke. He likes teasing."
"I think," replied Virginia calmly, though her eyes were on the face of Manuela, "that we must be coming in sight of New Caledonia."
As she gave this answer, Roger Broom came up the companionway, and heard the last words, which rang out, distinctly. Instantly he knew that the moment for which Virginia had been waiting was at hand, and he, too, watched the Countess.
She had taken Virginia's field-glass, and was gazing through it at the far-off land which with each moment seemed to grow more distinct. Only the delicate, aquiline profile could be seen by the eager eyes that looked for a sign of weakness. She did not speak at first, but a visible shiver ran through her body. The field-glass came down rather suddenly, and her fingers gripped it tightly as they rested on the rail. But she did not turn her face, and continued gazing landward as at last she echoed the words, "New Caledonia!"
"Is not that a prison for the French forçats?" she slowly asked.
Tacitly, the two men left the answer to Virginia. "Yes," said the girl. "Noumea is a penal settlement. They say it is very interesting to see. We thought that we might stop for a day or two in the harbour there."
This time the Countess turned. "Oh, but that would be terrible!" she exclaimed. "We—they might rob and murder us, these convicts. You did not say that we were coming to Noumea."
"It was to be one of our surprises," replied Virginia. "I thought that you would like it."
"No, no!" ejaculated Manuela. "I do not like it at all. I have a horror of such places and such people. This is a pleasure trip, is it not? There is no pleasure in visiting a prison-land. Dear Virginia, dear Mr. Trent and Sir Roger, do let us turn our faces another way and go somewhere else."
Virginia had not lost a single changing shade of expression on the Countess de Mattos's darkly beautiful face; but if she had been questioned, she would have had to confess that she was disappointed in the great effect toward which she had so long been working up. She had half expected to see this wicked woman who, in some deadly and mysterious way, had plotted to destroy Maxime Dalahaide, turn livid under the brown stain which she (Virginia) suspected, gasp, totter, and perhaps fall fainting when she heard those fatal names—"New Caledonia, Noumea." But Manuela gave none of these evidences of distress. If she paled, the dusky stain in whose existence Virginia so tenaciously believed hid the sign of her emotion. It allowed a deep flush to be seen; even Virginia could not deny that, but pallor was difficult to trace where complexion and even lips were tinted brown and red; and the slight quivering of the body, the dropping of the hand with the field-glass, were not so marked that they might not be due to an ordinary, disagreeable surprise.