sea-gulls floated round our vessel, like fairy boats—­some of them rising every now and then with eager cries to wing their graceful flight high through the calm air, and alight again with a flash of silver pinions on the translucent blue.  While I stood gazing in absorbed delight at the beauty which everywhere surrounded me, Captain Derrick called to me from his little bridge, where he stood with folded arms, looking down.

“Good morning!  What do you think of the mystery now?”

“Mystery?” And then his meaning flashed upon me.  “Oh, the yacht that anchored near us last night!  Where is she?”

“Just so!” And the captain’s look expressed volumes—­“Where is she?”

Oddly enough, I had not thought of the stranger vessel till this moment, though the music sounding from her deck had been the last thing which had haunted my ears before I had slept—­and dreamed!  And now—­she was gone!  There was not a sign of her anywhere.

I looked up at the captain on his bridge and smiled.  “She must have started very early!” I said.

The captain’s fuzzy brows met portentously.

“Ay!  Very early!  So early that the watch never saw her go.  He must have missed an hour and she must have gained one.”

“It’s rather strange, isn’t it?” I said—­“May I come on the bridge?”

“Certainly.”

I ran up the little steps and stood beside him, looking out to the farthest line of sea and sky.

“What do you think about it?” I asked, laughingly, “Was she a real yacht or a ghost?”

The captain did not smile.  His brow was furrowed with perplexed consideration.

“She wasn’t a ghost,” he said—­“but her ways were ghostly.  That is, she made no noise,—­and she sailed without wind.  Mr. Harland may say what he likes,—­I stick to that.  She had no steam, but she carried full sail, and she came into the Sound with all her canvas bellying out as though she were driven by a stormy sou’wester.  There’s been no wind all night—­yet she’s gone, as you see—­and not a man on board heard the weighing of her anchor.  When she went and how she went beats me altogether!”

At that moment we caught sight of a small rowing boat coming out to us from the shore, pulled by one man, who bent to his oars in a slow, listless way as though disinclined for the labour.

“Boat ahoy!” shouted the captain.

The man looked up and signalled in answer.  A couple of our sailors went to throw him a rope as he brought his craft alongside.  He had come, so he slowly explained in his soft, slow, almost unintelligible Highland dialect, with fresh eggs and butter, hoping to effect a sale.  The steward was summoned, and bargaining began.  I listened and looked on, amused and interested, and I presently suggested to the captain that it might be as well to ask this man if he too had seen the yacht whose movements appeared so baffling and inexplicable.  The captain at once took the hint.