“Would you kindly give me the addresses of your three agents?  I will wait for the answer from Madeira, but I am afraid my patience will never hold out until the others can come.  It will be giving the schooner a fearfully long start as it is, and as you may suppose I shall be almost mad at having to wait and do nothing.”

The secretary wrote the three addresses, and, thanking him very warmly for his kindness and courtesy, Frank went out and despatched a telegram to the skipper, telling him to engage ten extra hands at once, and to buy muskets and cutlasses for the whole crew.

“I shall come down by the twelve o’clock train from town.  Be at the steamboat pier to meet me.  If all is ready, shall sail at once.”

Having despatched this, he drove at once to Lady Greendale’s, and told her that he had learnt that the craft in which Bertha had been carried off had sailed for the south, probably the Mediterranean, and that he should start that evening in pursuit.

“It may be a long chase, Lady Greendale, but never fear but that I will bring her back safely.  It will be for you to decide whether you will continue to remain here, or go down into the country after a time; but, of course, there is no occasion for you to make up your mind now.  I must be off at once, for I have several things to do before I catch the twelve o’clock train.”

“God bless you, Frank!” she said.  “You are looking terribly worn and fagged.”

“I shall be all right when I am once fairly off,” he said.  “I have not had an hour’s sleep for the last two nights, and not much the night before.  At first the whole thing seemed hopeless; now that I am fairly on the track and know what I have to do, I shall soon be all right again.”

“I don’t know what I should have done without you, Frank; and I do believe that you will succeed.”

“I have no doubt about it,” he said; “so keep your courage up, mother—­for you know that you are almost that to me now.”

He kissed her affectionately, and then hurried downstairs and drove to his chambers.

Here he packed a portmanteau with Indian suits and underclothing, took his pistol and rifle cases, drove to a gunmaker’s in the Strand for a stock of ammunition, called at his bank and cashed a cheque for two thousand pounds, and then drove to Waterloo.

Hawkins and George Lechmere were on the landing stage at Cowes.

“How are things going on, Hawkins?” Frank asked, as he came across the gangway.

“All right, sir.  I have had my hands pretty full, sir, since I got your second telegram.  Lechmere saw to getting the arms.  Of course, he could not help me as to hiring the hands.  I think I have got ten first-class men.  A few of the yachts have paid off already, and I know something about all of those I have engaged.  While I was ashore, the mate looked after getting on board and stowing the goods as they came alongside.”