``Why, it's the `Vesta'!'' exclaimed Hope, wonderingly.``Ithought she wasn't coming for a week?''
``It can't be the `Vesta'!'' said the elder sister; ``she was not to have sailed from Havana until to-day.''
``What do you mean?'' asked Langham.``Is it King's boat? Do you expect him here? Oh, what fun! I say, Clay, here's the `Vesta,' Reggie King's yacht, and he's no end of a sport.We can go all over the place now, and he can land us right at the door of the mines if we want to.''
``Is it the King I met at dinner that night?'' asked Clay, turning to Miss Langham.
``Yes,'' she said.``He wanted us to come down on the yacht, but we thought the steamer would be faster; so he sailed without us and was to have touched at Havana, but he has apparently changed his course.Doesn't she look like a phantom ship in the moonlight?''
Young Langham thought he could distinguish King among the white figures on the bridge, and tossed his hat and shouted, and a man in the stern of the yacht replied with a wave of his hand.
``That must be Mr.King,'' said Hope.``He didn't bring any one with him, and he seems to be the only man aft.''
They stood watching the yacht as she stopped with a rattle of anchor-chains and a confusion of orders that came sharply across the water, and then the party separated and the three men walked down the hill, Langham eagerly assuring the other two that King was a very good sort, and telling them what a treasure-house his yacht was, and how he would have probably brought the latest papers, and that he would certainly give a dance on board in their honor.
The men stood for some short time together, after they had reached the office, discussing the great events of the day, and then with cheerful good-nights disappeared into their separate rooms.