’My dear Smithson, you are a great authority in the City, but you are not very well up in the records of the yachting world, or you would know that your Captain Wilkinson was skipper on the Orinoco when she ran aground on the Chesil Bank, coming home from Cherbourg Regatta, fifteen lives lost, and the yacht, in less than half an hour, ground to powder.  That was rather a bad case, I remember; for though it was a tempestuous night, the accident would never have happened if Wilkinson had not mistaken the lights.  So you see his Trinity House papers didn’t prevent his going wrong.’

Good heavens!  This was the strongest confirmation of Montesma’s charge.  The man was a stupid man, an incapable man, a man to whose intelligence and care human life should never be trusted.  A fig for his honesty!  What would honesty be worth in a hurricane off the Chesil Beach?  What would honesty serve a ship spitted on the Jailors off Jersey?  Montesma was right.  If the Cayman was to make a trip to St. Malo she must be navigated by competent men.  Horace Smithson hated foreign sailors, copper-faced ruffians, with flashing black eyes which seemed to threaten murder, did you but say a rough word to them; sleek, raven-haired scoundrels, with bowie-knives in their girdles, ready for mutiny.  But, after all, life is worth too much to be risked for a prejudice, a sentiment.

Perhaps that St. Malo business might be avoided; and then there need be no change in captain or crew.  The yacht must be safe enough lying at anchor in the roadstead.  By-and-by, when the visitors had departed, and Mr. Smithson was reposefully enjoying his tea by Lady Lesbia’s side, he approached the subject.

’Do you really care about crossing to St. Malo after this—­really prefer the idea to Ryde?’

‘Infinitely,’ exclaimed Lesbia, quickly.  ’Ryde would only be Cowes ever again—­a lesser Cowes; and I thought when you first proposed it that the plan was rather stupid, though I did not want to be uncivil and say so.  But I was delighted with Don Gomez de Montesma’s amendment, substituting St. Malo for Ryde.  In the first place the trip across will be delicious’—­Lady Kirkbank gave a faint groan—­’and in the second place I am dying to see Brittany.’

’I doubt if you will highly appreciate St. Malo.  It is a town of many and various smells.’

’But I want to smell those foreign smells of which one hears much.  At least it is an experience.  We need not be on shore any longer than we like.  And I want to see that fine rocky coast, and Chateaubriand’s tomb on the what’s-its-name.  So nice to be buried in that way.’

’Then you have set your heart on going to St. Malo, and would not like any change in our plan?’

‘Any change will be simply detestable,’ answered Lesbia, all the more decidedly since she suspected a desire for change on the part of Mr. Smithson.