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The Golden Rock

by Ernest Glanville · English · Gutenberg #36600 · 557,599 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Golden Rock

Author: Ernest Glanville

Illustrator: Stanley L. Wood


        
Release date: July 3, 2011 [eBook #36600]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36600

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN ROCK ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Golden Rock
By Ernest Glanville
Illustrations by Stanley Wood
Published by Chatto and Windus, London.
This edition dated 1895.
The Golden Rock, by Ernest Glanville.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
THE GOLDEN ROCK, BY ERNEST GLANVILLE.



CHAPTER ONE.

A QUEER LEGACY.

Old Trader Hume was dead.

Not that he was really old when he died, but he had lived a life that
had robbed him of his youth at one end and cut off the slow decline on
the other.  At fifteen he began the career of trader and hunter; before
twenty he had been tossed by a buffalo, and broken his leg in a fall
from his horse; at twenty-five he had been twice down with the fever; at
thirty he was known as Old Hume; at fifty he had gone home to die--a man
worn, sun-dried, and scarred with many wounds.  Home to the Old Country,
the land of his parents, the land of rest and green fields that had
figured in his waking dreams, and in his lonely watches beneath the
African sky.

His mother had talked to him of the quiet village, the ivied church, the
bells, the song of the lark, and the pleasant customs of the country
folk; and his father had told him of the great cities, the roar of life,
and the silence of old ruins testifying to a mighty past; and the
untrained, toughened Colonial boy had kept before him one goal--the
hoary tower of Westminster, the green meadows, and the tuneful bells of
old England.

Well, at last he had gone home; but it was not the home of his dreams.
There were the wonderful green fields, the eloquent ruins, and a
multitude beyond expectation for number; but there was something
wanting, and the lack of it preyed upon him, hastening his end.  These
swarming men and women were not of his type.  The people in the streets
hurried along hard-eyed and absorbed; his neighbours treated his
overtures with suspicion, not understanding his familiar greeting and
his manner of going about in his shirt-sleeves, smoking strange tobacco.
He was alone in the midst of crowds, and he waited for death with the
patience of a stricken animal, while the people who understood him not
made much of an explorer recently returned, not knowing that this
weather-worn stranger who pottered about aimlessly had braved more
dangers in unexplored countries, and had, without thinking of it, opened
up more routes for the advance of commerce.  One friendship he had
formed with the son of his father's brother, his only living relative, a
boy who had been with him on his last trading trip, and whom he had sent
to Oxford to pick up the ways of men, and, perhaps, some of their
learning.  But he only saw the lad in the long vacation, and then only
for a few days, insisting that the young fellow should camp out in Wales
with some of his companions.

Now, Old Trader Hume was dead and buried, and his nephew, Francis Hume,
was alone in the old man's room, the room of a hunter filled with
trophies of the chase.

The young man was bending forward, one hand supporting his head, while
the other, dangling listlessly, held a sheet of paper.  Long he remained
so, his eyes absently fixed on the point of a curved rhinoceros' horn,
then leant back in the chair and read the contents, setting forth the
last will of his uncle.

A very short and simple document it was:

  "I, Abel Hume, commonly known as Old Hume, the Trader, leave to my
  nephew Frank all my possessions, including 275 pounds in the Standard
  Bank.  There is a map in my pocket-book drawn by myself.  That I leave
  him also, and it is my wish that he will follow the directions
  therein.  I would like him to use my double Express, and to treat it
  tenderly.  Good-bye, my lad; shoot straight, and deal straight.

  "_Signed_ Abel Hume."

"Dear old chap!" muttered Frank, with a sad smile, and again he sank
into a long reverie.

He had always thought that his uncle was a wealthy man, and, under that
impression, he had lived rather extravagantly at Oxford.  His uncle had
paid his bills, and he tried to recall if there had been, unnoticed at
the time by him, any word or sign of disapproval, but he could remember
only the dry chuckle of the hunter at some unusual entry.

"Poor old boy," he said again; "I wish he had told me.  What a lonely
time he had!"

He thought then--how could he help it?--of his own prospects, which had
lost so suddenly all the wide outlook of a happy career.

"I must give up Oxford, of course, and my friends, too, before they give
me up; but what am I to do?"  He looked around at the house, at the
trophy of assegais on the wall, at the lion's skin on the hearth, the
yellow eyes glaring, and the red mouth set in an everlasting snarl.

"I am sorry the old man came home.  He was happy there in the bush, or
on the trek.  What a life he must have led during those thirty-five
years of hunting and trading, and what yarns he did spin in the
evenings!  There was that story of the bull elephant."

He lit his pipe by instinct, and was lost in veldt and kloof among the
big game until the strange glamour of the chase, from which no man is
free, was upon him, and he was soon sitting with his uncle's favourite
rifle in his hands, examining its rich brown barrels, and the polished
stock of almost black walnut, bound about the hand-grip with the skin of
a puff-adder.  He brought the butt to his shoulders, his cheek against
the stock, and began sighting at small objects on the wall.  The gun was
heavy, but he had not been at Oxford for two years for nothing, and his
muscles were those of an athlete.

He rose up to replace the gun tenderly in its rack, and then, going to
his uncle's desk, took out the pocket-book--a much-worn leather case,
bound round with a length of braided buckskin.

Folded up in an inner pocket was a frayed piece of paper.  This he
carefully spread out on an open book, and, with a faint smile about his
lips, carefully examined the roughly-drawn outlines of river and
mountains.  This was not the first time he had seen the sketch.  His
uncle had, on his last visit, with much gravity, taken the paper from
its hiding-place, and had told the story connected with it--a story
which had impressed the young undergraduate, chiefly on account of the
moving adventures related, the real heart of the thing taking but an
insignificant place in his thoughts.

Yet he vividly remembered how the old hunter, usually so cool, had
worked himself into a pitch of excitement, and how, placing his withered
finger on one spot, he had, sinking his voice to a whisper, said
impressively:

"There, my lad, is your fortune.  Your fortune; the fortunes of a
hundred men."

What was the story?  Was there a fortune there, or had his uncle been,
like many a lonely wanderer, the victim of a hallucination?  He pored
over the map, and in imagination listened again to the slow, grave words
of the old hunter, whose eyes had flashed under the glow recalled by the
memory of that expedition.  His uncle had struck north through the
Transvaal, and after crossing the Crocodile, had turned to the east for
an unknown land, whence rumours had come of great herds of elephants.
Entering a bush country too thick for the waggon to continue, he had
gone on afoot with a score of boys for a big vlei, where there was,
indeed, a happy hunting-ground.  There, after bagging some fine tusks,
he had heard from an old black of a strange rock to the west, which
shone bright in the sun, and had struggled to reach the spot.  A week he
spent amid the tangle of reeds about the river, and in the gorges of a
wild and lofty chain of mountains; and then, one day, in the early
morning, he had, from the Place of the Eye in a singular rocky profile
of a human face, seen shine out, from the great plain below, a blaze of
light which glowed for the space of an hour while the rays were level,
and then went out.  He had seen the Golden Rock, the shining stone of
the natives, the eye of the morning, the place of bloodshed, as the old
man related, and he marked the spot where he had stood, for he could go
no further then.  Several days he had spent returning to the huts at the
vlei, where he listened much to the old man, hearing more about the
rock, and of the glistening ornaments that were made from it whenever a
new chief arose.  He learnt about the tribe who lived at the feet of the
mountains and in the great forests, and he planned how he would reach
the rock, when news came that his waggon had been burnt by the natives,
and the next day he himself was attacked.  Escaping to the river, where
he lurked in the reeds, he at last fashioned a hollow tree to his
purpose, and floated down the Limpopo, enduring twenty-five days of
fearful suffering before he reached the month, where he was picked up by
a Portuguese trader and landed at Delagoa Bay.  In that trip he had lost
everything--waggon, oxen, ivory, skins and stores, and before he could
plan another expedition to the mysterious rock he felt he had entered
the shadows, and the craving for the home of his forefathers would not
be denied.

"My lad, that is your fortune.  I have seen it, and you must find it.
Will you promise?"

"Yes, uncle, I promise," Frank had said, laughing at what he thought was
a joke.

"That's all right," the old hunter had replied.  "When a Hume makes a
promise he means to keep it--or die."

Frank now remembered those words and all they implied, and they spoke to
him now with greater force than when he had heard them.

He had made a promise, carelessly, not knowing what he said, just to
humour his uncle.  Nevertheless he had given his word.  Was he bound to
keep it?  Well for that matter, he was a Hume.

Taking an atlas from the shelf, he studied the East Coast of Africa, and
the course of the Limpopo from its mouth.  As far as his uncle had
drawn, his sketch tallied with the map, and so exactly indeed that he
must have filled in the original rough draft from the printed map.

Folding up the much-creased paper with a sigh, he paced up and down the
room, tugging at his moustache, a blank look on his manly face.
Suddenly stopping opposite a mirror, and seeing his reflection, he broke
into a loud laugh.

"Hang it! what a brute I am!  But it's too absurd, this legacy of a
Golden Rock which does not exist.  Well, at any rate, I can use up the
bank balance in making a hunting trip to the spot, and after that--"

He shrugged his shoulders, and went out to see about executing the will.



CHAPTER TWO.

A MYSTERY.

Frank Hume had some of that tenacity of purpose which had made his uncle
a successful hunter and Kaffir trader.  He saw plainly enough the
quixotic side of the quest to which he was committed, but he was not one
of those who ask, "Is it worth while?" and "Where is the good?" if
confronted with any undertaking not obviously practical.

The Golden Rock had taken no hold on his imagination.  It was no bright
spot glowing, like a beacon in a dark night, out of the dim future, but
itself merely a dim and shadowy token representing and explaining the
duty he owed to the dead man's whim.  He would go to the locality, and
then let events shape his career to any rough-and-ready pattern, even to
that of the hard life of a hunter.  Having made up his mind, he set
about his preparations carefully, shaking off his extravagant university
habits, and keeping an eye to economy in small things to make the most
of his little store of money.

In one important respect he was admirably fitted for a life of hardship.
Though of average height, he was uncommonly deep in the chest and broad
across the shoulders, and possessed a stock of bone and muscle upon
which he could safely depend.  His head was well set on, with a marked
tilt of the chin that gave him an air of watchfulness, and this aspect
was heightened by a pair of steady blue eyes.

Within a week he had settled his affairs and was ready to take the first
outward-bound vessel, limiting his choice to a sailing-ship, for time
was of no particular object, while money and the saving of it was of
first importance.  He had even seen the skipper of a four-masted iron
clipper with the view of working his passage out, but the skipper had
received his overture with an explosion.  "No more swab-fisted gentlemen
lubbers for me.  They're worse than an old maid with a family of cats,
and not so useful.  Have a drink?"  They had a drink, and the rejected
volunteer walked homewards in the evening, stopping on the Embankment to
look on the dark river which was soon to carry him down to the salt
waters.

As he leant there with his elbows on the granite coping, he heard the
sound of oars, and presently made out the blurred outline of a boat, and
a streak of white about its bows where the strong tide opposed its rush
to the exertions of the labouring oarsmen.  There were two of these, and
Frank could see that they were not pulling together, while the bow oar
was weaker than the stroke.  The boat scarcely gained a foot against the
tide, but, instead, moved sideways at every savage pull by stroke.

"Put your weight into it, man," growled stroke.

"I can't.  I'm dead beat," gasped the other.

"Look out!" shouted Frank, "you'll be into the steps."

Stroke looked sharply to the right, threw out a hand to keep the boat
off the granite, then, as she was swept back, caught fast hold of an
iron ring, while the bow oarsman sighed audibly and set to rubbing his
arms.

"You're a pretty sort of fellow, you are--as soft as butter.  What the
deuce did you say you could row for?"

"Who can pull against this flood?  Look here!"  Bow leant over,
thrusting his hand into the dark waters, which foamed against the
obstruction.

"What are we to do now?"

"Wait till the ebb, I suppose; or get a ferryman to row us."

"Ferryman be damned.  If we wait for the ebb we'll not get out before
daylight."

Frank went round to the opening in the Embankment, and walked down the
steps.

"Can I be of any use?" he said.

"Yes, you can, by taking yourself off," was the surly rejoinder from
stroke.

"Nonsense!  Don't go, sir.  Can you row?"

"I think so."

"I don't want you to think.  I thought I could row until I met this
infernal tide."

"Well, I can row against tide, or with it."

"Step right in, then."

"Man, you're mad!" sharply interposed stroke.  The two whispered
together for a few minutes, then bow suavely spoke:

"My friend would be glad of your help, but he rather doubts your
discretion.  We are engaged in no nefarious designs, but at the same
time we don't want to be talked of."

"I think," said Frank, with a laugh, "you may trust me, especially as
you have already given yourself away.  There would be nothing to prevent
my calling the attention of a policeman to your condition, you know."

"Jump in," said stroke quickly.

Bow crawled aft to take the tiller, and Frank stepped lightly into the
boat.

"Take her through the second arch, and then keep over to the Surrey
side, when you will shoot us through the end arch of London Bridge, and
by the fleet of barges.  She lies just beyond."

"They are evidently making for a ship of some sort," was Frank's mental
reflection on the reference to "she," but he was next moment bending to
his oar, his eyes fixed on the broad back before him, and his soul bent
upon holding his own.

For a moment the boat had swept back with the tide, then as the oars
dipped in she stood still to their tug, hung a moment, then crept on
with slowly-increasing speed--under Waterloo Bridge, past the railway
bridge, then across to the Surrey side, and, with a hard struggle, down
under London Bridge and into the Pool, close in the shadow of a number
of barges.

"Do you see her?" asked stroke, with a gasp.

"Pull on," said the cox.  "So--steady, stroke--pull, bow--easy."

The boat scraped alongside a low craft, and cox held on to a rope
ladder.

"How do you feel?" asked stroke, turning his head.

"Pretty well baked," said Frank; "and you?"

"I'm worked to a cast-iron finish.  Give me the painter--thanks.  Now,
up you go."

Without more ado, Frank climbed up the ladder to a narrow deck, where he
stood holding to a light rail.  The two men were quickly by his side,
one of them securing the boat.

"This way."

They went forward to a deck-house, and descended a companion-way to a
small saloon, where one of them struck a match, and lit a suspended
lamp.

"Let's have a look at you!" and the man who had pulled stroke, standing
himself in the shade, threw the light full on Frank's face, while the
second man closed the door and stood with his back to it.

"That will do."

"Pardon me," said Frank, stung by this ungracious treatment; "it is my
turn now."

Quickly steadying the lamp, he directed the light on the other's face,
revealing a pair of fierce black eyes, and a face thickly bearded.

"Stop that, or I'll--" He put his hand to his pocket with a threatening
action.

"Leave him alone, Captain.  Upon my word, he has served you well in your
own coin;" and the other man stepped forward, placing a hand lightly on
Frank's shoulder, whereat the latter, finding he was in queer company,
stepped back.

"Don't start, sir; there is nothing to fear."

"I think there is," said Frank; "so please keep your distance, or,
better still, stand aside, as I should like to get out of this."

"Of course you would, but--and I hate to tell you after what you have
done--we can't afford to let you go."

"Afford, that's not the word.  We won't let you go, mate."

"I'll see about that," shouted Frank, at the same time hurling one man
aside, and, seizing the handle, which came off to his furious tug,
leaving the door still fast closed.  Turning, he hurled the brass knob
at the black-bearded man, but it missed the mark, and went with a crash
through a glass door beyond.

Next moment he was looking into the dark muzzle of a revolver, held very
straight in the brawny hand of the Captain, whose black eyes wore a very
ugly look.

"Put that pistol down," rang out in tones of suppressed passion.

The door stood open, and a tall girl in black swept in.

Her dark eyes, flashing from a face of unusual pallor, dwelt a moment on
the three figures, the one huddled on the floor, the others facing each
other.

"What does this mean, Captain Pardoe?" she asked haughtily, "and who is
this stranger?"

Frank raised his hat.  "For my part in this disturbance I heartily
apologise, but I must say, and these gentlemen will bear me out, that my
intrusion was not of my seeking."

She inclined her head slightly, then turned to the second man, who had
risen, looking uncomfortable at having been found in a humiliating
position.

"Since Captain Pardoe cannot speak, perhaps you will have the goodness
to explain, Mr Commins."

"It is this way, Miss Laura!" blurted the Captain; "this young fellow
knows too much."

"Excuse me," said Frank, "I know nothing except that I helped to row you
here, and you wished to detain me."

"Allow me to explain," said Mr Commins, interposing with a wave of his
hand.  "The tide was against us, and I was unequal to the work.  This
young man kindly offered his help, and we accepted, but thinking it
would be inadvisable to let him return, we felt it best to detain him,
and if he had not been in such a hurry to put us down as thieves or
cut-throats, and to act with unnecessary violence on that supposition,
matters could have been amicably settled."

"At the muzzle of a pistol," said Frank dryly.

"I think you might have managed without help," said the young lady
coldly.  "It is most vexing, and such a beginning bodes ill for the
undertaking."

"You need be under no uneasiness.  We can easily detain him."

"I object," said Frank hotly.

Captain Pardoe lifted his weapon.

"Give me that pistol, sir," said the young lady imperiously, and the
Captain reluctantly handed it over.  "I regret very much that we should
place you under restraint, sir; but there are interests at stake more
important than considerations of mere personal convenience.  I'm afraid
you must be our guest for a few days."

"We can put him ashore at Madeira, Miss Laura," said the Captain.

"At Madeira," said Frank, earnestly gazing at the splendid eyes and
superb figure of this masterful young lady.

"We will do our best to entertain you in the meanwhile," she said, with
a sudden dazzling smile, "and, perhaps, you will even forgive us for
this unmannerly and ungrateful return for your kindness."

As he caught the dazzle of her smile he determined upon his course,
especially as the trip to Madeira would advance him on his voyage.

"I am willing," he replied, "to take an enforced passage, provided you
allow me to get my baggage."

"That means going ashore?"

"Not necessarily; for upon a note from me to the landlady of my rooms
the things would be given up."

"We have no time to spare, Miss Laura," said Captain Pardoe.

"It is necessary for me to go ashore," she answered, "for a few minutes.
Where are your rooms?"

"Off the Temple--in York street."

"I think I will trust you," she said, giving her hand, which Frank
warmly clasped, the spell of her beauty being full upon him.

Within an hour they were all back on the ship, and as Big Ben struck out
the hours of midnight the vessel slowly crept down the river.



CHAPTER THREE.

A WILD RUSH.

Hume was immediately shown into a tiny box of a cabin and the door
locked upon him, an indignity that roused him to wrath, so that he
banged against the frail panels with his fist.

"Look here," said a deep voice from the alley, "if you don't stow that
sharp I'll clap you in irons."

"Leave him to me, Captain, and go on the bridge.  Now, sir, will you
oblige me by keeping silence for a few hours?"

Frank recognised the speaker by the rich tones, and immediately was
pacified.

"If you wish it, I will; but please unlock the door."

"Give me your promise that you won't make any disturbance."

"I promise."

"Thank you."  She turned the key, and then he heard the rustle of her
dress as she quickly moved away.

He stood looking at the handle for some moments, then sat on the bunk,
with the feeling strongly rooted that he was in for some dark
enterprise; but his mind dwelt less on this than on the stately figure
and beautiful face of this strange girl, whose strong character had been
so forcibly shown.

