“I don’t know that flag,” said Gorman. “Not that that means anything. I don’t suppose there are half a dozen flags that I do know.”
“There was some mention made of an Emperor,” said Donovan. “Daisy seemed to think that one might come nosing round, thinking to buy the island. Perhaps that’s him.”
“Hardly in that steamer,” said Gorman. “She looks as if she’d been built a hundred years ago. One of the first ever launched, I should think.”
“Well,” said Donovan, “I’m not an expert in the habits of European Emperors; but I’ve always been told that the state coach in which the King of England goes to open Parliament dates back quite a bit in the matter of shape. An Emperor might feel that he owed it to his historic past to sail the ocean in the nearest thing he could get to the ark of the patriarch Noah.”
The argument was sound; but Gorman was not inclined to think that the Emperor was paying a visit to Salissa in person. He was just going to say so when Smith came on to the balcony. He carried a pair of field glasses in his hand, which he laid on the table beside Donovan’s chair.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he said. “I brought up the glasses thinking you might want to look at the strange steamer.”
“Do you know the flag, Smith?” asked Gorman.
“No, sir, can’t say I do. But she looks like a foreigner. Not English. Shall you want anything more, sir?”
Gorman did not at the moment want anything which Smith would supply. He wanted information, but it was useless to ask for that. Smith, who seemed uninterested in the steamer, left the balcony.