Lydia took up her quarters in a quiet hotel in Nice and Mrs. Cole-Mortimer agreed to stay on and chaperon her.

Though she had felt no effects from her terrifying experience on the first day, she found herself a nervous wreck when she woke in the morning, and wisely decided to stay in bed.

Jack, who had expected the relapse, called in a doctor, but Lydia refused to see him. The next day she received the lawyer.

She had only briefly outlined the part which Marcus Stepney had played in her rescue, but she had said enough to make Jack call at Stepney's hotel to thank him in person. Mr. Stepney, however, was not at home--he had not been home all night, but this information his discreet informant did not volunteer. Nor was the disappearance of the _Jungle Queen_ noticed for two days. It was Mrs. Cole-Mortimer, in settling up her accounts with Jack, who mentioned the "yacht."

"The _Jungle Queen_," said Jack, "that's the motor-launch, isn't it? I've seen her lying in the harbour. I thought she was Stepney's property."

His suspicions aroused, he called again at Stepney's hotel, and this time his inquiry was backed by the presence of a detective. Then it was made known that Mr. Stepney had not been seen since the night of Briggerland's arrest.

"That is where they've gone. Stepney was very keen on the girl, I think," said Jack.

The detective was annoyed.

"If I'd known before we could have intercepted them. We have several destroyers in the harbour at Villafrance. Now I am afraid it is too late."

"Where would they make for?" asked Jack.

The officer shrugged his shoulders.

"God knows," he said. "They could get into Italy or into Spain, possibly Barcelona. I will telegraph the Chief of the Police there."

But the Barcelona police had no information to give. The _Jungle Queen_ had not been sighted. The weather was calm, the sea smooth, and everything favourable for the escape.

Inquiries elicited the fact that Mr. Stepney had bought large quantities of petrol a few days before his departure, and had augmented his supply the evening he had left. Also he had bought provisions in considerable quantities.

The murder was a week old, and Mr. Briggerland had undergone his preliminary examination, when a wire came through from the Spanish police that a motor-boat answering the description of the _Jungle Queen_ had called at Malaga, had provisioned, refilled, and put out to sea again, before the police authorities, who had a description of the pair, had time to investigate.

"You'll think I have a diseased mind," said Lydia, "but I hope she gets away."

Jack laughed.

"If you had been with her much longer, Lydia, she would have turned you into a first-class criminal," he said. "I hope you do not forget that she has exactly a hundred thousand pounds of yours--in other words, a sixth of your fortune."

Lydia shook her head.

"That is almost a comforting thought," she said. "I know she is what she is, Jack, but her greatest crime is that she was born six hundred years too late. If she had lived in the days o............