Who could she be, and what was she doing there--one woman with several
men, and men evidently lawless?  Already he longed for the hour when he
could see her again, and once more hear her voice, and the remarkable
and sudden change in the steady current of his life troubled him not at
all.

But presently his natural caution overmastered the swift-born
infatuation which had threatened to make a slave of him, and he roused
himself to take a survey of the little cabin.  This, though small,
contained two bunks, was plainly fitted and strongly built.  The
port-hole, he noticed by the dim light, was protected by an inner sheet
of steel.  This he unscrewed, and opening, too, the round glass, he
framed his face in the brass-rimmed circle.  The boat was slipping along
down the dark river at medium speed, the regular beat of her engines
sounding very distinctly in the still night, and her track stretching in
a ghostly gleam, unbroken by any other craft.  By craning his neck, he
noticed that she seemed very low in the water, and of unusual length,
and he was puzzled to place her in any category of cargo or passenger
steamers, finally coming to the conclusion that she was one of those
long, swift tugs he had sometimes seen ploughing up the river with a
string of coal barges in tow; a boat probably built for narrow channels,
and to pass under low bridges.

"She's not built for the ocean," he mused, "and when we get into the Bay
she'll play pitch-and-toss, I'll be bound."

Suddenly, quite near, Captain Pardoe spoke:

"Forrard, there!"

"Ay, ay, sir."

"Do you see the Hospital ship?"

"We'll pass her at the next bend, sir."

"Put the lights out as soon as you see her.  Who have you got in the
bows?"

"Dick, the Owl," said the officer, with a slight laugh.

"That will do.  Aft there, stand by the wheel."

"Ay, ay, sir," came in muffled reply.

"We won't steer her from the bridge, madam," said the Captain, "all the
lights must be out, and the orders passed by mouth."

"Do you think they'll challenge us?" spoke the young lady, her voice
sounding so near that Frank involuntarily drew back his head.

"They'll speak us, but we'll get through right enough.  If there's any
trouble it'll be off Sheerness."

"Why there?"

"They'll wire to the coastguard, and they'll signal the guardship."

"That's a man-of-war, isn't it?"

"She is that, miss, but she'll not fire, I hope; and we'll slip by
before she's rubbed her eyes.  There are the lights of Gravesend, and
isn't that something black ahead under the bank?  You won't go below, I
s'pose, Miss Laura?"

"No, Captain Pardoe; I will stop here."

Suddenly the glare over the bows from the forward lamps died out, there
was a sharp ring of the engineer's bell, a sound of men in hot haste
thrusting at the fires, and the vessel began to quiver and vibrate to
the beat of vast engines working faster and faster.

There was a rush of wind on Frank's face, the dark objects on the shore
swiftly receded into the general blur, and the water foamed up at the
bows and fell away in curling waves.

"Are all the lights out, Mr Webster?"

"Yes, sir; all but a light from a starboard port."

"It's that swab of a passenger," growled the Captain; "I'll have him
tied to his bunk."

Frank, warned that he was guilty of some unpardonable indiscretion,
crawled down from the top bunk, and had just reached the floor, when the
handle turned, there was a quick step, a rustle, and the light was
switched off, not before he had seen the dark eyes flashing in
resentment.

"If you behave in this way, sir, I'll not stand between you and
discipline."

"Really, I did not know I was doing anything wrong."

"Shut the port-hole," she said sharply.

He turned to obey with a frown of protest, when, seemingly not a yard
off, there flamed the lights of a ship's cabin.

"Where are you coming to, you lubber?" shouted out a voice furiously.

There was a jar, an ugly tearing noise, and Frank and the young lady
were thrown at each other.

"I beg your pardon, really," said Frank, as he loosened his hold of her
waist; "but I could not help myself."

She stood back with a gasp.  "Did you see that?  Has she sunk?"

The reply came from the angry officer of the other vessel in a torrent
of language reassuring as to her safety, but venomously strong.

The lights of another ship flashed by; then the steamer darted into the
narrow fairway between a fleet of vessels, big and little, the waves
washing against them, and bringing up an angry swarm of men, whose
shouts could be heard in a confused babble in the rear.

"What ship's that?" hailed a man in powerful tones.

There was no answer, and Frank felt a hand on his arm.

"We are the Customs--where are your lights?" followed in a faint hail
astern.

"Thank Heaven, we are past Gravesend.  Now, sir, you may have your light
again."

She pressed the button, and the electric light shone over her lustrous
hair, revealing a sparkle in her glorious eyes and a flush on her
cheeks.

Frank looked at her, and forgot everything in amazement at her beauty.

"I dare say," she said, with a faint smile, "you are wondering who we
are?"

"I don't know," said he, "and I don't care, so long as I"--he meant to
add--"am with you," but he paused in time at the hint of a haughty
surprise in her eyes.

She looked at him steadily a moment with a glance that implied some new
interest, then, once more switching off the light, went out without a
word, closing the door behind her.

He listened and heard her voice on deck, when he again framed his face
in the port-hole.

The bow lights had been relit, and the ship had slackened something of
her tremendous speed.

"I wish to Heaven," said the Captain, "those funnels would not draw so
well.  Just look at that shower of sparks; they'll give notice of our
coming."

"Why not slacken speed until you are close on the guardship?"

"That'll give 'em more time to prepare for us, but it's the best thing
to do."

Then followed a sharp signal to the engineer, and the speed was still
further decreased.

"Mr Webster, was she damaged at all by that brush?"

"Just a dent, sir; but she's all sound below."

"Douse the lights again.  We'll keep close in on the port tack.  Keep
your eye on the Kent shore, and tell the watch to be on the lookout for
the guardship."

For some time the ship slipped along through the dark waters without
another word being spoken.

"There's the signal, sir," sang out a voice, breaking in on the silence.
A rocket mounted afar off.

"Ay, I see it.  It's as I feared.  They've alarmed the guardship, and'll
be sending a boat to her.  Suppose they catch us, madam, what yarn will
you spin?"

"They must not catch us."

"They may open fire."

"Whether they fire or not, we must get through.  Couldn't we open fire,
too?"

Captain Pardoe laughed.

"We must depend on our heels, Miss Laura.  If it came to knocks, the
guardship would blow us out of the water."

"How annoying!" was the truly feminine reply--a reply so inappropriate
that even Frank smiled, while Captain Pardoe chuckled audibly.

"Understand, Captain," she continued imperiously, "I will not be
captured, nor the ship, not if they have to blow it up."

"Ah, see that?"

A shaft of light shot into the sky, then dropped to the water and swept
swiftly from right to left.

"It's the search-light.  The guardship is looking for us.  Mr Webster,
step down to the engineer and tell him we'll want every pound of steam
he can give us when I signal him.  We must get twenty-seven knots out of
her."

"Twenty-seven knots," thought Frank.  "What ship can this be?"  The
cabin seemed to grow unbearable as his excitement increased, and if
danger was to be encountered his place was by the side of this girl whom
Fate had thrown in his path.

Again the shaft of light, broadening from its base, shot out into the
darkness, and swept the water to its outermost fringe, where the gleam
mingled with the black night, reaching a few lengths ahead, where it
outlined a bare pole on the bank.

"Port your helm; put her over to the Kent shore," the Captain ordered
with lowered voice.

The vessel came round, and made across to the other bank.

The search-light swept round again, just as the vessel was near the
right bank, and the light shone over the deck, lighting up every detail,
before it passed on.

"Astern--full speed astern," roared the Captain down the speaking-tube;
"starboard your helm; bring her up on the old course."

The vessel backed out as the search-light flew back to the place she had
occupied, and then swiftly made over to the Essex shore, and at another
signal from the bridge darted into the shelter of the night.

Frank could hold himself no longer, but flung open the door, and after
groping about in the saloon, found the companion-way to the deck.  There
was a broad white belt of light on his right, but all around and ahead
was darkness, intensified by the brightness so near.

"They'll find us in a minute," spoke the Captain, and Frank, turning,
saw dimly two figures on a bridge just ahead of two singularly low
funnels, from which poured dense volumes of smoke.

The shaft of light played about the further shore, swept out slowly to
mid-stream, then swept back again.

"Stand by, Mr Dixon," said the Captain, down the tube.

The guardship could now be dimly seen behind that glittering eye--a
blurr of spars and funnels about a mile up stream.

The light crept over the dark river in a broad track of gleaming silver,
came slowly nearer, then, in a blinding flash, shone over the vessel,
lighting up every man as he stood at his post, and bringing out the
girl's face in a startling pallor.

The bell sounded its sharp order, the engines answered quicker and
quicker, and the long, narrow ship seemed to leap forward, sending up a
shower of water, which sparkled in the light, and came aft like rain.
On she rushed--the flames springing from her funnels--the whole frame
and body of her vibrating, and the water hissing and splashing before
her bows and in her wake.

A ball of white smoke, which for a moment dimmed the flaming light,
belched from the warship, followed at fully half a minute by the sullen
boom.

"That's by way of formal notice," said the Captain; "by-and-by she'll
send a sharper summons; better go below, Miss Laura."

"I will stay here," she answered quietly.

The small ship was now abreast of the man-of-war, which had changed its
course and was steaming slowly ahead.  On the left were the lights of
Southend, far ahead the revolving lights of the Nore lightship, and on
the port bows was the black hull and green and red lights of a huge
steamer.

"That's a stroke of luck," said the Captain.  "We'll get on the blind
side of that ship, and that bulldog daren't show his teeth until we're
well clear both of Southend and the steamer."

The man-of-war fired another blank charge, but the long, low vessel
darted along, shifting her course until she came under the bows of the
big ocean steamer.

The search-light, however, soon picked her up beyond, and a minute after
there was another report, followed this time by the shrill scream of a
shell, than which there are few sounds more threatening.  The shot flew
high, plunging with a splash far on the port side.

"They cannot hit us, Captain Pardoe, and we are rapidly leaving them."

"They are not trying, Miss Laura.  That was just by way of being more
peremptory.  In ten minutes we'll be beyond reach of their light, and
then there'll be another spell of safety, unless we are sunk.  Hullo,
here comes another."

There was another sullen roar, and the gunner had determined on a closer
call, for the ball touched the water not a hundred yards off, then
ricocheted to the Essex coast.

"The next one will have us," growled the Captain.

"Steamer's lights ahead!  Starboard bow!" hailed the lookout.

Eyes were taken off the following man-of-war, and strained into--the
darkness ahead, out of which presently there stood two lights.

"She's near us, Mr Webster, and thank your stars for a sound berth
to-night for that.  We'll slip by on the port, and then get away under
her bulk.  Do you think they see her?"

"No, sir; but the steamer 'll make the cruiser see her.  She must be in
a rare state.  Ah! there goes a rocket."

High into the black heavens ahead went a ball of fire, which presently
curved over and burst in a shower of blue.

"Looks like a navy signal, sir?"

"Very like.  If she is, we're caught hard and fast."

"There's an answer from the warship, sir," said Frank, who had turned
his eyes aft.

"I wish I understood the game," growled the Captain, banging his fist on
the bridge rail.  "Oh, she means it this time!"

A red tongue of flame leapt out, a great volume of white smoke; the
shot, keeping low, struck the water up, and then there was a loud crash,
followed by the whir of splinters.

Frank saw the dark figure at the wheel suddenly sink to the deck, and
without losing a moment he bounded down the narrow deck, seized the
handle as the wheel was beginning to revolve, and brought it round.

"She's paying off.  What in thunder's up with the wheel?" roared the
Captain.  "Mr Webster, take two men aft.  Starboard your helm."

Frank put his weight in, and with every sinew straining, brought the
vessel round, just as, like a runaway horse that takes the bit in its
iron jaws, she had threatened to come broadside on.

"What's wrong here?" panted Mr Webster anxiously, as he reached the
wheel.

"Steersman hit," said Frank shortly; "carry him off.  I'll manage this."

Mr Webster groped for the wounded man, drew him away, and then paused
to look up, for they were passing the vessel whose lights they had seen.
She was scarcely making any way, and the bulwarks were lined with pale
faces, among them those of many women.

"Thank Heaven, she's no cruiser; hurrah, boys, hurrah!"

The few hands took up the cheer, and the people on the deck above,
relieved from some nameless fear at seeing the dark ship slipping away,
responded with a feeble shout; the captain, from his lofty bridge,
sending a call through his hollow hands: "What's the meaning of this
foolery?"

"Ask the guardship," bellowed Captain Pardoe; "a little target practice.
Good-bye."

The little ship plunged into the welcome darkness, still maintaining her
terrific speed, and the search-light could not reach her.

Then the lights were lit, the wounded man carried below, and an
inspection made of the ship, when it was found that the iron bulwarks
had been pierced a little forward of the wheel.

"Send the steersman forward!" shouted the Captain.

Frank was relieved, and walked to the bridge.

"What's your name, my man?"

"Hume."

"What--the passenger?  I gave orders to have you locked in.  Never mind
that, sir; you did well, and I'm much obliged to you.  You're welcome to
the run of the ship.  That was a close shave, eh?  If it hadn't been for
the mercy of that steamer we'd have been five fathoms under.  You'd
better turn in now."

Frank lingered awhile to see whether the lady would appear, and then
went down below, where he saw her leaning, as it were, for support
against a saloon pillar, a handkerchief pressed to her forehead.

"It has been a trying night," he said gently.

"You had no right to leave your cabin," she replied--then swiftly
disappeared.

Frank looked down the narrow gangway, heard the bang of her door, and,
with his head up, and feeling mightily offended, entered his own tiny
cabin.

"She might have been civil, at least," he muttered.



CHAPTER FOUR.

A STRANGE CRAFT.

Hume had been to the Cape and back; he had also tossed about off the
Bristol Channel in a small yacht; but before morning he learnt that the
ocean could play more tricks with a ship than he had ever dreamt of in
the wildest tossing.  He was sleeping on the top bunk, for the sake of
the breeze from the open port, and was early awakened by a dream, in
which, with the thunder of waters in his ears, he had gone head foremost
down a cascade.

Had it been a dream?  He sat up, knocking his head against the roof, and
in his ears there was the same terrific roar, with a splashing sound,
and an unmistakable feeling of dampness.  A desperate lurch made him
cling to the brass rail; then, as the port dipped, he saw the sky-line
obscured by a moving wall, and was almost washed away by a belching
funnel of cold water that boomed on to the floor, and rushed over his
cabin, taking with it every movable object.  As the ship heeled over he
struggled, soaked and shivering, with the brass hinge of the
port-window, which he thrust in and held there until the ship rolled
under again.  With the backward swing he worked the screw in, then
lurched out from his sodden bed to the floor, inches deep in water, when
he groped for the switch and turned on the electric light.  His
portmanteau coming swiftly out from under the lower bunk, carried him
off his feet, and then bounded over his body, while his gun-case rammed
him viciously in the ribs.

Staggering up, he clambered into the lower bunk, and spent an awful hour
of misery with a babel of sounds racking his brain, and every possible
motion threatening dislocation to his body.  The small bunk was too
large for him.  He could not brace himself tight; but, like a pea in a
drum, was rattled from side to side and top to bottom, his head at one
time threatening to fly off as the bows dipped; his body sinking with
the most sickening desire to part with his head as the stern went under,
and his arms, legs, and head flopping about hopelessly to each dizzy
roll.

Then between, and coming through every motion, was the jarring of the
screw as the stern was lifted up--a most soul-disturbing sensation,
enough in itself to unsettle the innermost lashings, the smallest nerves
and sinews of the body.

"What the devil possesses the ship?" thought Frank, in a state of feeble
protest against this indignity of sea-sickness that held him in its
clammy grasp.  "Hulloa!" he groaned, as he heard someone staggering
along the alley-way.

The door was opened, and the new-comer dived in to the roll of the ship
as though he were violently impelled from the rear, ending up by
stumbling over the gun-case.

"That's the fifty-seventh time I've been knocked off my pins within an
hour by this infernal buck-jumper.  What have you been doing, messmate;
taking a shower-bath?"  And Mr Webster, the speaker, with a humorous
twinkle in his eyes, sat down on the edge of the bunk and laughed till
the tears ran down his cheeks.

Frank turned his head with a look of disgust, but the ship, pitching and
rolling at the same moment, sent him and his bedclothes in a heap to one
end of the bunk.

"God forgive me," said the officer, making futile attempts to keep his
feet out of the water; "but you're a most dismal object."

"What's the matter with the ship?" growled Frank.

Webster opened his mouth to laugh, but a vicious lurch banged his head
against the iron side of the cabin.

"Ship, do you call it?" he cried.  "Why, 'tis nothing but a steel tube
with an engine in it, and there's not a ship afloat that would not ride
over this sea without a heave."

"Isn't it rough, then?"

"Man, we're just in the Channel, with a cross current and the apology
for a ripple, but this devil of a sawn-off scaffold-pole just wallows in
it like a porpoise.  Come up on deck, and you'll blush with shame to
think you should have gone under to such little waves, scarce big enough
to wet the frills of a Brighton beach-wader."

As if to belie this imputation of mildness, a sea came on board with a
crash and rushed along the deck with an angry swirl, making noise enough
to spur Frank on to make an effort.

"That's right," said Webster, taking him by the arm.  "Now come and have
a nip and a bite."  Together they rolled out of the cabin and down the
alley to the officers' box, where Hume duly swallowed a stiff glass of
grog, and was suited with a shiny covering of oilskin overalls.  Then,
holding on to anything that came handy, they clambered on deck, where
the keen morning air very soon dispelled the nausea contracted in the
stuffy cabin.

It was a brilliant morning, with wisps of wind-lashed clouds scurrying
across the clear blue sky, and a buoyant property in the salt-laden air
that brightened the eyes.  It had brought a flush to the cheeks of the
lady, whose figure, clad in oils, had been the first thing to catch and
hold Frank's gaze.  She stood on the low bridge, holding with both hands
to the rail, her feet braced and her body bending to the dips and roll
of the steamer with a grace that even the heavy tarpaulin could not
hide.  The spray which came aft in a white and gleaming drizzle
glistened on her covering, and ever and again with a low laugh she would
bend her head to an unusually heavy gust of wet tossed up by the
plunging bows of the steamer.

"Isn't she a beauty!" growled Webster, brushing his hand across his eyes
to wipe away the drops.

"She is, indeed!" murmured Frank.  "May I ask who she is?"

Webster followed his companion's gaze, and led him forward.  "I'm not
talking of her," he said, dropping his voice; "and you'd best leave her
out of your thoughts, young fellow.  It's this craft I mean; this
narrow-gutted rib of a steel monument, that's fit for nothing but to be
stuck on end with a lamp in its stern, when it would make a good
lighthouse.  Ugh! the brute.  See her bury her nose in that sea like a
pig in a mash-tub."

This wave was a gentle swell of dull green, covered with a lace-like
tracing of air bubbles in round patches of white, and the top of it
fringed with a line of hissing foam.  A lumbering coal-ship would have
ridden over it without wetting her eye-holes, but this strange craft,
with a snort, leapt into the very heart of it, tossing up a column of
spray, while the divided sea swelled up to the gunwales and foamed along
the side with ripping noise, and went aft in a swirl of eddying
whirlpools.

