Hours passed, the sun flitted from east to west, and the yacht kept on her course. Tom hoped the passengers would come on deck; the thought of Elaine, especially, filled him with longing; but no one came, and the deck remained deserted. The strip of land seen from the starboard had dwindled into blue mist, and all around nothing was to be seen but sea and sky; the setting sun dyed the horizon a dark, glowing red, and there thin banks of cloud stained it with a deeper hue and ever and again with fleeting gold.
Tom grew hot all over when he heard Doctor Corman's voice quite close to him, saying:
"It was lucky that we had the 'Ariadne' to go to, otherwise we should not have been able to carry out our plans."
"You have always been a skeptic," Dixon answered. "The job is as good as finished, the plan worked like clock-work.... Now we have only to reap the reward of our labor."
They had evidently come up the gangway, for Tom not only smelt a whiff of tobacco but heard the creaking of basket-chairs and the clinking of glasses. Then there was a lull, and Torn could not resist the temptation to look over the edge of the boat.
Dixon, Corman and Ferail were comfortably installed in chairs round the table upon which bottles and glasses had been set. Dixon was rather red in the face; perhaps his dinner had been extra good, thought Tom, not without a touch of envy.
"Reward for our labor," exclaimed Dixon, with a laugh of greedy anticipation. "It was a difficult task to engineer, but with those two dolls in our hands all the rest is mere child's play."
"We shall, of course, be obliged to give up the 'Ariadne,'" said Corman. "We have left a pretty tangle behind us as it is, and, if I am not mistaken, that business of yours at Seattle will be thoroughly investigated."
Dixon again burst into a laugh. "I don't deny that I was rather too old to make a good man of business, but my last deal was certainly my best. Of course, the 'Ariadne' must be sacrificed after Thursday next, as a description of her will be wired to every port and every boat to-day or to-morrow. So far, our own wireless has not received any little greeting; but don't you worry, it is sure to come."
"That's so, but our agreement is quite clear," put in Corman.