"Take the ladies aft,—Mr. Royson,—an' let 'em choose their quarters," directed Stump curtly.
Dick would have obeyed in silence had not Miss Fenshawe thought fit to help him. She had found Mrs. Haxton's airs somewhat tiresome during the long journey from London, and she saw no reason why that lady should be so ready to bring a hornet's nest about Royson's ears.
"We are not in such a desperate hurry to bestow our belongings that you cannot read your telegram," she said to Dick. Then she favored Stump with a frank smile. "I know you mean to start almost immediately, captain, and it is possible that Mr. Royson may wish to send an answer before we leave Marseilles. You won't be angry if he waits one moment before he shows us to our staterooms?"
"Not at all, miss," said the skipper, "he's at your service. I can do without him—easy."
Stump was angry with Dick, and did not hesitate to show it. A blunt man, of plain speech, he resented anything in the nature of double-dealing. Royson's remarkable proficiency in most matters bearing on the navigation of a ship had amazed him in the first instance, and this juggling with names led him to suspect some deep-laid villainy with which the midnight attack on von Kerber was not wholly unconnected.
But the person most taken aback by Irene's self-assertion was Mrs. Haxton. A firm attitude on the girl's part came as an unpleasing novelty. An imperious light leaped to her eyes, but she checked the words which might have changed a trivial incident into a sharp tussle for supremacy.
"I am sorry," she said quietly. "Telegrams are important things, sometimes. And the messenger is waiting, too."
Thus, under the fire of many eyes, Royson tore open the petit bleu, and read its typewritten contents. The words were brief, but sufficiently bewildering:
"Better return to England forthwith. I undertake full responsibility for advice, and guarantee you against loss, Forbes."
"Forbes," undoubtedly, was his uncle's solicitor. But how was it possible that he should have discovered the name of the yacht and her port of departure? And why did he, a methodical old lawyer, not only disobey his client's strict injunctions that no help or assistance of any sort was to be given to a rebellious nephew, but ignore Dick's own wishes, and address him as Royson, not as King?