"Tell me," said Webster, flicking the wet from his sou'wester, "what
sort of a ship she is."

Frank, standing wide on the slippery deck, cast his eyes fore and aft
with growing wonder at the long, narrow shape of her, at the inward
slope of her heavy bulwarks, at the wide, short funnels and sharp bows.

"I can't liken her to anything but a wasp or a shark," said he, "there's
such a vicious air about her."

"Ay, she carries a sting in her tail and a devilish set of teeth.  She's
ugly as a shark, and as narrow and vicious as a wasp.  Well, what is
she?"

"She's a deuced bad sea boat, anyhow," said Frank, as the deck suddenly
sloped away at a fearful angle.  "Is she a yacht?"

"You've hit it first shot.  She's a yacht--that's what she is--a nice
pleasure-boat for ladies and children, with engines strong enough to get
twenty-seven knots out of her, and steel frame like a man-o'-war.
What's that you're leaning against?"

"A ship's boat, I suppose, covered with tarpaulin."

"Right again, sir; that's the yacht's dinghy, fitted with velvet
cushions.  Take a peep."

Frank looked under the tarpaulin, and saw the vast butt and machinery of
a gun.

"That's the yacht's popgun, a four-inch quick-firing toy," and Webster's
jolly face broke into a grin.

"She's not a yacht, then?"

"Lord, how fresh you are!  She's no more a yacht than a bull-terrier is
a pet pug--she's a torpedo-catcher.  Do you mean to say you had no
suspicion when that ironclad opened fire on us last night?"

"I knew there was something dark afoot.  A torpedo-catcher!  Is this the
_Swift_, the boat that was seized by the Customs authorities last week,
on the suspicion that she had been bought for the rebel fleet at Rio de
Janeiro?"

"The same, my boy; and seeing that you took an active part in her
escape, it wouldn't be safe for you to talk about this adventure.
You've committed high treason, or some offence as bad, and would to a
dead certainty be drawn and quartered."  Here Webster broke into another
fit of laughter, ending up by smacking Frank on the back.  "You're in
the same boat as we are, and if she doesn't drown you, or roll you
overboard, or knock your brains out, you may live to be shot."

"Many thanks," said Frank, with an answering smile.  "And what fate is
reserved for you?"

"Oh, as for me, I'll die of a falling chimney.  You feel better now,
don't you?"

"Thanks to your cheerful predictions."

"Then come and report yourself to our chief, and harkee, you'll be
offered a billet as captain of the cook's galley.  Take my advice, and
accept it; it's comforting, sustaining, and by far the safest place in
the ship."

They went aft, now breasting the slanting deck as the bows dipped, now
bending back to the answering lift, and came up to the bridge, where the
Captain gave them a surly nod, and the lady flashed a smile on them.

"The new hand, mam, come to report himself.  I found him afloat in his
cabin with a feeling that he was an empty nothing, but he is better
now," and Webster turned a perfectly grave face upon Hume, his voice
expressing the deepest sympathy.

"I am indebted to Mr Webster for his kindness, but he is premature in
classing me as a new hand."

"If you will come up here, Mr --"

"Hume," said Frank briefly, filling up the pause.

"Mr Hume, you may talk with less discomfort."

Webster, with a whispered word to Frank to "come off his stilts,"
lurched to the chart-room, and Frank, with a feeling of resentment at
the girl's cold speech, mounted the steps to the bridge, where he waited
with what patience he could muster until she chose to take her gaze off
the sea, which she did presently, turning her magnificent eyes, and
letting them dwell on his face in a calm scrutiny.

"Did Mr Webster tell you," she asked in slow, formal speech, "that I
had an offer to make?"

"He did suggest that I might hope for a berth in the cook's galley."

She did not smile at this as a man would have done, but frowned
slightly.  "I am--rather, the ship is--short-handed, and I wish you to
take your turn in the officers' watch."

"But, Miss--" Here he paused with an inquiring look at her.

"You can call me madam," she said.

He bowed, with a smile at her composure.  "I am obliged for your
confidence in me; but I am not competent to fill a responsible place."

"You showed yourself last night equal to an emergency," was the quick
reply.

"Anyone could have done as well.  But, madam, even if I were competent,
I am not sure I could give my services unless I were satisfied as to the
nature of the enterprise upon which this warship is embarked."

She threw her head back with a haughty toss, and with a ring in her
voice, replied: "I am not at liberty to satisfy your curiosity."

"Pardon me," he continued quietly, though his cheeks flushed, "I do not
wish to pry into your secrets, but it is impossible for me to act in
this matter blindfold, especially as I am not here of my own free will."

"Then you refuse to help me?"

"I would help you willingly," he replied eagerly, "if you tell me I can
do so without hurt to my conscience or my country."

"I will give you no assurance whatever.  Do you, or do you not, accept
my offer?" she said imperiously.

"No, madam, I cannot."

"Then go back to your cabin; I will take the watch myself."  She turned
away with an angry glow in her dark eyes, and he, after pausing awhile,
slowly descended to the deck.



CHAPTER FIVE.

DOWN THE CHANNEL.

"Well, shipmate," said Webster, coming out of the chart house, "have you
been promoted from the saloon to the bridge, passing over the cook on
the way, just after the old style when a lord-in-waiting, who did not
know a brig from a bumboat, was appointed admiral?  No apprenticeship,
no navigation, no examination, but an order from the Commodore: `Mr
Hume, sir, please take the third watch.'"

"No," was the gloomy response; "I could not accept."

"You swab!  You mean to tell me you've declined to help the Commodore?"

"I presume you refer to the young lady?"

"Presume be damned.  Have you no eyes, man, no gallantry; can you stand
by and see a girl like that eat her heart out with sorrow and anxiety?
Not that I care a brass button whether you help or not, for double work
doesn't hurt me; but just think what she'll be like after a fortnight in
this crazy roundabout."

"You forget I know nothing about the lady, nor this ship, nor its
mission."

"And what's that got to do with your keeping an eye on the binnacle, or
a cheerful face that will do something to keep her spirits up?  As for
the matter of that, I know precious little about the object of this
voyage, but it's enough for me to know that she wants my help, and that
Captain Pardoe is in command."

"It is not enough for me.  My knowledge of Captain Pardoe does not
inspire me with much confidence in his designs, and you forget the
circumstances under which I was trapped."

"Well, well, you're just like the rest.  You landsmen don't mind what
you do ashore, but no sooner do you come aboard than you're as nice with
your conscience as a lady's-maid with her mistress's borrowed gown.  I
warrant you'd not trouble your head about the policy of a merchant's
business if you entered his service, not though he was selling bad pork
to sailors or robbing the widows."

"You're going rather wide of the mark, Mr Webster," said Frank sternly.

"There, now, you've taken offence, and that's what makes me sad to think
of you tossing like a log in your cabin--like that cold-blooded creature
of a Commins who's drinking champagne in his bunk, the swab."

"Mr Webster!" hailed the Captain.

"Yes, sir!"

"Take the remainder of my watch, please, and keep a sharp look-out on
the starboard quarter."

Webster swung quickly to the bridge, where he touched his hat to the
lady, and then braced himself fast to sweep the channel with the glass.

Captain Pardee came down slowly, and reeled a little on the deck, as
though he had taken too much grog, thought Frank, as he caught him by
the arm.

"Thank 'ee," said he.  "I've not quitted the bridge before since we left
the Pool, and my legs are rather stiff."

He staggered on to the small gangway and descended, leaving Frank to his
own reflections, which were not very pleasant.  If a man so tough and
strong, and inured to hardship, as Captain Pardoe evidently was, felt
the strain of the long watch on board, it was clearly beyond the power
of a girl to undertake any part of work so trying.

She was still standing on the bridge, her face wet with the driving
spray, and a tense look about the mouth which told of nerves
high-strung.  She was looking fixedly before her, and did not, as she
had on her first coming on deck, bend her head to the flying spume in
playful defiance.  As he watched her, hesitating between his wish to
help and his stubborn regard for his own rights, he saw her lips
tremble, and that settled the matter.

"Madam," he said, reaching her side in a moment, "I am ready to help."

She withdrew her face from the sea, and he saw that her thoughts had
been far from him or the ship, and in some confusion he repeated his
words.  A faint flush came to her cheek, and a brighter look in her eye.

"I'm so glad," she whispered, and Frank, feeling something coquettish in
this, flushed himself.  With the faintest smile, she continued: "I come
of a superstitious race, and your refusal, so brusquely given, too, had
shaken my faith in my own power, and what is of more importance, in the
success of my undertaking.  I was reading `failure' out there in the
tumbling waters--But now you have reassured me.  That is why I am glad."

He flushed more deeply yet to think how easily she read his thoughts.

"You must forgive me," he said, with a frank smile, "but I only wanted
an excuse to satisfy my reasonable suspicions."

"And you have found it?" she said, with an answering smile.

"Yes; I think I have."

"Then you do not think that I am likely to menace the security of
England with this craft?"

"I am in ignorance of your intentions still, but I am willing to believe
that you are bent upon no desperate or unjust enterprise."

"Desperate it may prove," she said proudly, "but unjust it is not.  No,
no, believe me, sir, if there is any cause which would claim the
sympathy of a brave man it is this upon which I am set."

She rested her fingers on his arm, and looked at him earnestly with eyes
dewed with unshed tears.

What emotion could it be, he thought, so powerful as to move one by
nature so proud and self-reliant?  He felt that further suspicion on his
part would be contemptible.

"I am no seaman, madam," he said, "but I may be of some service."

"Mr Webster, will you tell Mr Hume in what way he may best assist us?"

"Ay, ay, madam."

"Then I leave the ship in your hands, gentlemen, until Captain Pardoe
has rested."  She bowed her head and left the bridge.

"So, after all, you've taken up arms against your lawful sovereign, and
all for the smile of a woman, with not so much to show as the Queen's
shilling.  Shake, my son!"

"Don't talk rot, and tell me what I'm to do."

"Is that the way to address your superior officer?  Harkee, sir, for
less than that I've clapped a man in irons.  But I forgive you.  Put
your eye to the business end of this glass and tell me what craft is
steaming up on the weather bows.  My eyes are dim for the want of
sleep."

What with the swing and plunging of the "catcher," it was some time
before Frank could get the object within view, and when he did it was
but a fleeting glimpse he had.

"It's a Cape mail-boat," he said; "I can make that out from her red
funnels and grey hull."

"Good.  Now, would you know a warship if she showed at that distance?"

"Possibly, from her unusual breadth of beam--not to speak of her guns."

"Well, my lad, keep a keen lookout, for there'll be a lookout kept for
us off the Isle of Wight, and be most particular in noting small craft.
Set a thief to catch a thief, and as likely as not they'll send a
`catcher' out from Portsmouth, and a cruiser from Plymouth.  If you see
anything strange in the movements of a steamer, blow down this pipe, and
I'll be up in a brace of shakes.  I must have a wink before to-night;"
and Webster, fetching a terrific yawn, went off down below.

Hume was left alone on the bridge, and, as far as he could see, there
were only two other men on deck--the steersman inside the wheelhouse,
and a seaman in a look-out shelter forward.  It was a strange turn of
the wheel which had placed him there in temporary charge of a
torpedo-catcher, bound on he knew not what mad mission, and he shook his
head once or twice in grave doubts of his own action, and of the conduct
of those who so lightly trusted him--conduct which seemed to him to
smack of the reckless.  However, he entered upon his task without
further thought of the consequences, letting his eyes sweep from right
to left over the grey waters, and lingering here and there on a sail or
a streamer of smoke.  At first he eyed every ship with suspicion and
fidgeted when a fishing lugger drove by before the wind, the crew
peering under the boom at the long, low, swift craft; but after a time
he reasoned he need fear no Craft which sailed on a parallel course up
or down channel, and looked out only for sign of a ship making across.
The sun mounted higher in the heavens, the wind fell away, and the
_Swift_ grew gradually steadier, and he could walk up and down the
bridge without having to hold on at each step.

Close on noon Captain Pardoe came up to take a "sight," retiring to the
chart house to work out his bearings.  The man at the wheel was
relieved, and Mr Webster reappeared, looking as jolly as before, with a
merry twinkle in his eye.

"Anything in view, Mr Hume?"

"Nothing but a couple of sailers and an ocean tramp, as I judge that
steamer to be."

Webster took a look round to satisfy himself.

"Now," he said, "you go below for a snack and a snooze.  You'll find
some tack on the table.  Tumble into my cabin, as yours is too wet."

Frank, nothing loath, went down, and was soon in a sound sleep, out of
which he was aroused well on in the afternoon by a rough shaking, to
find Webster bending over him with a sparkle in his eyes.

"There's some fun afoot, my lad, with the prospect of sudden death and
damp burial, so hurry up," and the breezy first officer went like a
tornado down the narrow alley.

Frank was quickly on deck, and found Webster talking to the look-out
man, while Captain Pardoe and Miss Laura were on the bridge anxiously
watching some object on the starboard bows.  Looking in that direction,
he could see nothing but a heavy streamer of smoke tailing away to the
north, plainly showing that the steamer was on a course that would
intercept the "destroyer."  Mounting to the bridge, he sighted the
double funnels and heavy top hamper of a large vessel with the
unmistakable cut of an ironclad.

"What do you make her?" said the Captain gloomily, more to break the
silence than to ask for information.

Frank took the proffered glass, and bringing it to bear, it revealed two
barbette towers, with long guns projecting, sharp bows heavily scrolled
with gilt, and a mass of tumbled waters pouring before her rush.

"She is coming along at a tremendous pace, Captain."

"Ay, eighteen knots, and she'll be across our bows in a quarter of an
hour, if she doesn't ram us to gain a little experience."

"I am sure she cannot be in pursuit of us," said Miss Laura, stamping
her foot.  "How could she hit off our position so exactly, when we have
made little smoke and stood well away from the English coast?  She may
be a French cruiser."

The Captain shook his head.

"They'd log our course as soon as they received all particulars by wire,
and from the crow's-nest on the masts they'd see us sooner than we could
find them."

"Well, then, we must run away; and if she is only doing eighteen knots
we should have no difficulty in escaping."

"True, ma'am, if it was a stern chase; but she'll have us right under
her bows."

"And what will you do if she orders us to stop?" and the young lady
fixed a burning glance upon the dark and troubled face of the Captain.

"I'll take my orders from you, Miss Laura," he said gravely; "even
though she turns her big guns on us."

"Well, then, signal to the engineer to cram on all steam.  We won't get
under her guns, at any rate."

The Captain smiled, then touched the bell, and the sharp summons below
was answered by prompt stoking.

Frank stood back, an amazed and silent witness of this scene on the
little bridge.  It seemed a thing incredible and unreal that a girl
should have control in a matter fraught with such a responsibility and
such peril.  He glanced keenly at the Captain to see whether or no he
were humouring the young lady; but there was no sign in that dark and
gloomy face except an air of grim resignation, while, though Miss Laura
showed, in the imperious lift of her head and in her flashing eyes,
visible tokens of intense feeling, she gave no trace of a mind unhinged.

"Heave the log, Mr Webster."

Webster's voice rang out cheerily; and soon the long line was paying out
in the foaming track.  A bare-legged and brawny-armed tar, taking the
line over his shoulder, staggered forward with it when its swift race
had been checked by the minute hand, and Webster himself put his weight
into the work, seeing which, Frank went down to help, for it's no
child's play towing in the line from the grasp of the rushing waters.

"Twenty-three, sir," sang out Webster; "and no bad speed, too, in the
open," he added to Frank.

In a few minutes the space between the two ships had greatly lessened,
and the name of the cruiser could be picked out on her bows.

"Do you see that, Miss Laura? there's no doubt she's after us."

"I see no change in her, Captain."

"She has shifted her course in answer to our increased speed, and
instead of being stem on, you can now see almost the length of her
broadside."

"She's got her bow chaser cleared, sir," said Webster, in a tone of
pleasurable excitement.

A grand and formidable object the warship appeared now, sending before
her terrible bows a white avalanche of water, her white decks lined with
men, and the dark muzzles of her guns threatening destruction.  And no
less deadly in aspect, though on a lesser scale, was the low and swifter
craft sullenly plunging on like some stealthy panther retreating,
snarling and half reluctant, before the advance of a royal tiger.

"It is strange she does not signal," muttered the Captain, "unless she
means to speak us."

The cruiser was so near now that every man on board the port side could
be distinctly seen, and it was clear that where the two lines met the
ships would be within less than a cable's length.

"She made another point to starboard," said Webster.  "If she doesn't
give way she'll be on top of us."

"She won't give way an inch," said the Captain bitterly; "and she's in
her rights as a Queen's ship.  Stand by, below!" he shouted.

The two ships tore along, the cruiser terrible and silent, except for
the foaming of the waves, and every soul on the smaller vessel held his
breath.

"Reverse the starboard screw!" shouted Captain Pardoe; "bring her round
two points on the starboard!"

The long craft trembled as the one screw revolved in opposition to the
other, then she bore away and darted under the stern of the great ship,
heeling over from the waves that swelled up in the wake.

The cruiser came round with a stately sweep, bringing up on the port
side on a parallel course; and they all waited for the summons from the
commander.  It came, ringing, sharp and peremptory:

"Lay-to, there!"

Miss Laura looked at Captain Pardoe, with her hand to her heart, and he
signalled to the engineer for more speed.  The little vessel darted
forward, her stem settling down like the tail of a duck taking to
flight, a huge wave rising up right above the rails.

The cruiser sank astern; but from her bows there leapt a great ball of
smoke, followed by a deafening report.

"We know what that means," said Webster, with a smile, "and she'll play
skittles with us presently."

But the cruiser held on without further notice, sinking further astern
with each minute.

The distance between widened to a mile, and still she gave no other
sign, and those on the bridge looked at each other in wonder.

"You see, Captain," said Miss Laura, betwixt a sob and a laugh, "I was
right.  She did not know us, and we are safe."

"Steamers ahead!" came the hoarse cry from the look-out, like a croak of
ill-omen.

Glasses were quickly raised for a long scrutiny of two small steamers
low down in the water.

"Well?" said the Captain, with a look at Webster.

"Pilot boats mayhap," said that officer, with a queer grimace and a
swift glance at the young lady, whose face had paled again to the lips
at this new anxiety.

"Oh, are they?" she asked, with a troubled look at the Captain.

"No, Miss Laura," he said sadly; "they're torpedo boats.  That's why the
cruiser let us slip.  They mean to take this boat without injury to her
or us, and they've got us in a trap."



CHAPTER SIX.

A NARROW ESCAPE.

Torpedo boats!  Two insignificant smudges of black, lifting and bowing
like a couple of dingy sea-birds in a waste of waters, wretched little
things that could be stowed away on the promenade deck of a mail
steamer, and yet the appearance of one of them among a fleet of heavy
ironclads would create as much consternation as a gadfly among a mob of
cattle.

On came these mosquitoes of the navy, with nothing to distinguish one
from the other but a white number on the black funnel, and the honest
merchant seamen on the bridge of the _Swift_ almost shuddered at the
sight, recognising in them the incarnation of stealth and mischief.  The
torpedo-catcher, however, abated nothing of her speed.  Was she not,
after all, built to destroy these venomous midgets of the ocean?  They
were her game, and a brawny-armed seaman growled out his opinion of the
relative fighting values of the crafts.

