Before leaving Paris, Harry Hall Jr. had invited the colonel’s family to coast along the Mediterranean in his new yacht.  It was arranged that the “Hallena” should touch at Nice and take aboard the colonel’s family.  Young Mr. Hall was to rejoin his yacht at Gibraltar, and doubtless he was now aboard.

The colonel grew nervous as he observed the approach of the little boat.  It had been agreed between Harris and Hall that the yacht would fly the Union Jack at the bow, the national banner at the flag-staff, and a streamer bearing the yacht’s name at the mast-head.

As the colonel again wiped the dust from his glasses, Lucille said, “Father, please let me try the glass, perhaps my eyes are better.”  While Lucille eagerly looked toward the yacht, Leo watched every motion, as the mention of young Hall’s name in connection with his great wealth had awakened jealousy in his heart.

Suddenly Lucille shouted, “There she is!  I can see the stars and stripes; how welcome is the dear old flag, we see it abroad so rarely!”

“Hasten, Leo,” said the colonel, “and ask the hotel proprietor to raise the stars and stripes over his hotel.”

Colonel Harris had promised Mr. Hall to do this, and so advise him where the Harris family were stopping.  No sooner was the red, white, and blue given to the breeze above the hotel, than a puff of white smoke was seen on the yacht, and then came the report of a gun in response to Harris’s flag signal.  Bills were paid at once, and the Harrises took carriage down to the landing.  As the “Hallena” glided in between the piers, she was as graceful as a swan, or as Leo expressed it, “as pretty as a pirate.”

Harris himself when at home saw the yacht launched, and he was as proud of her behavior then as were the officers of the Harrisville Ship Building Company.

The yacht had now approached so near that Colonel Harris and Harry Hall saluted each other, and in five minutes the Harris and Hall parties were exchanging cordial greetings on the deck of the “Hallena.”  “Captain Hall,” as Harry was known at sea, was very cordial to all.  Colonel Harris was glad again to meet some of his old Harrisville business friends.

Luke Henley and wife were of the Hall party.  He was stout, resolute, and ambitious; his wife womanly and well dressed.  Henley early learned that money was power.  Combining what he fell heir to with his wife’s fortune, and what he had made by bold ventures in the steel, ore, and coal trade, he was enabled to live in a fine villa, overlooking the water, and to carry on an immense business on the inland lakes.

His business, however, was used as a cover to his real designs in life.  Influential in the local politics of Harrisville he had experienced the keen pleasure of wielding the silver sceptre of power, and he longed not only to be the “power behind the throne,” but to sit on the throne itself and guide the Ship of State.