against the perennial wood, by the side of the everlasting river, it
looked very cheap and common. But all this was by day. Now night fell
upon the poor little city and mercifully hid it from view.

They had made the start too late for hurry to be any object. It was only
a three hours' run for the _Cypriani_, but she took it slowly, using
four. At half-past six o'clock, when their destination was drawing near,
the two men went below and dined. At seven, while they were still at
table, they heard the slow-down signal, and, a moment later, the rattle
of the anchor line. Now, at quarter-past seven, Varney lounged alone by
the starboard rail and acquainted himself with the purview.

They had run perhaps quarter of a mile above the town, for reasons which
he had not communicated to the sailing-master in transmitting his
orders. One was that they might be removed somewhat from native
curiosity. The other was, they might be near the Carstairs residence,
which was up this way somewhere. So, between the yacht and the town lay
hill and wood intervening. The _Cypriani_, so to say, had anchored in
the country. Only a light glimmering here and there through the trees
indicated the nearness of man's abode.

A soporific quality lurked in the quiet solitude, and Varney, sunk in a
deck-chair, yawned. They had decided at dinner that they would do
nothing that night but go to bed, for it seemed plain that there was
nothing else to do: little girls did not ramble abroad alone after dark.
Up the companion-way and over the glistening after-deck strolled Peter,
an eye-catching figure in the flooding moonlight. For, retiring to his
stateroom from the table, he had divested himself of much raiment and
encased his figure in a great purple bathrobe. He was a man who loved to
be comfortable, was Peter. Topping the robe, he wore his new Panama.