"Sink the little brutes," he said, shooting a squirt of tobacco juice;
"run over 'em, blow 'em up, send them to--"

His deep voice swelled from a murmur to a shout, and a melancholy seaman
at the wheel nodded his head vigorously in hearty approval.

The first officer winked at Frank and pushed his big oilskin cap over
his head.

"What an almighty smash there would be if the Captain gave the word.
We'd sink the torpedo boats and the cruiser would sink us."

Frank began tugging at his small moustache as the unreasoning fighting
impulse seized hold of him.  He forgot that his own countrymen were the
objects of his increasing animosity.  Underneath his feet he felt the
quiver of the deck as the long vessel darted along, and the speed
affected him with the same exaltation that boils through the blood of a
cavalry-man when his horse has got into the desperate swing of the
charge.

"Clear the gun for action," shouted the Captain; and Webster, at the
order, sprang over the bridge to the deck.  Four men were at his side,
the tarpaulin flew off, and the long black gun emerged.

Frank drew closer to the young lady.  "Won't you come below?" he said.

She did not hear, and he touched her with his hand.

She turned her eyes on him, magnificent and wild.

"Had you not better come below?"

She shook off his hand with an impatient gesture.

The long gun was already charged, and Webster stood by whistling, his
hand ready to touch her off.

"Send the shot over that boat on the port side.  Make it a close call,
and she'll shear off."

Webster climbed up on the butt of his gun, took a long glance over the
grey waters at the black funnel that alone showed, and without troubling
himself about the reckonings for range finding, ventured an opinion:

"Is she a mile?"

"About that, sir," growled the big Quartermaster, Black Henderson.

Webster jumped down, and, with a smile on his face, fired the gun.

There was a deafening report, which shivered the glass in the
chart-room, and when they drove through the smoke, and steadied
themselves after the shock, they caught faintly the scream of the shell,
and saw it stream high above the black boat.

"That'll scare the life out of them," growled a sailor, with a chuckle.

He forgot that there were men after his own metal on board, and the
little boat paid not the least attention to the warning.

A little patch of red instead streamed out from her bare pole of a mast,
the meteor flag of Old England, which no British seaman can see without
a glow of pride, and a look of consternation came into their faces.

They had forgotten about the cruiser steaming in their wake, showing
nothing now but its white fighting deck, surmounted by two huge funnels;
but she kept a watchful eye on the swift catcher, and at the audacious
act of hostility had bristled with anger.  Two small bow chasers
projecting from the bulge in her bows spoke together, and a sharp
reminder in the shape of a nine-pounder went screaming over the low
craft, to plunge in the sea a cable's length ahead, while the second, in
a sort of devil's "duck-and-drake" hops, sped away.

Captain Pardoe turned swiftly, and shook his fist at the cruiser.

Miss Laura had ducked her head at the vicious scream of one shot, and
started aside at the angry splash and wild screech of the other, then
stood trembling from head to foot while she bit her lip in vexation at
her weakness.

Captain Pardoe noted her emotion, and swallowing his own rage, said
gruffly:

"Shall we give in, mam?"

"No," she said; "take no notice of me, please.  Keep right on, Captain.
Even if we are hit, our machinery may escape injury.  You know what
there is at stake, and if--if I am--if anything happens to me, promise
me you will do your best."

For answer Captain Pardoe took her hand, and raised it to his lips.

"Now," said he gruffly, "you must go below."

"I cannot; you must not ask me; you are endangering your lives for me,
and I must be with you."

"Mr Hume, please take this lady to the saloon; and hark you, sir," he
added in a whisper, "lock her in."

Frank looked at the young lady in dismay, and she, betwixt surprise at
the order and indignation at the intended affront, stood silent.

"Do you hear me, sir?"

There was a dull report from the stern, and again there came that
nerve-shaking scream.

Frank seized the lady in his arms, lifted her up, and staggered towards
the steps.

"Put me down," she gasped.

At the steps he put her down, and, with tears of mortification in her
eyes, she soundly boxed his ears, then went down the steps to the deck,
and into the saloon, while he stood with a curious feeling that what he
had done bound her to him.

"What's the matter with your cheek?" said Webster, coming up; "seems to
be redder on one side than the other.  There, now, don't get angry.
Lord love you, I'd sooner face that cruiser than attempt to carry the
Commodore; but I thank you for it, my son.  The sight of her up here put
my heart in my mouth.  Are you going to run 'em down, sir, or blow 'em
up?"

The Captain had his glass to his eye again, and held it there for some
time, slowly sweeping the sea.

"Neither, Mr Webster," he said finally, with a sigh of satisfaction, "I
am going to steam at half-speed."

He signalled to the engine-room.

"Hoist the distress signal, Mr Webster, that'll serve the purpose."

"Do I understand, Captain Pardee, that you intend to give this vessel
up?"

"Understand what you like, my lad, but do what I order."

The ship had got a tremendous way on, but she perceptibly slackened
speed, and the sailors, noticing this, got together in a group,
directing surly glances at the bridge.

Webster folded his arms, and faced the Captain.

"Do you mean to surrender this ship, Captain Pardoe?"

"And if I do so intend, what then?"

"Why, then, I'll take command."

"The devil!" said the Captain, making a step forward, grasping his long
glass as a cudgel.  A moment they faced each other; then a grim smile
hovered about the Captain's thin lips.  "You're a queer fellow, Jim, and
a mutinous one; and I don't know why I should waste words over you.
Take this glass and look over that boat on the starboard."

Webster, with a keen glance at his captain, did as he was told.

"Well, what do you see?"

"I see a mast with cross-trees."

"Can you see the hull or rigging below the yards?"

"No, sir, there's a layer of fog."

"Ah, now, bend the flag on."

Webster took another look at the Captain, then bent the Union Jack
reversed to the peak.

They looked at the cruiser, and she at once signalled the torpedo boats,
which simultaneously turned almost in their own lengths, and one on each
bow, steamed a quarter of a mile in advance.

The cruiser came on hand over hand, and Captain Pardee's glance turned
repeatedly from her to the grey belt ahead.

He touched the bell, and the catcher responded with slightly increased
speed, which soon brought her within hail of the torpedo boats.

An officer on the port boat, clad from head to foot in oils, all
glistening with wet, leant over the bridge, and through his hollowed
hands called, "Slacken speed, sir!"

"All right; what's the fuss about?"

"Slacken speed!"

"So I am."

There came a hail from the starboard boat.

"Make away, Number 4; the cruiser will settle this matter."

The cruiser was signalling again, and the torpedo boats began to shear
off.

Captain Pardoe measured the distance to the fog, and called on the
engineer for full speed; and before the torpedo boats had got well out
of reach of the cruiser's guns, had she then opened fire, the _Swift_
darted by them.  When she was out of the range of their torpedoes, had
they resolved to fire, he gave one of them his wash, placing it between
him and the cruiser, and thus attaining his object, which was to stop
the cruiser's fire until he could make a dash for the shelter of the
fog.

This feat was greeted with a ringing shout from the crew, and the men
shot admiring glances at the Captain.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

OBJECT OF THE VOYAGE.

Into the welcome security of the fog they plunged, and dashed on
impetuously, regardless of danger to themselves or other ships from
collision, and heedless of the rules about half-speed.

"Now is our chance!" growled the Captain, "and we'll not lose it.  If
the fog's only deep enough the cruiser will not see us again this side
the Atlantic."

The fog closed round in damp clinging wraiths, affecting everyone not
only with an acute feeling of discomfort, but with a sense of impending
misfortune.  The sea, visible only for a few yards, came with a heave
out of the white bank and went by into mysterious obscurity with a
subdued swish, while the ship went on wailing hoarsely.  Those on deck
thrust their hands deep into their pockets, hunched their shoulders, and
stared with white faces at the drifting mists and the beads of wet on
the ropes.  Between the hoarse, choking cries of the foghorn there was a
heavy silence, in which the ear was strained to detect some sound of
life beyond the impenetrable cloak, and the silence was unbroken by any
word or motion, for each man stood where he was when the ship dashed
into this mantle of death--an obscurity that is worse than the blackest
of southern midnights, and is more dreaded by the mariner than the sound
of breakers on a lee shore.  A seagull appearing out of nowhere, swooped
upon the ship with a startling cry, and disappeared like a wraith of fog
more solid than the other gliding and twisting coils of mist.  And the
steamer plunged on, wailing and roaring in an ecstasy of mingled fear
and rage as though it also felt the depressing influence.  Each one was
impressed with an actual sense of insecurity in the headlong speed of
the craft; the vibration from the stroke of the engines appeared too
great for the stability of the frame; the dip and roll seemed to be at a
perilous angle, and dark forms shaped themselves ahead, threatening the
horrors of a collision.  These, it is true, melted away, being but
darker masses of fog, charged, probably, with imprisoned volumes of
smoke from another steamer; but the presence of this smoke, judged soon
for what it was by its acrid smell, disclosed the imminence of the very
danger they had anticipated.  At any moment there might loom out of the
mist a solid mass in place of these darker patches, and at the speed
they were going nothing could prevent the shock and dread disaster of a
collision.

"Keep a good lookout forward, Mr Webster," sang out the Captain, in
tones that were muffled as though he were calling from a well.

"We are doing that, sir," said Webster, who had gone forward as soon as
the fog bank was entered; "but the spray is blinding."

The Captain growled under his breath, poked his nose against the
binnacle, and then glanced into the driving mist overhead.

"It's lightening above, Mr Hume, eh?"

"Yes, sir; but there appears to be a strong streamer of smoke on the
port side."

"Ay, I noticed it before; but it certainly is thicker.  I'll give 'em a
call."

The steamer's siren sent forth a rending cry from its brazen throat.

Almost immediately there came a response--a wild, hoarse roar
terminating in a frantic screech.

"Where away, Mr Webster?"

"Port, sir."

"Starboard, sir."

"Dead ahead!" were the conflicting cries.

The siren flung another wild cry into the wet gloom--a cry that was at
once imploring, menacing, and complaining.

It was answered again by a roar as of a great sea beast in fear of pain.

Then followed a deep silence, while every man strained his eyes.

At the same instant they saw her, a great mass looming out suddenly just
ahead.

"Starboard!" shouted the Captain, in a voice of thunder.

The _Swift_ leant over as she answered to her helm.  There was a noise
of shouting from the towering decks of the strange steamer, a feeling of
impending doom, as her iron side rolled over towards the low craft, but
next instant she was swallowed up in the gloom astern.

The Captain drew a long breath, and the men turned and looked at each
other in silence, their faces still white and fixed.

"That was a close shave, Mr Hume?"

"Yes, sir," said Frank, wiping his forehead; "I'd rather be in daylight
with the cruiser opening fire than pass through such a moment again."

"Ay, my lad, it was touch and go, and by the mercy of a good seaman at
the wheel we didn't touch."

Webster came with a swing up the steps, and clapped Frank on the back.

"I told you she'd drown you before you'd have done with her."

"Well, I'm not drowned yet."

"No; but, by gum, you were near it!  Did you see the cook's face at the
gangway when we rushed by?  Lord, I nearly died with laughter at his
sudden gasp, and I shouldn't wonder but he's got his mouth open yet.  By
the way, the Commodore's down at the cuddy door, and by the same token
she's got her mouth open in surprise.  Why not go down and tell her the
news?"

Frank accepted the hint, and very soon was beside a tall figure, dimly
seen in the shadow of the door; but, having got so far, he was at a loss
to proceed.  It was a stilted form of address to call her "madam;" "Miss
Laura" was at once too familiar, and smacked of servility.  Why had they
not told him her name and have done with it; why, in fact, could she not
tell it him herself?  Having now mastered his first boyish fears and awe
of her beauty, and warmly conscious that he stood on a different footing
to her since he had boldly lifted her in his arms, he determined to
brush away the mystery which hedged her in.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "but I hope you will forgive me for
obeying the Captain's orders just now."

"Ah! is that you, Mr Hume?  Can you tell me how we are getting on,
since I am not able to judge for myself?"  She spoke gently, and he
caught the gleam of a smile.

"You must admit that, though the Captain was somewhat peremptory, the
necessity was urgent."

"And you must admit, Mr Hume, that he was obeyed with singular
promptitude, which told of distinct pleasure on your part at the
prospect of relieving the bridge of my presence.  But still, you have
not told me of our position."

"We are well away from the cruiser, and when we have pierced this bank
of fog, which we may do soon, as it is growing lighter, we should be
free from danger of pursuit.  Pray, however, do not think that we wished
to keep the bridge to ourselves, and if I was presumptuous to act
promptly, it was because I was anxious for your safety.  You have not
said whether you forgive me?"

"Is my safety, then, of any interest to you?" she said, turning her eyes
upon him, and laying a hand upon his arm with the look and action of a
born coquette.

"Not with me only," he said earnestly, "but, if a new shipmate may say
so, with every member of the crew.  Mr Webster told me his heart was in
his mouth when he saw you in danger."

"He is a brave fellow," she said softly, "and modest with it all--a man
who would give his life with a smile for anyone he liked.  It sometimes
distresses me to think that I should have led him and the others upon
this venture, dangerous as it must be."

"Will you share in the danger?"

"Assuredly.  This boat is mine.  I had bought it when it was seized by
the Customs.  The enterprise is of my planning, and what danger there is
will be shared by me."  She lifted her head as she spoke.

"Why should you venture upon anything that brings danger to yourself?
Surely you have friends, relatives, who would have acted for you?"

She stood silent for some time, and looked at him curiously for his
boldness.

"I have only one relative, Mr Hume, and he is my father, a prisoner in
the hands of Balmaceda.  It is to rescue him that I have risked the
passage of the Thames, and if I cannot save his life I will die with
him."  There was subdued passion in her voice, and her hands were
clenched.

"Your father a prisoner in Brazil!  How can they imprison an
Englishman?"

"He is no Englishman.  My father is Manuel da Gama Lobo de Anstrade,
Colonel in the Army, and member of a noble Spanish family, treacherously
seized by that ruffian President."

"But you--surely you are of English descent?"

"My mother was English, Mr Hume, and I have been educated in England."
She paused for some moments, then continued quickly: "I have told you
more than is known by any on board, except Mr Commins and Captain
Pardoe.  But I am seldom misled, and I am sure you will respect my
confidence."

"I will, Miss de Anstrade."

"You must not mention my name.  If you knew the Brazilians you would
understand.  Were this ship to fall into the hands of the President's
party, and my name were discovered, there would be little mercy shown.
Ah! what fiendish punishment they can devise!  Luiz, my brother, they
made him walk blindfolded over the precipice at Garanagua."

She spoke scarcely above a whisper, but with an intentness that thrilled
her listener, and her eyes were fixed before her, wide open and
gleaming.  He had seen that look before, as she stood on the bridge
gazing into the tossing seas ahead, and yet seeing nothing.  Now he knew
that a terrible picture was before her eyes.

Instinctively he took her hand.

"I am grieved I should have awakened these memories," he said gently.

"You have not awakened them, my friend; they are burnt in."

He stood there in silence, holding her hand, which was like a lump of
ice in his warm grasp, and which she allowed to remain there,
unconscious of his touch.  He could mark the hollow under her eyes, the
lines of pain between her dark brows, and he sighed.

She sighed too; her mind came back from its troubled wanderings in the
far Brazil, and she looked down at her hand, drawing it away, and
regarding him with haughty disfavour.

"I am sorry," he said.

"You are strangely daring, Mr Hume."

"My thought was to show my sympathy, and I could not find words."

"It is true.  You English are slow of speech, but quick to act.  That is
why, in this matter, I am trusting to my mother's countrymen."

"Will you trust me also, my Captain?"

"You!  But we are to land you at Madeira."

"I am in your service already for a time; will you not engage me
permanently?"

"But you do not understand.  We cannot hope to escape the Brazilian
warships without a fight, and they are but the first of the dangers to
be met and overcome."

"And yet you will face those dangers?"

"For my father's freedom!"

"But Mr Webster, Captain Pardoe, these sailors, what of them?"

"They are men accustomed to danger; they know the risks they run, and
are satisfied with their reward."

He flushed at this plain speech, but continued:

"And yet a few hours ago you urged me to help you?"

"And you at first declined?"

"I knew nothing then; but now you have taken me into your confidence,
and I would be a poor thing, indeed, if I were to step ashore at the
first opportunity.  I may not be able to do much, but--"

"You will see I do not run into needless danger--is that it, Mr Hume?"
she said, with a smile.  "I accept your services, sir," she added
slowly; "but I do so with a sadness at my heart that warns me of
impending trouble.  I hope it bodes no ill to you.  My mind is fixed
upon this enterprise; but, oh! often in the night my heart is heavy with
forebodings, so that I could abandon myself to the relief of womanly
tears, if I only dared.  It is not an easy task, this," she went on,
with a tremble in her voice, "for a girl to be alone among strange men;
but my father, pale and stern, beckons me on, and my brother--oh, my
brother!"

Her voice gave way, and she put her hand to her eyes; then, as he stood
by pale, distressed, with an oppression in his throat, she thrust her
hand forth with a wild gesture, and swept by him to the bridge.  Frank
stood awhile, then went slowly forward.

When, with a start, he came out of his reverie, it was to find the ship
free of the fog, and dashing along in the grey of the evening towards
the golden glory of an exquisite sunset.  The sea stretched away to
where glowed a rim of molten gold upon the horizon; and from this
glowing band there shot streaks of fire into the sky, and rippling bars
of silver on the waters, while the deepening dusk turned the blue of the
ocean to a wonderful hue, shading from grey to deep black.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

LIEUTENANT GOBO.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, with lockers almost exhausted of
coal, they sighted the outposts of Madeira--jagged rocks, with the
clearest of outlines--and made for Funchal with some apprehension as to
their reception from the Portuguese.

They had not passed scathless through the Bay.  The funnels were coated
with salt, the mark of a curling sea which had swept over the bows, and
the starboard boat was missing.  The deck was soaked, and grimy from
coal-grit,--while all on board looked worn and unwashed, as though they
had been without sleep, and, indeed, they had passed through a wearying
time, tossed about like corks, compelled to hold on at every step, and
drenched with spray.  But though the catcher had plunged and rolled in a
manner that tried the nerves of the oldest seaman, she had gone safely
through those huge rollers, and they had learnt to trust in her.  What
they wanted now was her full capacity of coal, with some tons over for
storage on the deck, to enable her to make the long passage to Rio, if
possible.  The question was, Had the Portuguese been warned by the
Brazilian Consul in London, and would they give them coal?

Very soon she was steering a course parallel to the vast slope of the
Island, ploughing through waters of deepest violet.  Innumerable little
white houses dotted that seemingly inhospitable slope of coloured
sandstone, many as the white crests of the waves, and each one of them
when viewed through a glass was seen to be embedded in a wealth of
vegetation.  So steep was the slope, and so limited each settlement,
that every bit of land was terraced, so that not one spadeful of the
precious soil should escape.  From where, at the foot, the slope
terminated in a precipitous descent to the foaming wave, these terraces
ascended like irregular steps far up to the heights.  And there lived a
frugal people, with that brilliant sea below them, and the blue,
unclouded sky above, with the air tempered by the mists on the mountain
ridge above to the most balmy softness, and with a soil, once saved and
scraped together, that grew all they needed without much toil.  Theirs
is the life of repose, with grapes and bananas for their principal food,
varied with onions and fish, and washed down with the wine of that iron
soil.

