When they reached the promenade along the Sound shore Oscarovitch pointed to a beautifully-shaped, three-masted, two-funnelled white yacht lying about five hundred yards out, and said:
"That is the Grashna, Miss Marmion. I hope you like the look of her."
"She is beautiful!" exclaimed Nitocris, recognising at once the vessel which had met the Russian destroyer on the early morning of the 7th. "She almost looks as if she could fly."
"So she can in a sense," laughed the Prince. "Come now, here is the gig. We will get on board, and you shall see her go through her paces."
Neither she nor her father were strangers to yachts, but when they mounted the bridge of the Grashna and looked over her from stem to stern, they had to admit that they had never seen anything quite so daintily splendid. They had chosen their rooms, and Jenny was below unpacking. Although, of course, he had a captain on board, the Prince often sailed the yacht himself when he had guests on board. He had a genuine love for the beautiful craft, and he took an almost boyish delight in showing what she could do. She was a twelve-hundred-ton, triple-screw, turbine-driven boat, and, thanks to the space-economy of the new system, her builders had been able to stow away fifteen thousand horse-power in her engine-room, and this when fully developed gave a speed in smooth water of thirty-five knots or a little over forty statute miles an hour.
The anchor was up almost as soon as they got on to the bridge, and Oscarovitch moved the pointer of the telegraph to "Ahead slow." The quartermaster in the oval wheel-house behind him moved the little wheel a few spokes to starboard, her mellow whistle tooted, and she glided in an outward curve through the other yachts and shipping, and gained the open water.
"Now," he said, turning to Nitocris, "we can begin to move. It is roughly thirty English miles to Elsinore. If you have never done any fast travelling at sea and would like to do some now, I can get you there in about three-quarters of an hour."
"What!" exclaimed the Professor, "thirty miles in forty-five minutes by sea! That is over forty miles an hour. A wonderful speed."
"Yes," he replied, almost tenderly; "but my beautiful Grashna is a wonderful craft—at least, I think you will say so when you see what she can do. Now, if you will take advice, you and Miss Marmion will go into shelter, for it will begin to blow soon."
Behind the wheel-house was an observation room, as it would be called in the States, running nearly the whole length of the bridge, and fronted with thick plate glass. They went in, and Oscarovitch turned the pointer to half-speed. There was no increase in vibration, but the shore began to slip away behind them faster and faster, and the northern suburbs of Copenhagen rose ahead and fell astern as though they were part of a swiftly moving panorama. Then the pointer went down to full speed, and the Prince, after a word to the quartermaster, joined them in the bridge-house and closed the door.