“Are there many people there, then?”
“I am not sure. The owners gave a big dinner party yesterday. The launch was coming and going at all hours.”
“What is that?” she asked inconsequently, indicating with a glance a small round object bobbing merrily westward some few yards away.
“It is difficult to say. Looks like a float broken loose from a fishing net,” said Warden.
“No, sir, it ain’t that,” pronounced Peter. “Nets have corks an’ buoys, an’ that ain’t neether.”
“You may think it absurd,” cried the girl, “yet I fancied just now that I caught a resemblance to a face, a distorted black face; but it has turned round.”
The boatman lay on his oars, and they all looked at the dancing yellow ball hurrying to the open sea.
“At first sight it suggests a piratical pumpkin,” said Warden.
“But I have been watching it quite a long time, and I am certain it is black on the other side. There! Surely I am not mistaken. And the people on that yacht have seen it, too.”