A slothful people, perhaps, but they have discovered the secret of
living on the soil and out of the soil, developing the idle ruminating
pleasures of sleek cattle; happy in their little houses, their tiny
plots of fruitful ground; rich in their climate, and most fortunate in
their situation.  What to them the aspirations of the struggling hordes
of Europe, the agonised cry of the hopeless poor of more powerful
countries, the ambitions and the social schemes of the proud
Northerners, but the echoes of a stormy life?

The _Swift_ rounded into Funchal Bay, and anchored in the calm waters,
under the guns of a picturesque fort covered with green.  The fires were
raked out, and the long craft, weather-beaten and streaked with rust
stains, was at rest--an object, however, of suspicion to the peaceful
merchant-ships.  A tug from the shore shot out, encircled the catcher,
and returned in haste.

"That doesn't look friendly," said Lieutenant Webster.

"They've had notice to look out for us," was the Captain's comment.
"It's what I feared; but so long as they give us coal they may do what
they like."

"There's a boat putting off, sir--probably to warn us off."

"Well, we can't go without coal, and if they won't give it we'll take
it."

"Yes," said Webster, looking reflectively at the fort.

The boat approached within a ship's length, and a fat man in uniform,
who held the tiller, took a long look at the _Swift_, then made a
signal, and was rowed back again.

The fat man was met by a number of men in uniform, and after much
gesticulation the whole party entered a larger boat, flying the
Portuguese flag at the peak and stern, and with an awning aft.

This time they came alongside, mounted the steps, and stood twirling
their black moustaches, while their dark eyes roamed over the long deck.

"Have I the pleasure of speaking to the Captain?" said the stout man,
looking at a group of three.

"I am the Captain."

"Ah! receive my respects.  And the name of the ship?"

"The _Swift_--steam yacht."

"True, she has the appearance of a pleasure-boat.  You intend, perhaps,
to remain here?  The Island of Madeira is very lovely."

"Yes," said the Captain; "but not at present."

"You will be going on to Teneriffe?"

"Doubtless; but we require coal.  You have a good supply?"

"Why not?  But this small yacht would not require much for a cruise to
the Canaries."

"About eight hundred tons, sir, is all we require."

"Eight hundred tons, sir?  Very good.  With that you could reach
America, possibly Brazil.  Is it not so?"

Captain Pardoe bit his lip, while the stout man turned with a smile and
a shrug to his companions, one of whom strolled leisurely forward.

"Perhaps eight hundred tons is more than I require, especially as I
could get more on my return," said the Captain quietly.

"I understand, sir; but that's a matter of business arrangement with a
coal-merchant.  You have left England recently?"

"Four days since."

"Four days--carambo--a quick passage!  Then, sir, perhaps you can inform
me of the progress of the revolution in Brazil.  Have the rebels been
beaten?"

"I am afraid I can give you no information about Brazil."

"And you have not heard of the escape of a torpedo-catcher from the
Thames, bound for Rio to help the rebels?"

Captain Pardoe looked astonished.

"You have surely been misinformed, senor.  No vessel could get out of
the Thames without the wish of the authorities."

"I assure you, my Captain, the impossible has happened, and, believe me,
I first supposed your boat was that same vessel.  Ha! ha!"

"Ha! ha! what a good joke, senor!"

"Is it not?"  The officer who had walked forward returned, and whispered
to the stout man.  "But why, my Captain, do you carry a torpedo-tube and
a heavy gun?  Is it to shoot gulls?  Ha! ha!  I am afraid, Captain, you
will not get your coal here, and that your visit may be prolonged to our
satisfaction.  You will find the island of Madeira lovely--most
beautiful.  In the meantime, I may introduce you to my friend Lieutenant
Guilia Gobo, who will remain your guest with these soldiers."

The stout officer gave some order to his Lieutenant, and clambered down
into his boat.

"My Captain," he said, with a pleased smile, "may I direct your
attention to our powerful fort?  We have there some heavy guns; oh, very
formidable."  He sat down chuckling, and rubbing his knees.

"The old boy is pleased with himself," remarked Webster to Frank, who,
together, had been amused spectators of the scene.  "He euchred the
Captain without trouble--an easy matter enough, by the way, in the face
of that little weapon forward.  Look at the skipper: dissimulation is
not his _role_."

Indeed, Captain Pardoe looked very black, as he confronted the
Lieutenant and his four men.

"Well, sir," he said, "what is the meaning of your presence on board my
ship?"

"I no speak the Ingleese," said the Lieutenant haughtily.

"But he understands it well enough," muttered Webster.

"You don't speak English; perhaps you will understand that I have enough
coal to take me to Teneriffe, and I will leave in an hour.  Up to that
time you are welcome to the run of the ship, but you will find it agree
ill with your uniform."

The Lieutenant turned sharply, and shouted after his superior officer.

Captain Pardoe knitted his black brows, and was about to speak again,
but turned to walk off, when he was joined by Frank.

"I understood what he said, sir."

"So did I, Hume, but I don't fear the fort's guns.  It is necessary to
humour them, and with a little judicious palming we might win our
object, but I have no genius for that work."

"May I try, sir?"

"Certainly, Hume, do what you like, for at the worst we can throw them
overboard."

"Then, sir, set the hands to clean the ship, and send Webster ashore to
lay in a stock of vegetables, fruit, and fresh meat."

"Since when were you appointed purser, Mr Hume?"

"It will show them you do not mean to leave in a hurry, and we'll lull
their suspicions."

The Captain issued his orders at once, and in a few minutes Webster,
with the chief engineer, Mr Dixon, were being rowed ashore, while half
a dozen salts, with bare legs, were turning the hose on the grimy deck,
and the stokers, black almost as sweeps, came on deck to hang over the
bows and pull at their well-seasoned clay pipes.

Before Webster left, Hume had drawn his attention to two large barges
laden with coal which were anchored to the left, and suggested that he
should find out what coal they contained.

He next dived into the main cabin, where he found Miss Laura and Mr
Commins looking at the island through a port-hole.  This was the first
time Commins had emerged from his cabin, and though he bore traces of
severe illness he was very spruce and neat in his dress, markedly so in
contrast with the weather-stained appearance of the others.

Their heads were very close together, and Commins had succeeded in
making his companion laugh, a little circumstance which unduly nettled
Hume.

He secured some cigars, a bottle of wine, and was hurriedly leaving the
cabin, when Miss Laura asked him a question or two concerning their
position.

"It is so annoying," she added, "that I dare not show myself on board,
as the people here are sure to communicate with their friends in Rio."

"I hope our young friend will be discreet," said Commins, with
irritating condescension in his manner.  "Pray don't leave the cigar-box
open, otherwise the sea air will spoil the contents; and I see you have
selected the choicest of the 1880 brand."

"These are for the Portuguese Lieutenant," said Frank shortly.

"An officer!  What business has he on board?"

"It appears they suspect us, and an officer, with four men, has been
placed on guard."

"That means we have been seized," said Commins, turning to Miss
Anstrade.  "I advised you not to run into a Portuguese port; but you
would be guided by your headstrong Captain."

"There is no cause for fear," replied Frank.  "We hope to be off before
morning with a full supply of fuel."

"Your hopes may be interesting to you, sir; but I, for my part, do not
find them amusing."

"Enough!" interposed Laura with a frown; then, turning to Frank, she
asked him if there really was any prospect of getting away.

"There is, madam, if you have one commodity on board."

"What is that?"

"Money!"

"Ah! come with me," and she started for the cabin.

"Laura, don't be imprudent.  You forget."

"No, on the contrary, Mr Commins, I remember that this gentleman has
behaved nobly, and risked his life while others remained in safety."

Mr Commins murmured something about being ill, but he shot an evil look
at Frank.

"Come, Mr Hume."

"No, madam; if you assure me, that is sufficient.  It will be necessary
to pay for the coal in cash."

"You have some scheme," she said, looking earnestly at him, and placing
her fingers on his arm.

"I have, or, rather, the Captain--"

"Ah, that is better," said Commins, with a sneer.

"Say no more, Mr Hume; I have faith in the resources and courage of my
officers."  She gave him her hand, but her eyes were fixed on Commins.

Frank, somewhat uneasy at what he had witnessed of the familiarity
between the two, hurried away with the wine and cigars to presently
engage the Lieutenant in pleasant conversation in French.

Seeing the officer comfortably seated in the chart-room with the wine,
he went to the side to receive Webster, who had returned in the best of
humours with a boat-load of bananas, custard apples, grapes, vegetables,
and fresh meat.

"I have left the engineer ashore, drinking Madeira with an old crony,"
shouted the genial officer.

"Good," said Frank, raising his voice.  "I'll ask the Captain to let me
return for him later on.  Well," he whispered a moment later, as Webster
stepped on board, "what about the barges?"

"They have 300 tons, and are waiting out there for the Cape mail
steamer, due early to-morrow morning."

"Well, the mail steamer will have to wait.  That is our coal."



CHAPTER NINE.

COALING THE CATCHER.

Lieutenant Webster joined the Portuguese officer in the chart-room,
where, with his gallant attempts to speak French, and his readiness to
join in the laughter at his own most amusing blunders, he quite charmed
Lieutenant Gobo, who grew confidential, and imparted an interesting item
of news.

"You will remain with us, amigo mio, and we will crack many a bottle of
old Madeira in a posado kept by an old man with two lovely daughters."

"Thanks, senor, with pleasure, if we do not depart to-morrow."

"To-morrow!  What say you?  We have a proverb that says that the wages
of to-morrow mock the promise of yesterday.  To-morrow you will all be
our very good guests."

"For my part, nothing would please me better; but our Captain has said
that to-morrow he will sail, and he is a very devil--diavolo--eh?"

"You speak idly, my friend.  I assure you to-morrow this ship of yours
will be seized."

"How so, Lieutenant?  We have no quarrel with Portugal; and, moreover,
there is no craft here that could overhaul us."

"Not here at present, senor, but it is coming."

"Your glass is empty, Lieutenant.  Is this a British ship you speak
of?--for I know none other that could capture us."

"There are other ships than British afloat," said the officer, twirling
his moustache.  "The ship I speak of flies the Brazilian flag: the
_Esperanza_ sloop of war, which, providentially, left Lisbon two days
since, and may be here at any hour.  She was advised of the escape of
your boat from the Thames, and has warned us to be on the watch.  Juarez
is her commander, and I tell you he also is a devil.  Ha! ha!"

"I perceive," said Webster, with a laugh, "you have been too smart for
us.  We English are sometimes very dull."

"Truly, mon ami, in quickness of wit, as in matters of love, we of the
South are superior to you heavy islanders.  But you are good comrades,
nevertheless.  Your health, senor."

"I see the bottle's empty.  Pardon me, Lieutenant, while I overhaul the
locker."  Webster, with an innocent look on his bronzed face, went below
and sent a message to the Captain.

"Sir," he said, as the Captain approached, "there is a Brazilian sloop
of war in pursuit of us.  She may be here to-night, or in the morning."

"How did you learn this?" asked Captain Pardoe, with a dark look.

"From that yellow-skinned effigy on deck.  The _Swift_ is to be taken
to-morrow and the crew landed.  It is all settled."

"Is it?" said the Captain, with a peculiar smile.  "We shall see to that
Hume will presently leave for the shore with two men.  As soon as his
boat is clear have these soldiers seized and bound.  Take your measures
quietly, Mr Webster, and be very careful that they do not cry out."

"What's on foot, Captain?"

"We mean to have that coal, my boy, sloop or no sloop.  Thunder, do they
suppose I'll surrender to a sloop after defying a British cruiser!  You
have your orders."  The Captain went down to the engine-room; and
Webster, after securing another bottle, gave a few sharp words of
instruction to the Quartermaster, who received them with a grin.

Soon after a boat from the shore came alongside with a gendarme, who,
after a few words with Lieutenant Gobo, received a note from that
officer and returned.

"I have assured my Captain," said the Lieutenant to Webster, "that we
are friendly here, and that while one of your men is ashore he need not
take extra precautions."

"What precautions are, then, necessary?"

"Oh, a boat or two of soldadoes!"

"Mr Hume!" cried the Captain, from his position on the bridge, "you
will take the boat for Mr Dixon, and see what arrangements you can make
for coaling to-morrow."

The Lieutenant jogged Webster in the ribs.

"Is he not droll--this Captain of yours?"

"Very droll," remarked Webster, with a meaning look at the
Quartermaster, who stood near.

Hume swung into the boat with two men, and gave the order to push off.

Webster leaned over the side, ran his eyes over the men on deck who were
drinking with the three soldiers, then spoke a word to the
Quartermaster, who immediately joined the group, placing himself as he
did so between the soldiers and their rifles, which rested against the
side.

Webster strolled to the chart house, took another look at the group on
guard, then flung himself on the Lieutenant, pinning that astonished
individual by the throat.  There was a scuffle forward, a smothered cry
or so, and in a minute the four Portuguese were bound and gagged.

"Lower the long boat, Mr Webster," said the Captain in low tones.

This was done by the now thoroughly alert and expectant crew in silence.

"Man the boat, take a tow-line, and make for the coal barges."

Four men dropped into the boat, a tow-line was made fast.

"Weigh anchor and deaden the noise with tow.  Let the flukes hang for
the present."

Quietly and slowly the anchor came in.  Webster entered the boat, the
tow-line tautened, and the _Swift_ gradually moved off in the direction
of the barges.

Meanwhile Hume had met a boat half-way from the shore, with the chief
engineer on board, and taking him in, waited till the shore boat had
rowed out of hearing, then shaped for the barges.

"You are shaping a wrong course for the _Swift_, Mr Hume."

"We are making for two barges laden with coal, Mr Dixon."

"Oh, oh, what's in the wind?"

"These beggars won't give us coal, so we mean to take it.  We will
approach the barges quietly, board them, and secure the people on board.
Will you assist us, Mr Dixon?"

"Certainly, my boy; and what's the Captain doing meanwhile?"

"He'll be alongside very soon after we have done our business.  No doubt
he's on the move now, with a tow-line out.  Gently, men, I think I see
the loom of something dark."

They stole softly up to the unwieldy boats, going alongside one which
had an awning forward, made the boat fast, then clambered on deck.  One
of the sailors walked along the broadside, and reconnoitred.  There were
two men only, sleeping on a rough bed of sacks, their forms dimly
outlined by the light of a lantern.  He then crossed to the other boat,
which was unoccupied.  He made his report, and next minute the sleepers
were aroused to find four men standing over them.  They permitted
themselves to be bound without a murmur, on an assurance from Hume that
they would not be harmed.

A few minutes later the _Swift_ crept up, took in her boat, and got up
steam.

"Make fast the tow-line to the barges, Mr Hume," came an order from the
Captain.

"It is done, sir."

"Cut the moorings."

The rope was cut, and the _Swift_ steamed out, towing the barges, until
she had rounded the south-western point below Funchal, when she dropped
anchor, and all hands, including the two Portuguese sailors, were hard
at it, transferring her coal to the torpedo-catcher.  The coal was in
sacks, the steam tackle was set in motion, and with a loud noise that
sooner or later would reach the ears of the people ashore, the precious
cargo was swung on board and shot down the shoots, covering every part
of the deck and rigging with grit.  The long, low steamer lay sandwiched
between the barges, and while the steam tackle worked aft, forward the
sacks were handled by the men, everyone, except Miss Anstrade and Mr
Commins, lending a willing hand.

They had been hard at work for an hour, when a confused babble of
shouting was heard from the port, and shortly after they saw a shaft of
light shoot into the sky and glance across the harbour.  It was the
flash-light from the little fort, and no doubt revealed the absence of
steamer and coal barges.

Presently they heard the beat of engines--a steamer's light appeared
round the point.

"Show a light, Mr Webster.  We don't want to be run down."

A red light was hung out over the stem.

"Keep on with your work," shouted the Captain, as the men paused to
watch the progress of the steamer.

"Carambo!  Senor Capitaine, what in the devil's name is the meaning of
this?" shouted a deep voice from the steamer, in furious accents.

"Quien es?"

"Demonios!  Colonel Alvaro, commander of the fort.  What mean you by
moving off like a thief in the dark?  It is an offence against Portugal
and the laws."

Captain Pardoe laughed.  "I am merely taking coal for which I am willing
to pay.  Will you receive the money?"

"Yes," said a strange voice; "I represent the coal company."

There was an altercation on board the tug, for such it proved to be.

"I protest, Colonel Alvaro.  When I have received payment you may do
what you like.  Lower a boat."

Colonel Alvaro gave way, the boat was lowered, and a young Englishman
stepped on board, who was immediately taken below, where he made a good
bargain.

"Now, Captain," he said, after securing a roll of notes, "you have acted
in a high-handed manner, and it is no business of mine to help you, but
the sooner you move the better.  The warship _Esperanza_ has been
signalled, and will be here in half an hour."

"Thank you," said the Captain, with a grim smile; "we can look after
ourselves.  Mr Webster, release the soldiers, and let them return with
these gentlemen."

Webster did so, and could not forbear chaffing Lieutenant Gobo.  "We are
no match for you, Lieutenant, in resource, but you see we are having our
own way."

"Matre de Dios!" cried the Lieutenant, grinding his teeth, "you will pay
for this, you base picaro!" and he shot a vengeful glance at Webster and
Hume, who stood close by, their faces black with coal-dust.

Little did they dream that Gobo would make good his threat.

The tug waited for its boat, then steamed away towards the harbour at
great speed, Colonel Alvaro and Lieutenant Gobo shouting a string of
threats as to what they would do on their return.

Mr Dixon reported that the bunkers were filled.

"Stack a row of sacks along the sides, and have them lashed.  Get a full
head of steam up.  Mr Webster, cast this boat off from the port side."

Soon the steam from the escape pipe set up its shrill clamour.

The Captain mounted to the bridge, and with his night glass fixed to his
eye searched the mouth of the harbour.

"See that row of lights, Captain?" said Miss Laura.

"A steamer just entering the harbour."

"And there is another light moving."

"That is the tug which just left us.  Is there much more coal left, Mr
Webster?"

"About fifty sacks, sir, I should say."

"Whip them in, then.  All firemen get below."  He approached the tube.
"Stand by, Mr Dixon!"

The steamer which had just entered the harbour put out her lights, but
there was a glow from her funnels which revealed her movements, as it
grew rapidly brighter.

"All aboard!" shouted the Captain.  "Cast off the barge!"  The men
clambered from the barge, and the unwieldy craft was shoved away.

"Full speed ahead!"

The water was lashed by the screws, the _Swift_ vibrated like a living
thing, and shot away, leaving the barges rocking on the swell she had
kicked up.

"Surely, Captain," said Miss Anstrade, "that steamer is following us!"

"She is, Miss Laura, sure enough.  It is the Brazilian ship _Esperanza_,
Captain Don Juarez."

"Don Juarez," said the girl, in a startled whisper.  "O, Santissima
Maria," she added, with a passionate cry, "that treacherous dog, the
murderer of my brother!  Captain Pardoe, you must not fly.  Mr Webster,
listen to me."

"Laura, my dear girl," said Mr Commins, laying his hand on her arm.

