"Thank you, Jim."
And the devil who was standing in the shadows smiled in anticipation of interesting events on board that yacht.
CHAPTER II
BESIDE BEAUTIFUL WATERS
In five days the party had completed all preparations and Bivens's big steamer, the Buccaneer, slipped quietly through the Narrows and headed for the Virginia coast, towing a trim little schooner built for cruising in the shoal waters of the South.
They had scarcely put to sea when Stuart began to curse himself for being led into such a situation.
Bivens had insisted with amateurish enthusiasm that they begin the cruise on the little schooner—with her limited crew and close quarters—at once, and use the Buccaneer as her tender. The moment they struck the swell outside Sandy Hook the financier went to bed and the doctor never left his side until the trip ended.
Nan was in magnificent spirits, her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling with the joy of a child. Stuart watched her with growing wonder at her eternal youth. She was more beautiful in her stylish yachting costume than the day she landed in New York, at nineteen. There was not a line in the smooth surface of her rounded neck and shoulders.
The night was one of extraordinary springlike air though it was the fifteenth of December. A gentle breeze was blowing from the south and the full moon flooded the smooth sea with soft silvery radiance. Nan insisted that Stuart sit on deck with her. There was no help for it. Bivens would allow no one except the doctor in his room, and so he resigned himself to the beauty of the glorious scene. Not a sound broke the stillness save the soft ripple of the water about the bow of the swan-like yacht.