She shook him off with an angry gesture, and turned her flashing eyes on
the Captain, while her bosom heaved.

Some of the men had heard her cry, and stood near the bridge.

"Men," she said, in quick, excited tones, "hear me!  That is a Brazilian
warship behind.  It is commanded by a man who has done me a most fearful
wrong.  You are Englishmen, and I ask you--"

"Enough, madam," whispered Pardoe sternly.  Then, raising his voice,
"Clear the guns for action."

The Quartermaster's shrill whistle rang out in immediate response, and
in reply a flame of fire leapt out from the darkness astern, followed by
the screech of a shell.



CHAPTER TEN.

PURSUED.

The _Swift_ was a formidable fighting ship, though built to tackle the
midgets of the sea--the 130 feet torpedo boats.  She had no torpedo-tube
in the stem, which had been strengthened for ramming; but she carried
two tubes at the stern, one four-inch quick-firing gun, two six-pounders
forward, and two twelve-pounders on pedestals.  Including the officers,
there were twenty men to work the ship and guns, and a staff of ten
firemen and engineers.  The seamen were picked men, tempted by high pay,
and all of them showed the unmistakable stamp of strict training and
discipline.  They were, in fact, men of the Naval Reserve, recruited by
the Quartermaster--hard, weather-beaten, and, except when off duty,
still-mouthed.  The Quartermaster, Henderson, was black-bearded and
swarthy, like the Captain, and it was rumoured among the men that this
was not the first time the two of them had shipped in the same capacity
in blockade-running in the wars of South American Republics.  The
conning-tower, a small chamber, fitted with tubes, knobs, levers, and a
spare wheel, and walled in with thick plates of toughened steel, was
just forward of the first funnel.  Beyond it was a turtle-backed deck of
iron, and on either side were the six-pounders, protected by
bullet-proof shields.  The Captain could fire the aft torpedo guns by
electricity from the conning-tower.

"Clear the guns for action, and slacken speed."

The shrill, clear notes of the whistle rang out the sharp summons, and
the men sprang to their positions with an alacrity which had not marked
their actions when threatened by the British warships.  Then they had
done their duty sullenly, with a sense of ill-omen at having to
encounter their own flag; but now they were on a different footing in
respect to this new foe, and eager to be at some other game than always
on the run.

"If our Captain's half as good at fighting as he is at running," growled
the sailor known as Dick the Owl, for his night eye, "we'll have a
bellyful, eh, mate? and good luck to it."

"Eh, it's a queer thing, Dick, that we navy men should be under these
port-to-port cargo and hat-box carriers, but the Captain's got red
lights in his head when there's danger afoot, and maybe he'll be a good
'un to follow."

"As good as any you would find on the bridge of any battleship afloat,
my men," said Lieutenant Webster, who had been standing by unobserved.

"Beg pardon, sir," said the men, touching their caps.

"That's all right, my men; we've got to know each other yet," replied
the Lieutenant, with a kindliness that won their hearts.  "Wash down the
decks first," he cried; "we'll not go down to Davy's locker disguised in
soot, like imps of darkness.  Out with the hose."

The men laughed as they screwed on the hose to the hydrants and poured
on a stream of water, sweeping the grimy decks from stem to stern.

"Now, get below for a sluice and a dram," cried the cheery voice of the
Lieutenant, whose idea of handling a crew was not according to naval
instructions.  The men trooped down the narrow companion-way laughing
and joking in their excitement; but the roar of the enemy's guns, as he
fell round to port, and brought his starboard broadside to bear, was a
summons that brought them tumbling on deck again ere they had time to
wipe their mouths with a backhanded swipe.

"Steady, men, and to your quarters," said the Captain quietly; "all but
the men for the big gun, who will go below."

Five men had taken their position about the big gun, which stood with
its chase pointing up, as though looking away to the horizon for its
enemy.  These men stood astonished at the order.

"Below, men," said Lieutenant Webster, approaching them; "you'll not be
wanted till morning," he added, as he noted their sidelong looks.

They went down in silence; and, by the pressure of a button in the
conning-tower, the Captain lowered the long gun into the deck, the same
machinery sliding a heavy shield of toughened steel over the opening
left by its disappearance.  This gun had been specially built for the
catcher, and was of a larger calibre than the guns usually carried by
that kind of craft.  It rose or fell on a strong powerful lever, on a
modified principle used for the disappearing guns; and the frame of the
ship had been strengthened amidships to bear the strain.  It could be
loaded and fought on deck, or loaded below and fired from the
conning-tower when at close quarters, and had been christened "The
Ghost," after a trial made before reaching Madeira.  "The Ghost" was
turned out at the Elswick Works, and could fire sixty fifty-pound
projectiles in ten minutes.

"We've laid our ghost," said Webster to Hume, who, being quite fresh to
this part of the business, stood looking out into the blackness astern
in a state of suspense; "we've laid our ghost, and must raise theirs."

"Is that you, Mr Webster?" said the Captain, leaning over the bridge.

"Yes, sir!"

"I must ask you to go to your cabin."

"To my cabin, sir?"

"Yes; I will not want you till daybreak, and you will fight all the
better, then, for a good sleep.  Take off the men from the
six-pounders--the fewer on board the better."

Webster went below with six men from the two guns, leaving on deck eight
hands in all to work the ship and the two twelve-pounders.  One of these
was at the wheel in the conning-tower; another was stationed forward on
the lookout; and the others were in two steel towers, which were aft,
about three feet above the deck, protecting the men from the hail of
missiles that might be discharged from the machine guns, while their
sloping sides would deflect larger projectiles.

"Mr Hume!"

"Sir."

"Join me on the bridge."

Frank mounted to the low bridge, and went close to the dark figure of
the Captain for companionship.  They were unprotected by steel armour,
and for himself he experienced a feeling of complete helplessness.  He
felt that up there he was a mark for every gun aimed at the _Swift_, and
that without any power of retaliation.

"It is a fine night," he said aimlessly, looking up at the starry sky.

"A very fine night, indeed," said the Captain, taking hold of his beard
with both hands; "but there'll be rain in the morning."

Frank brought his eyes down from the stare to a red eye that gleamed far
astern.

The Captain took a couple of steps, and spoke down the tube: "Please
attend to your fires; there are too many sparks."

Frank wondered at the Captain's quiet tones.  Usually he was sharp and
rough; now he spoke as though he were asking for a second cup of tea.

"I knew it," said the Captain.

The red eye astern was dimmed by two livid flashes.  Frank heard the
dull reports, and then with a thrill down his back listened to the cry
of the shells as they sped on.  The enemy had as yet done no damage, but
he knew that these shrieking messengers had at last scented their foe.
He jerked his head violently as the shriek rose to a fiendish scream,
and a swift rush of air swept across his face, whilst the crushing of
iron behind him told that the shot had struck.  It passed through the
forward funnel as though it had been a sheet of paper, and the smoke
came pouring out of the holes.

"They've got our range at last, and it's lucky for us they have no
search-light."

"I'll go and get my rifle," said Frank.

The Captain chuckled: "She's a mile off, at least; and if not, you might
just as well puff at a whale with a pea-shooter.  Still, I know how you
feel.  It's devilish hard to stand fire without giving back."  He raised
his voice: "Fire!"

The twelve-pounders spoke together, belching out balls of fast revolving
smoke, and spurring the ship on with their recoil.

"It's no good, of course," muttered the Captain; "but it will encourage
them to keep up the chase."

"Why not give them the big gun, Captain?" asked Frank impatiently.

"A waste of ammunition; and we'll want all we have when we get near the
end of our voyage.  I could turn and engage them, but I like to see what
I am about, and all I want to do now is to encourage them.  There she
goes round; see her port lights; she'll give us another broadside, and
do you count the flashes."

"Count the flashes," thought Frank; "does he think this is a review?"

The twelve-pounders let go at the row of lights, and as the smoke rolled
away there came a muffled roar, and in an instant, it seemed to Frank,
the air was full of shells.  The water was cup up astern, and one
projectile struck the turtle-backed deck forward, and went humming into
the black of the night.

"She carries six guns to the broadside, I think.  What do you make it?"

"A dozen, at least, Captain, and heavy metal," said Frank, wetting his
lips.

"No more than six and twelve-pounders.  A larger shell sets up a
different music, as you will soon learn.  Still, I don't like it; their
gunners are too smart."

The Captain took a turn up and down the bridge, then sent a shout to the
Quartermaster to cease fire.

"Mr Hume, you will find a life-belt on the starboard side, opposite the
hatchway, with a canister attached.  Cut it adrift."

Frank found the belt, and sent it overboard.

"Keep her three spokes to port."

The steersman starboarded the helm, and the _Swift_ went off at an angle
to her former course, whilst the canister, on reaching the water, flared
out in a brilliant blaze in the ship's former wake.

Before Frank had reached the bridge the enemy had come round and fired
his two forward guns, then, keeping on to port, quickly let go his
starboard broadside.  The water about the floating flare was dashed up
in showers.

The Captain slapped Hume on the back as he reached the bridge.

"That's a simple trick, eh! and we could slip away as easy as winking if
we had a mind to.  Lord, won't they howl when they find how they have
been done!"

There came a hearty guffaw from the towers aft as the men saw through
the Captain's joke.

"Lord, there he goes again," as the forward guns again belched forth;
"what a ferocious devil the commander must be!  He takes that light to
be a signal, and imagines he is firing at a crippled ship, the devil."

The Quartermaster came forward.  "The enemy has slackened off, sir."

"Is that so?" said the Captain, taking a long look at the steamer's
lights.  "Ha, I have it," and he smacked his fist in his hand, showing
the first symptoms of excitement.  "He thinks we've gone down, and we'll
lay-to till morning, which can't be far off."

"There'll be grey light in an hour, sir."

The Captain kept his eye on the steamer's light, which rose and fell,
but kept its place.

"Quartermaster, take your men below for some hot grog and a bite, and
rouse Mr Webster."

"Ay, ay, sir."

The Captain went to the tube.  "Slacken speed, Mr Dixon, and be very
careful with your fires.  Starboard your helm; bring her round."

The _Swift_ went round with a steady swing, bringing the enemy's light
on her port bows, instead of over her starboard stern rails.

The men lingered awhile to see the manoeuvre finished, and then went
below, satisfied there was to be a fight.

"Keep her on that course now," said the Captain to the steersman.

"Mr Webster," he continued, as that officer stepped briskly up and took
a glance round, "see that everything is in readiness, and that the men
take their positions without a word.  Within an hour the fight will
begin."

"Begin, sir?  You've been at it this past three hours, and I've been in
and out of my bunk a dozen--times, while the men are all on the quiver."

"We haven't come to knocks yet.  I'll present my card in the morning
with a fifty-pound rat-tat."

Webster laughed gaily as he set about his duties, and presently the men
gathered silently to their posts, some of them every now and again
stealing to the sides to make out the whereabouts of the enemy and the
meaning of the manoeuvre, which puzzled them, as one might gather from
their whispered arguments.

The _Swift_ doubled back towards the eastern horizon, where the darkness
was quickly melting into the grey of dawn, and a deep silence rested on
the ship, and over the shining heave of waters.  Slowly the enemy's
light was overhauled, then sank astern, but the _Swift_ kept on its way
until a tint of pink appeared in the sky and the stars suddenly paled.

"The time has come," said the Captain.  "Are you all ready?"

"Ay, ay, sir!" came the answer in suppressed tones.

"Round with her, my man, on the port tack."

The _Swift_ rushed round, and there was a murmur of admiring criticism
from the old tars as they now understood the meaning of the Captain's
manoeuvre.

"They are satisfied now," said the Captain, grimly, to Frank.  "They
thought all along, I'll be bound, that I could not fight this ship."

"I confess, sir, I don't understand your tactics."

"Well, I suppose you don't.  The enemy's fighting strength is evidently
in her bow guns.  So is ours.  I have got the 'vantage of her by going
into action on her beam.  Mark me, before she can bear her bow guns on
us she'll be crippled.  Full steam ahead!" he shouted, and the low craft
rushed forward.

The whole horizon on the east was now bathed in light, and in a moment
the blood-red disc of the sun flamed above the black line of the waters,
while streamers of light shot into the sky.  Straight ahead there rose a
dark object.  A shaft of golden light stretching across the waters
struck full upon it, and there stood out in a glory of softest fire the
tall masts and long black hull of the Brazilian ship.  She was at rest,
rising and falling gently; but there was a terrible awakening in store.
Every minute brought her into clearer relief, though from the dark
background beyond there was a blur about her deck, out of which,
however, presently there emerged distinct objects--her boats, her bridge
unoccupied, the gilt scroll under her stern, over which idly dropped the
Brazilian flag; and last of all, the chases of her port broadside grimly
projecting, with a glint of red sunlight on their smooth cylinders.

The two vessels were now distant about six hundred yards, and at last
the careless lookout on the Brazilian ship saw something alarming astern
in the fierce rush of the low grey craft.  Some men dashed up the
rigging to get a better view, and a small group gathered on the bridge.

"We'll wake 'em up!" shouted the Captain, springing into the
conning-tower and pressing a button, which brought up "The Ghost" from
its bed.

The real action had begun; the night's work had been child's play.
There was a terrific din as the long gun threw shot after shot, and in
ten minutes a dense bank of smoke enveloped the _Swift_.  The firing was
suspended a minute.

The Captain stood in the conning-tower, his hands on the wheel, and his
eyes fixed in a narrow slit under the steel roof.  Giving a turn of the
wheel to starboard, he brought the stem free of the smoke, and saw the
enemy slowly gathering way, while men rushed about her decks in a state
of terrible confusion at this sudden tempest of shells that had poured
upon them.

Some damage had been done evidently, but principally to her top rigging.
And now she spoke from her stern guns, but not allowing sufficiently
for her height, the first stinging flight of shells went over the
catcher.

"Stand by the six-pounders!" cried the Captain, his voice rising to a
roar.  "Depress your muzzle, Mr Webster!  Fire!"

Again there was another tremendous fusillade, continuous and deafening,
while the men's eyes smarted from the sulphur in the smoke, and their
throats grew dry and husky.  For five minutes the rain of lead was kept
up, and from the three guns one hundred projectiles tore into the sloop,
plunged along the port side, and shattered her rigging.  Lieutenant
Webster devoted his second storm of fire at the stern guns, and the
stanchions and bulwarks about them were ripped up, and the guns
themselves dismounted.

The order to cease fire was again given, and the Captain made a point to
starboard just as the sloop was swinging round to bring her port
broadside to bear.

The ships were now but two hundred yards off, the sloop bearing off from
the port quarter of the catcher in her attempt to come round and bring
her bow guns to bear.  Once she could do that she could blow the _Swift_
out of the water, but Captain Pardoe had foreseen the manoeuvre and was
ready for it.  Counting upon the narrow turning power of his boat, he
swept on, and suddenly put the wheel hard to port, bringing the vessel
round within her own length, and bringing the boats stern to stern.  At
the same moment he flashed the signal below to fire the stern torpedoes.
Then he stepped out to watch the effect, and the men, with heaving
chests and smoke-blackened faces, from which their eyes glared with the
fever of battle, watched too.  There was a cry from the deck of the
sloop, as they saw the leap from the tubes of the two torpedoes, a
hoarse cry from the Captain to the man at the wheel, a terrible pause,
and then two lines of bubbles below the water marked the swift rush of
the deadly tubes.  One line, it was seen, would continue free of the
ship, the other went straight for her stern, and a sailor, in a mad fit
of rage, first discharged his rifle at the approaching torpedo, then
plunged overboard with a wild yell.  A moment later there was a muffled
roar, a vast column of water was thrown up, followed by a rending and
grinding noise.  The stern of the sloop was raised, then settled down in
the trough of a great sea raised by the explosion.  The torpedo had
reached its mark, and Captain Pardoe stood by to give what assistance he
could.

There was the wildest consternation on board the sloop, and the rending
noise continued; but though she lay helplessly on the water she showed
no signs of sinking.

The men on board the _Swift_ set up a hoarse cheer, and shook each other
by the hand.

"It's twenty minutes since we went into action," said Webster, wiping
the blood from his brow.  "Three cheers for our Captain, men!" and
waving his hat, he led the hurrahs.

"For the love of God," cried a voice in English from the sloop, "help
us!"

"Strike your flag!" cried the Captain.

The gay flag came down, and the Captain brought the _Swift_ nearer.
"What is the matter?"

"Your cursed torpedo has blown away our propeller, and the shaft--oh,
Sancta Maria!--listen to it!--is breaking the ship."

"Why don't you shut off steam?"

"Our engineer is dead.  Demonios!  Don't talk, but act."

"I'll send our engineer to you."

"Quick, quick!"

Mr Dixon came up from the bowels of the _Swift_, where, without the
stimulant of action, he had stood by his work, animating his men with a
quiet courage, which was the finer because he stood in absolute darkness
regarding the progress of the fight, and knew that at any moment he
might be sent to the bottom a helpless victim in an iron prison.  His
face was white and streaming with perspiration, and at the first touch
of the cold air he reeled with dizziness, but when told what was
required of him, he prepared for his new task without a word.  The
_Swift_ moved gently under the tall sides of the sloop, and the
engineer, with Webster, Hume, and six men, were quickly on board.  Mr
Dixon went at once to the engine-room, whence proceeded a truly infernal
din.

"Where Is the Captain?" asked Webster of a dozen men round him.

A short, thick-set, bullet-headed man, with a neck like a bull, and
moustaches that reached up to his ears, stepped forward.

"Your sword, Senor Juarez!"

"I must know to whom I am asked to surrender."

"To the National flag," said Webster haughtily.

"Carambo! that is an excellent jest.  Is the flag broad enough to cover
the ships of every nation?  And why should I surrender my sword?" he
asked, with a fierce scowl, while his officers drew near threateningly.

Webster stepped quickly to the bulwarks, and called to Captain Pardoe to
stand away.

That officer went at once full speed astern, and lay-to a cable length
off, with the men at their guns.

"You see?" said Webster.

The Brazilian Captain, with a terrible malediction, broke his sword over
his knee.

"A thousand thunders!" he roared, while the black blood swelled in his
temples, "to think I should have been beaten by that--that thing--and
scarcely a boat's crew hurt!"

"It is the fortune of war," said Webster, looking around.  "But while we
talk the ship may be sinking for want of a little sailor-like care.
Have you a spare sail, senor?"

The Brazilian Captain folded his arms and spat on the deck.

"You surly brute!" cried Webster.  "Here, men, cut away the mizzen
sail!"

In a trice the British sailors swarmed up to the mizzen yard and cast
loose the sail, which came down with a thud, knocking a couple of
yellow-faced sailors off their legs, whereat the tars up aloft laughed.
At this a dozen of the enemy drew their knives and looked to their
Captain for a word.

It was a ticklish moment, and Hume pulled out a revolver, which he
instantly presented at Juarez.

"Good, my lad," said Webster.  "Shoot him down if he moves a foot.  Do
you understand, senor?"

Juarez glared like a wild beast, and a hoarse, unintelligible cry
escaped from his thick lips, but he kept quiet, while Webster, without
another look at the scowling group, quickly slipped the great sail over
the side, and had it drawn round and up over the damaged stern.

In the meantime Mr Dixon, working down below, had stopped the engines
and explored the shaft funnel, ascertaining the extent of the damage
done by the shaft in its unchecked revolutions.  He came on deck,
wearied out, to be met by dark looks.

"What's the meaning of this?" said he.

"The meaning is," cried Webster, with a bitter look of contempt round,
"that these cowardly hounds won't lift a finger to help us, and I'm
damned if my men will do another stroke to save them!  Let the ship
sink, and she is sinking fast."

"And you'll sink with us!" roared Juarez.  "Down with them; slit their
throats!"

There was a rush of men, and the little party were hemmed in.

A young officer bounded forward with drawn sword, and wheeling round,
faced his men.

"Diavolo!" he hissed through his clenched teeth, "what devil's game is
this?  You called to these gentlemen in your fear to help you, and now
you would turn on them like base assassins.  I tell you," he cried
passionately, "it shall not be!"

Webster and Hume, with their blue eyes flashing, ranged up on either
side of their unexpected friend, while the British tars stood with their
cutlasses ready.

Captain Pardoe, seeing something amiss, drew near.  "Do you hear," he
shouted, "if you harm my men I'll let go a torpedo."

The young officer repeated the message, and the men whispered among
themselves, then threw down their arms.

Juarez shot a venomous look at his officer, and placed his foot upon a
knife, which, presently, he drew toward him.

Webster thanked the gallant foe for his assistance, and assured him that
the sloop would keep afloat until they reached Madeira.  He then turned
to the side to speak to Captain Pardoe, while Frank Hume walked aft to
see what damage had been wrought by the fire of the catcher.

There was a cry, and they turned to see the young officer fall, struck
to the heart by the vengeful Captain.  The next instant Juarez himself
was cut to the deck by a slashing blow from a cutlass.

At this act of black treachery the small boarding party were ready to
make a furious rush, but the sloop's officers and men looked on
themselves appalled, while a young fellow, quite a boy, flung himself on
the officer's body in a passion of grief, then suddenly springing up,
drew his knife and advanced towards Juarez.

"Enough!" said Webster sternly.

"Kill the black-hearted dog!" screamed the Brazilian sailors, giving
vent to their hate for their brutal commander, which no doubt had been
long pent up.

"I see," said Webster, with a grim smile; "we must get this fellow on
board to save him from his friends."

He signalled to the _Swift_, and when she came alongside, Juarez, who
still breathed heavily, was lowered to her deck.

"What's to be done with the sloop, sir?"

"Oh, leave her, if she can float, and think ourselves lucky to be free
of a gang of prisoners."

"She can reach Madeira by means of her sails."

"Take a look round, then, and come aboard."

Webster and Hume went aft, where all the damage done by the _Swift's_
guns had taken place, and there they found the bulwarks smashed to
splinters, the two guns overturned, and the deck wet with blood from a
dozen dead.

With a last word of advice to the gloomy and silent officers of the
sloop, Webster stepped overboard, and very soon the _Swift_ went on her
way.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A PAINFUL SCENE.

The stricken sloop lay like a log on the ocean as the _Swift_ stretched
along into the Atlantic.  In less than half an hour she had been struck
down, maimed, and humbled by an enemy which she had treated with
contempt.

"Why didn't you sink her?" said Commins softly, coming to the side of
Captain Pardoe, who stood with a dull flush in his face, fixedly
regarding the labouring sloop.  "You are fighting for the National
Government.  Why didn't you sink her?"

Pardoe turned and regarded the man at his side under his brows for a
moment.  "What a devil you are, Commins!"

"Am I really?" remarked Commins imperturbably; "but, however flattering
to my sagacity, that is scarcely an answer to my question.  You have
committed a blunder, Pardoe, and if the authorities at Rio were informed
of it they might--I'm not saying they would, mind you--but they might
court-martial you."

"Court-martial me for smashing an enemy's ship?  You're a fool,
Commins!"

"Pardon me, but you have not smashed the enemy.  There he goes leisurely
on his way back to port after you had him in your power, and if either
of us is to be called a fool I am inclined to think you are entitled to
that honour.  Take my advice: go back and sink that ship."

"Do you mean that?"

"Certainly, in your own interests.  The Brazilian Admiral would be the
last man to suppose you had let the enemy escape from motives of
humanity.  And, then, you saved the life of that fiend, Juarez."

"Juarez is my prisoner."

"Yes, truly; but, observe how absurd your case would be when you say to
the Admiral: `I let the warship escape, but I have brought you her
Captain, who would have been assassinated by his own crew.'"

"I see you have already placed me on my trial," said Pardoe dryly.  "I
presume you wish me to murder Juarez as well as to sink the ship?"

"You have a brutal way with you, Pardoe, as befits, no doubt, a brave
sailor; but it jars.  As for Juarez, it may give our friends some
pleasure to dispose of him at Rio, though his presence on board will
cause me a feeling of nausea; but it is necessary that you should do
your work thoroughly, and for your safety, and the success of our
mission, you must destroy that ship."

"I must!" said the Captain, with a dark look.

"Well, there is no compulsion; but that is my opinion, and the opinion
of Miss Laura de Anstrade."

"You lie!"

Commins grew white to the lips, and his gloved fingers, resting on the
bridge rail, trembled, but recovering himself, he said: "I will bring
her here, and you shall receive the orders from her own lips," then left
the bridge.

Captain Pardoe flung himself round, took a hasty turn up and down the
cramped bridge, then, with a stern and angry visage, faced Miss
Anstrade.

She came swiftly, with a rustling of skirts, and a faint perfume that
seemed strangely out of place, as much out of place as would be the
inhuman order from her woman's lips to destroy a helpless ship.  Her
large eyes glared with a feverish light, her breast heaved, and her
hands were clutched in a sort of hysterical passion.

"Captain Pardoe," she cried, in a thin, unnatural voice, "why have you
let that ship escape?"

"Because, madam, I had not men enough to work her, and she would never
have reached Rio."

"No; but she can reach the bottom."

"Good God!" he muttered, his face turning an ashen grey, "Miss Laura,
you cannot mean that?"

"Yes; but I do!" she said, with a gasp.

"Then," he said fiercely, "you must put someone else in command."

"Oh, no, no!" she cried, "I never--"

"Be firm," whispered Commins; "think how your case will be strengthened.
If you can say you have destroyed one of the enemy's ships.  Remember
your brother!"

Captain Pardoe noticed the action, and, pointing to Commins, he said
bitterly: "Appoint that man your Captain, madam; he alone is capable of
such an act, and perhaps Juarez would assist him."

"It is policy," whispered Commins.

The name of Juarez had a strange effect on the girl.  She drew herself
up, and in a hard voice called Lieutenant Webster.

He, seeing something unusual occurring, as, indeed, had all those on the
main-deck, had drawn near.

"At your service, madam," he said, with a hasty look at Captain Pardee's
dark face.

"I wish to appoint you Captain, Mr Webster."

"Thank you, madam!"

Commins smiled as Pardoe threw his head up with a snort of indignant
surprise.

"Mr Pardoe has refused to obey orders.  I beg your pardon, what were
you about to say?"

"I don't think I wish to say anything, madam, and I'd rather not hear
anything more;" saying which, Webster, with a distressed look on his
frank face, stepped by, and stood beside Captain Pardoe.

"Ah!" cried Miss Anstrade, "you desert me for him.  Let it be so.  I
would rather know at once whom I may trust."  The weakness and
hesitation which at first she had shown disappeared, giving place to a
feeling of wounded pride.  She drew herself up, and regarded the two
officers scornfully, forgetting, as only an angry woman can, the
services they had already performed.

"I will have you placed on board yonder ship with that defeated crew,
and perhaps then, when they turn their fury on you, you will repent your
ingratitude.  Once before I had to turn to these gallant sailors in
order to shame you into doing your duty, and now, with confidence, I
will appeal to them once more."  Her voice rang out clear and loud, and,
charmed herself by the sound, she dwelt on her words.  The men edged up,
looking at the group on the bridge; and, if she had not been carried
away by the confidence of her tone, she would have seen that their
aspect was not friendly to her or to the man at her side.  Hot, and most
of them bleeding from a fight into which they had been led with courage
and skill by their officers, it was not to be thought that they would,
on the bidding of a woman, turn their backs upon their leaders.  Commins
was quick to note their bearing, and so was Hume, who stood by, amazed
at the scene.

As she stood there with a proud smile on her lips, Frank swung himself
up, unceremoniously shouldered Commins away, and stood by her side.

"Men," he said, "it is a fine custom after a fight for the Captain to
thank his officers and men, and one that should be kept up by us.  This
lady is our commander, and she wishes to thank you all for the splendid
courage with which you have fought at this engagement against a foe of
double our strength."

"Sir," she said, recovering from the shock of surprise, "what is the
meaning of this insolence?"

"For Heaven's sake," whispered Commins, "let him speak.  Don't you see
the men side with them?"

She flashed a startled look over the upturned faces, then, with a motion
of her hand, signified to Frank to continue.

"Say a word to them, madam, yourself."

"Do you command me?" she asked haughtily.

"No, madam, I implore."

With a terrible look at Commins she went forward, and with a smiling
face, though her hands were clenched, she thanked them.

The men touched their caps, but they lingered, casting puzzled glances
at the Captain and Lieutenant.

"If so please you, mam," said the big Quartermaster in deep tones, "we'd
like to know what's been said by way of thanks to the Captain for the
handsome way he took the ship into action, and to the Lieutenant for the
way he worked `The Ghost' Isn't it so, mates?"

There was a deep growl of assent.

"My men," said the Captain, in a deep bass that had a thrilling touch of
emotion in it, "I am pleased with you, and I think you are satisfied
with me and with the ship.  And all of us are proud of the young lady,
who, trusting herself fully in our keeping, has so bravely shared our
dangers."

"Three cheers for the lady," sang out Dick the Owl; and "God bless her!"
chimed in the Quartermaster.

The ship rang again to the shouts of the men, and Commins slipped below.

Miss Laura coloured, then grew white, but the Captain was too
experienced a man to show his triumph, though he could not forbear one
shot:

"If you will allow me, madam, I will go to my cabin, for I have been on
the bridge all night."

"All night! you are cruel to remind me of it, Captain."

"Am I Captain again, then?"

"Go to your room, sir," she said, with a frown, "and consider yourself
under arrest till eight bells.  Now, Mr Webster," she continued, with a
sudden change of manner, "you will show me over the ship, and explain to
me all about the action.  I see you are wounded."

"Merely a scratch, madam, from a flying link from the anchor chain."

He led the way down, and Hume and the Captain, lingering on the bridge,
saw her chatting with the men, and examining the damage done aft, where
a flight of missiles had struck the deck.

"That was a timely speech of yours, Hume," said the Captain, "and saved
us from an awkward fix, for had the men once got the notion that they
had done me an obligation, there would have been an end to discipline,
tried men as they are.  I am not satisfied that we have a plain course
before us, for we have to reckon with that man Commins, and the whims of
a young lady."

"She appears to be quite reconciled now," remarked Hume.

"Maybe, and I hope so, but a woman can sail under false colours and
dummy portholes without a sign of her real feelings.  See the way she's
smoothing down Black Henderson.  I shouldn't wonder if she's scheming to
gain the men over in preparation for the next mad-brained jamboree."

"What relation does Mr Commins hold to her?"

"That is no business of ours," said the Captain gruffly, "and harkee, my
lad, remember that you are sailing under her orders, and that you have
to stand by her, and not me."  With that he swung down below, leaving
Frank to his own reflections, which were not of the brightest.  He
noticed that Miss Anstrade had ignored his presence, and wondered
whether she was displeased at his interference, then dwelt on the
influence which Mr Commins undoubtedly exercised over her, and finally
blamed himself for having committed himself to this mad venture.  His
thoughts went back to his uncle, and to the promise which he had given
to search for that impossible Golden Rock, and he asked himself if he
would not have been happier had he started on that forlorn enterprise;
but, even as he thought, his mental image of that imaginary rock faded
away before the visible presence of the wayward, passionate girl whose
beauty had already beguiled him.

She had parted from Webster, who was busy with the men, and came slowly
picking her way over the litter of coal scattered from the bags by a
shell which had ripped up the whole row on the port side, her one hand
stretched gracefully to its full length at her side to hold up her
skirts, the other at her throat holding a black mantilla which framed
her face.  Passing up to the bridge, she leant forward with her elbows
on the rails, the wide lace on her sleeves falling back and disclosing
shapely arms, and, with her chin in her hands, looked dreamily over the
grey sea to a faint blur which marked the toiling sloop.  She had not
noticed him by so much as a glance, and, accepting this as a hint, he
put the length of the bridge between him and her.

"Mr Hume."

He turned, but she was still absorbed in watching the sloop.

"Must I call twice?" she said in her low, rich tones; and he was by her
side.

"I feared I had offended you by my interference."

"And would my displeasure disturb you?" she asked, reclining her head
until she could look at him, and so keeping it.

Frank thought of Captain Pardoe, and wondered if she could be acting a
part.

"Why do you look at me so?  Tell me, what do you think of me?"

"I think you are very beautiful," he said daringly, carried away by her
beauty, and forgetting the part she had just played.

"Don't.  This is no ball-room interlude, and such a vapid compliment is
out of place here.  Be frank.  Come, tell me."  She nestled her face
more comfortably in her supporting palm, and looked at him with a faint
smile that parted her lips.

"Don't," he murmured, repeating her word; "I am only human."

"And I am not.  Is that it?  Well, perhaps you are right."

"I did not say so.  What I meant was, that if you look at me so--"

"Spare me!  I detest explanations.  Do you see that ship?" she turned
her face to the labouring sloop.  "It carries many souls--men who have
friends waiting for them in some far-off hacienda, gleaming white in the
bright sun, wives, mothers, and others as dear, who would grieve were
they lost.  You know, I had it in my head to sink that ship and all on
board.  What do you think of me?  I would like to know."

"It was a horrible fancy," he said a little sternly; "but I do not
believe you meant to carry it out."

"Ah! you do not know me," she whispered, with a shudder; "I am sometimes
afraid of myself."

"You brood too much over your sorrows.  Why not come up here more often
and talk with us?" he said, with a jealous thought of Commins.

"That is very good of you," she answered demurely, with a swift change
of expression; "and I appreciate the invitation all the more because of
the evident implication that I alone am to benefit from it."

"You misunderstand me," he said hastily; "what I meant--"

"Yes, yes; how dull you are, Mr Hume!"

"I am sorry you should think so, madam," he answered stiffly.

"Now go off in a pet, and leave me to my own thoughts, which, of course,
are very pleasant company for a lonely girl among a lot of morose and
fiery men, who cannot see that the strain upon her is almost too much."
She said this with a smile, but Hume noticed that the lips trembled
while they smiled, and that in the eyes there was a worn, almost wild,
look.

"Take my arm, Miss Laura," he said gently.  "Let me tell you my story;
it may interest you."

She took his arm with almost a convulsive grasp, and for a moment she
bent her head; then with a soft and womanly look she asked him to talk
and not to heed her silence.  So they paced up and down, six paces one
way, six another, and were necessarily thrown together by the narrowness
of the passage.  He talked of his uncle, the tough old hunter, of the
simple life he led, of his sacrifice and quiet death, and a sweeter look
stole into her face.

"And so," she said, "you have put aside the quest entrusted to you by
that good old man and thrown in your lot with me?  I thank you, but you
must find the Golden Rock."

"If it is there," he said, smiling at her eagerness.

"Oh, it exists; I am sure of it.  I can see the gleam of it now;" and
she shaded her eyes with her hand.

"But it is not on the sea," he said laughingly.

"I am looking beyond the sea, among your African mountains, to a flame
that glows under the rays of the morning sun, and there is a ring of red
around the flame.  Ah! you will encounter many dangers."

"What will it matter," he said, "since I am alone in the world?"

"It may matter," she whispered, and then withdrew her arm, and hastily
quitted the bridge, after one anxious look at the sloop, and a murmured
prayer that it would safely reach port.



CHAPTER TWELVE.

A STRANGE VESSEL.

Five days after the stormy scene on the bridge, Frank Hume and Webster
were lying forward, upon rugs, on the turtle-shell deck, in the full
blaze of a hot sun.  The sea was calm, even beyond the power of the
_Swift_ to toss up spray, and stretched away, unbroken by so much as a
single gleam of white, to the horizon, though astern there lay a long
trail, slightly sinuous, over which, with many a sweep and soar, there
hawked a pair of gulls.  Now and again, from the heave of the water
before the fast slipping foot of the _Swift_, there ripped out a flight
of flying fish, who, after an unmistakable beat of their glittering
wings, shot away to the right and left, to fall with an awkward splash
into the sea.

Here and there, propped up against some wide-mouthed ventilator, or
stretched in the grateful shadows of the boats, were a few barefooted
sailors engaged with needle and thread, while under an awning aft Mr
Commins and Miss Anstrade reclined in deck-chairs.  The harsh grating
noise of the steering gear, and the ceaseless thud of the propellers,
alone broke the silence, which, like the silence of vast stretches
ashore, or of deep-wooded solitudes, hushes the voice of animals and
kills speech in men.  Out on the bosom of the sea, or on the summit of a
mountain, the trifles which interest us among our fellows have little
power against the subduing influence of vast unpeopled spaces.

All the morning the steamer reached on, always remaining in the centre
of the same wide circle, and it was only when the Quartermaster struck
eight bells that there was any movement among the brooding men.  Webster
sat up, and with his hands on his knees, and his cap at the back of his
head, looked over the shining waste, then yawned.

"What an eloquent fellow you are, Hume!" he said; "you've got no more
conversation and greater powers of observation than a bale of wool.
There's that fellow Commins still talking to the Commodore and oiling
his jaw-tackle with iced champagne, the lubber; and to think you might
be enjoying the same privileges if you only had the wit to make yourself
agreeable."

"I don't care for champagne iced."

"You don't, eh? but maybe you'd care to be seated where he is, within
the range of those lustrous eyes, or was it luminous you called them,
for all the world as though you were speaking of a black cat in a
coal-cellar?  And such cigars as she smokes, too?"

"She doesn't smoke cigars!"

"Man, I saw the glow of one last night, burning red, and lighting, by
its reflection, the dark splendour of her eyes, as you magnificently put
it."

"It was a cigarette, and you might know, if you were not always between
waking and sleeping, that most high-bred Spanish women smoke them, and
think no more of it than a dab of powder."

"Then you were smoking the cigar, and I was awake enough to see that the
fierce light of the cigar was closer than the breadth of my hand to the
tiny glow of the dainty cigarette.  I've been thinking whether I ought
to congratulate you or her first."

"Don't be an ass, Webster; I was merely explaining to her the map of the
stars."

"Then there's nothing between you?"

"Nothing but the length of the ship."

"Then that relieves my heart of a great pressure, which has sat there
ever since I had salt junk for breakfast.  I shall propose to the
Commodore myself."

"The devil you will!" said Frank, rising to his elbow, and regarding
Webster with anxiety.

The Lieutenant sighed, and then winked solemnly.

"Yes, my boy, for I'm sick to death of seeing that red-banded dandy
flashing his teeth in the face of her as though he were the only man on
board with courage enough to make love to a pretty girl."

"You are fooling."

"Not me.  I've been thinking, and it occurred to me that I've lived long
enough in a circle.  I want to pass the remainder of my life in a square
house with someone like the Commodore, who won't obey orders.  She would
want to paint the walls yellow to match her complexion, and I would tell
the Quartermaster to paint them blue to remind me of the sea.  The house
would have a flat roof with a flag-post on the weather quarter.  I would
hoist my colours in the morning, and she would bend on hers in the
afternoon, for I've noticed that a woman grows more active as the day
dwindles.  It is a trait she enjoys in common with cats."

"My dear fellow," said Frank earnestly, "all you have to do is to give
her a sketch of that programme, and that will be enough in the way of
wooing."

"Can you suggest any improvement?"

"Well, you would do well to hint at the luxury of green blinds for the
windows, and pictures on the walls."

"If there is one thing I detest more than soda with whisky, it's satire;
you should leave such weapons to that glass-eyed lubber aft, who always
looks at me as if I were a monstrosity, and sets my muscles moving to
catch him by the neck.  Now, Frank, for the honour of all good men, sail
in and win the prize.  I mean it.  You can see for yourself that the
fellow is every kind of a rogue, and though the Commodore doesn't answer
well to the helm, it would be a wicked shame to see her taken in tow by
that shark.  Hang me if the fellow was not rattling dice last night with
that black-hearted piccaroon, Juarez."

"Is that a fact?"

"Ay, that it is; and it came across me that the two of them were too
friendly for our safety.  It was about four bells, and I had gone below
to turn in, when I heard the unmistakable rattle, and peeping in through
the ventilator above the door, saw the two of them hard at it, with the
everlasting bottle at their elbows."

"Have you told the Captain?"

"I did; and he scowled horribly.  You know how pleasant he looks when he
is put out; and he went down straightway and tumbled the gentle pirate
into his cell, at the same time threatening to clap Commins in irons if
he sought such congenial society again."

"And--?"

"Commins swore most foully.  I never thought the creature had such a
command of language; but the skipper asked him if he would complain to
the Commodore, when he calmed down rapidly into soft words and
treacherous smiles.  I tell you he is a plotter, and if anything goes
wrong with the rebels--the National party, by compliment--he would sell
us for a brass candlestick.  Now, if you will dash in, cut him out as he
lies at his moorings in the light of her friendship, I will not bring my
fascination to bear upon her."

"I'm afraid it's hopeless," said Frank, with a sigh; "and don't you
think we are talking without book?--for we have no reason to suppose
that she wishes to be freed from the attentions of Mr Commins, still
less that she is in any danger from him."

"You've got too much of the calculating machine in you, Frank--a defect
we sailors don't possess.  This is a matter not to be reasoned about I
can feel in my marrow that the man is a scheming rascal."

The Quartermaster struck eight bells, and Webster went off to take a
sight, the Captain having already entered upon that daily task.

They were three days off Cape Verde, having made the islands to take in
more coal, and were making across the Atlantic, in a south-westerly
course, right out of the track of vessels.  When Hume, who was looking
forward listlessly, cried out, "Ship ahead!" there was unusual interest
aroused, and glasses were brought to bear upon the distant speck.

"A steamer!" cried Captain Pardoe, "and lying to, for there's not so
much as a stain of smoke against the blue of the sky beyond."

The men and officers, now thoroughly aroused from their drowsy torpor,
stared at the distant ship which had so suddenly slipped from the
horizon into this silent sea.

"Do you make out any signals, Mr Webster?"

"No, sir; but I can't see a single boat, and it seems to me the tackle
is hanging from the davits."

"Strange," muttered the Captain; "for there have been no indications of
storm.  Maybe the boats are out for some business of life-saving."  And
he swept his glass to right and left of the steamer, which was rapidly
taking shape to the naked eye.

"Bring her round a couple of spokes--so.  Hold her at that."  The
_Swift_ bore down straight for the stranger, and for some minutes not a
word was spoken on her, as every man eagerly searched the ship, and then
the smooth water about her, for the first trace of any sign that would
explain the mystery of her fixed and lonely state.  The belt of sea
beyond widened out, her straight bows rose higher; a sailor picked out
the red band round her funnel, and now one, and then another, with a
quick cry, averred they saw men on board; but yet there was no sign of
her boats, or trace of smoke.

"She has a slight list to starboard, Mr Webster."

"I marked that, sir; but she has not settled down, and can't be making
water."

"She looks over seaworthy for a castaway.  Who is it can see a man on
board?"

The sailor Dick touched his cap.  "There's a chap swinging on the
starboard side, sir, just below the forward davits, and there's another
lying on the booby-trap."

The other men looked at Dick, then, with knitted brows under the shade
of their flat palms, gazed intently at the spots indicated; but, failing
to make out any object so small at such a distance, they all turned to
watch the Captain, and judged from the sharp inquiring glance he threw
at the Lieutenant before taking a longer view that there was now some
key to the mystery.

"There certainly is a man up aloft, and another hanging at the side; but
he is strangely still."

"It seems to me his legs move," muttered Webster.  "My God! what is that
below him?"

To the straining looks of the excited crew there flashed for a moment a
speck of white at the side of the ship, followed by a faint toss of
spray against the black hull.

"'Tis a shark!" shouted Dick.

Another pause succeeded, and from the doors there peered out the grim
faces of half a dozen stokers, who had, down below, felt the contagion
of excitement.

"There has been foul play," said the Captain; "no live man would remain
within a yard of those gaping jaws and not struggle to escape."

"Fire a blank charge, Mr Webster."

The twelve-pounder roared its summons, loud enough to wake the dead, but
no white face was lifted over the bulwarks of the vessel, and no
movement came from the two still forms.

"Make ready to launch the boat."

There was a rush of naked feet, four men tumbled into the boat with
Webster; the ropes were loosened, and the davits swung out.

"Captain, what is that dark cloud beyond the ship?" asked Miss Anstrade,
who had been standing on the bridge with a look of wonder in her face.

"A capful of wind, Miss Laura."

The steamer soon heeled over slowly to the breeze; then her stern,
making a ripple on the water, came round, and she lay broadside on,
showing the high poops, lofty bridge, and deep, well-like quarter-deck
of the ocean tramp.  The strange figure hanging over the swell of her
bows swung to the lazy motion of the ship, his feet nearly touching the
heave of the sea made by the list.

Out of that swell there rose the gleaming belly of the great fish, the
next moment the ropes hung limp against the ship!

A murmur of horror rose from the _Swift_, and Miss Anstrade caught Frank
convulsively by the arm.  "O Sancta Sanctissima!" she cried, "what a
fearful thing is the sea!"

Yet it could not have been more peaceful, as it came with a soft
caressing ripple against the grey sides of the catcher, its glossy
surface belying the evidence of that ghastly tragedy, whose eddying
ripples it had hastily smoothed away.

And the derelict, lazily dipping, pointed her tall narrow bows once more
at the _Swift_, and seemed to the sailor-men to appeal to them in her
helplessness; so they pitied her as if she had been a living thing.

"What is the matter with her?" asked Miss Anstrade, her face still
white.

"She has been abandoned, evidently; but I must find out why, for she
appears to be seaworthy.  Her rigging is uninjured; she cannot be making
water, and if her steam-gear were damaged she could trust to her sails."

The _Swift_ was now within a few lengths of the derelict, and passing
under her stern, turned to examine her port side.

There, at last, was some evidence of violence, for one of her iron
plates had been ripped open, the port side of the bridge had been
completely swept away, and there were two jagged holes in her forward
bulwark, the jagged ends projecting out, while fragments of a boat hung
from her davits.

"She's been under fire!" said the Captain in astonishment.

"Ay, ay, raked fore and aft by bow chasers," was the comment of the men.

"Stand by to lower the boat.  Let go!"  The boat sank to the sea,
shipshape and even, and Hume, with a word to the Captain, slipped down
into her.

"Give way!" cried Webster, standing up in the stern-sheets.  The men put
their backs into it, and very soon an active tar, making use of his toes
and hands, was on the quarter-deck.  He took one quick look around, then
let down a rope, up which the rest scrambled one after the other.  An
extraordinary spectacle met their gaze: the well was littered with
splinters; the ladder reaching to the main-deck was smashed; the
entrance to the alley-way blocked with the iron wall of the cabin, which
had been torn away from its fastenings.  On the starboard side, however,
the deck was clear, and passing round, they went up the step to the
main-deck.  The starboard side here was free, but on the port side the
deck was ploughed up, and hampered with a part of the bridge and portion
of the boat, while the row of skylights were shattered into pieces.

Sending a couple of men aloft to bring down the man on the booby,
Webster and Hume went below to examine the state-room.  The table was
set for dinner, but the plates were clean, and the meal had not been
served.  Fallen over on the table was a--bottle of whisky, from which
the spirit had run out over the cloth, still filling the room with a
strong odour, and on the floor was a broken glass.  The cabin door
opening into the saloon was open, and an inspection showed that the
contents had been overhauled, the boxes standing open, and the floors
covered with clothing which had been hastily tossed out.

On a small table, in the Captain's room, was the log-book, the last
entry broken off--

"1 degree North latitude, 30 West longitude.  Towards evening sighted a
cruiser, which showed the Brazilian (National) colours, and held on.
She signalled for our colours.  Run up the National flag, when she
hauled down her colour and ran up the Government flag, at the same time
signalling us to lay-to.  Expecting little mercy if she found out the
nature of our cargo, made a run for it.  She gave chase, and opened fire
with her bow guns.  Cruiser gave up the chase at dusk, just as a
discharge from her bow guns severely mauled us.  _Irene_ making water
fast, and resolved to take the boats and--"

"That explains her state," mused Webster, as he turned over the pages of
the log, which showed that the _Irene_, 1,500 tons, had left Bristol for
Rio in June, 1893, and had up to the last entry made an uneventful
voyage.

"It's a monstrous thing," said Frank, "that a peaceful merchant steamer
should have been served in this way."

"She probably carries contraband of war, and navy men don't go to much
ceremony before playing bowls with a blockade-runner.  Ask the skipper;
he's been at the game often, and by the same token I believe he took
command of the _Swift_ to wipe off old scores.  Let's get below."

Calling two of the men, Webster lifted a hatchway, and, with a lantern
from the storeroom, descended to investigate, and was not long in
finding that the main hold contained a large shipment of rifles packed
in cases.  Returning to deck, they found the two men who had been sent
aloft standing by the side of a young sailor who had been struck in the
head, evidently by a fragment of iron.  He was stiff in death, and
Webster, with a gentle touch, drew the eyelids over the blue eyes.

He then turned to the side to haul in the ropes, from which that other
figure had swung.  There was a loop in the end, in which the unfortunate
man in launching the forward boat had probably been entangled, and
overlooked by his comrades in the dark.  Subdued and saddened by what
they had seen, they returned to the _Swift_, and Webster made his
report.

"A blockade-runner," said the Captain, his gloomy eyes lighting up; "and
full of arms.  What a prize she would be for the rebels!"

"And for us, too," said Mr Commins quickly.  There was a long pause,
and the Captain paced restlessly to and fro, casting quick glances at
the derelict.  "She would mean a fortune," he continued slowly, "for I
happen to know that the land forces of the National party are badly
armed.  Now, Captain, here is an opportunity that falls right into your
mouth, and I would strongly urge you to accept the gift.  I admit I was
wrong about the _Esperanza_, but concerning the advisability of taking
possession of this rich derelict there can surely be no two opinions."

"But I should have to place a crew on board, and that would weaken us,"
said the Captain, with an air as though he liked the proposal.

"I, myself, don't see any bar to that arrangement," said Commins,
stroking his chin, and eyeing the Captain thoughtfully.  "I dare say
now, with half our crew, you yourself could undertake to run the
blockade with that ship."

"I am not going to leave the _Swift_," said the Captain roughly.

"I should hope not," laughed Commins.  "I had in mind the history of
some of your daring trips as blockade-runner, and, of course, as I
presume, Mr Webster, and our young friend, Mr Hume, with as few men as
you could spare, could be put on board.  They could make for some port
north of Rio, and after reporting her whereabouts and arranging for the
reward, you could re-ship the crew previous to carrying out the object
of this voyage."

"That would mean delay, and Miss Anstrade may object," urged the
Captain, who, nevertheless, was evidently pleased with the scheme.

"You have heard the Captain's suggestion, madam," said Commins, turning
to Miss Anstrade, "which seems to me very important, and which, if
carried out, would have a most valuable bearing on our chance of
success.  With that ship and its cargo in our hands we could, with
confidence, ask for every assistance from the national commanders ashore
and afloat."

Miss Anstrade knitted her brows as she looked at the speaker.

"You know my wish," she said wearily, "is to reach Rio as soon as
possible.  I understand you to say that the cargo of yonder ship would
realise a fortune, and it seems to me if I demanded from my struggling
countrymen money in return for services, they would be under no
indebtedness to me.  If we are to weaken our strength to save that ship
I would prefer to give it up without any question of reward."

"But you have no objection to the crew sharing in any prize money that
may be offered," said Commins quickly, with a side glance at the
Captain.

"None whatever," she said coolly.

"And you consent to our saving the ship?"

"I suppose so, though I clearly see my opinion would not be considered
if it were opposed to the step."

"Not so, madam," said Captain Pardoe.  "That ship and its cargo should
realise 90,000 pounds, but if you say leave it, I will send her to the
bottom, so that she shall not fall into the enemy's hands."

"Do as you wish," she said, with a sad smile, and turned away with a
sigh.

The Captain and Mr Commins continued eagerly to discuss the matter,
while Hume, who had been standing near with Webster, plucked the latter
by the sleeve to draw him aside.

"Well, what do you think of this new scheme?"

"I don't know that I like it over well, but I judge the temptation would
prove a strong one for the Captain.  It is a big stroke of luck, after
all."

"The Captain appears to be rather keen upon money making."

"I suppose he is," said Webster slowly; "and so are most men when they
have the chance.  Would you say there was any sentiment about the
skipper?"

"As little as there is about that twelve-pounder."

"That's where you lose your compass," said Webster gravely.  "For
fifteen years the Captain's dream has been to save money enough to make
a home for his future wife, my sister, Hume.  When I was a boy at school
he was courting her--a fine, high-spirited fellow, with a way about him
that won everybody's goodwill.  I have marked him grow more silent and
stern as the years went by, and I have seen my sister's gaiety grow into
a sweet and tender patience; but never a word of marriage from him.  He
was waiting for his fortune, and twice he made it and lost it, once
after ten years in the merchant service, when he was wrecked, and once
after running a blockade, when he was captured and imprisoned by the
Peruvians.  `'Tis coming, love,' he would say; `a house for you and a
little farmyard for me, down in the old county.'  Poor little Loo!  I
think I see her now sitting, as sometimes she would when the housework
was done, with her hands in her lap, looking wistfully into the future.
God grant her wishes may be fulfilled!"

"I say no more about the Captain," said Frank warmly, "except to echo
your prayer.  For his sake I hope this plan will carry through well, but
after what you said of Commins I am suspicious.  He may have some design
in dividing our strength."

"No doubt he has, but he might as safely light a cigar at a volcano as
attempt to win over any of our men."

The Captain's voice here rang out:

"Mr Webster, we will lay by till morning.  Take all the men on board
and get it as shipshape as possible.  Find, if you can, the supercargo's
manifesto, and if you can't, then make a rough inventory of the cargo."

The _Swift_ was laid alongside the _Irene_, on her weather side, and
moored fore and aft, the smoothness of the sea permitting this.  In this
position the low funnels did not rise above the lofty side of the
steamer, and she was completely hidden from the view of any vessel
coming up on the starboard side.  Her fires were damped down, steam shut
off, and the engineer and his staff were soon busy in the engine-room of
the _Irene_, while the Quartermaster, with his men, smartly cleared away
the litter in readiness for the carpenters.

So the work went briskly on, and in the quiet of the evening, in the
presence of all the crew, the body of the dead sailor lad, sewn up in a
sail-cloth, was committed to the deep sea, the bass voice of the Captain
ringing out solemnly in the impressive silence.  And when the last eddy
had died away the Captain shivered and drew his hand across his brow.

Maybe the summons for him also had already sounded, and he paced the
deck long into the night.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE SEA FIGHT.

The _Swift_ had been almost deserted, as the larger decks of the _Irene_
offered an irresistible attraction, and when the work was abandoned at
dusk the crew took possession of the forecastle, while Miss Anstrade,
with Hume and Webster, lingered on the poop, after surrendering the
main-deck amidships to the Captain, who preferred his own company.  Mr
Commins, alone for choice, remained on the catcher, and for a long time
the glow of his cigar could be seen under the small awning, while
Juarez, over whom he had offered to keep strict watch, lay near, under
the shadow of a lamp, smoking cigarettes.  The Brazilian Captain had
never been permitted to appear on deck when Miss Anstrade was there, and
his close confinement below had not improved his naturally brutal
nature, but he had tamed his temper down to the point of almost abject
humility in imploring the Captain to let him on deck.  Now the guttural
tones of his voice could be heard as he made occasionally a few remarks
to Mr Commins, the only man who cared to hold converse with him.

The night was beautiful, the dark vault of the sky gloriously gemmed
down to the dark belt of the horizon, while out of the intense black of
the sea there gleamed, near at hand, swordlike flashes of phosphorescent
fire from predatory fish, and between the sea and the sky there was no
living thing to break the brooding silence.  The men, glad of the
opportunity to stretch their legs, were soon asleep, and, except for an
occasional murmur of voices from the three on the poop and the rough
burr of Juarez at intervals, there was no sound on board.  The swell of
the sea rising and sinking between the catcher and the _Irene_ made a
soft ripple, followed by a deep sigh, having a power in its melancholy
music to draw Miss Anstrade to the port side, where she had leant with
her elbows on the rail, until at the dim sight of Juarez she started
back with a shudder of revulsion and sought the remoter side.

There the three of them leant, the efforts of the two men to talk to the
girl between them gradually lessening to complete silence.  She had
changed greatly since the excitement of the wild rush to Madeira, had
grown listless, the womanhood in her revolting against the strain and
burden she had rashly imposed on herself, and at each sign of
helplessness the two young men had felt more tender towards her, trying,
each in his own way, to show their sympathy.  They had talked often
together about the object of the voyage, and, sanguine though they were
with the ardour of youth, they could see nothing but disaster before
them, while the desperate nature of the enterprise had also come home to
her.  Presently, with a moan, she thrust her hands forward:

"There is nothing but failure before me, and perhaps death."

"You are over-worn," said Frank gently; "and, indeed, the _Swift_ is too
rough a boat for a lady."

"Ay, that it is, Miss Laura," said Webster, "and, as for talk of failure
or death, they are for us to prove, and not for you, who are made for
better things.  This steamer has been thrown across us by the mercy of
Providence, and it is your duty almost to accept the gift, and embark in
it for a safe port."

"I despise myself," she said wearily; "but I have no courage and no
hope, and shudder at the thought of remaining on the _Swift_.  I cannot
understand it."

"I think I can," said Frank, in a low tone.  "You have been mistaken in
yourself, and your presence on board, in contrast with the grim ship,
has seemed to me a sort of marvel.  You are fitted for better things."

"You mean I have no strength of purpose," she said slowly.  "And do you
expect me to relinquish this enterprise, to go back without striking one
blow, to surrender to my weakness, and for ever be a victim of my
cowardice, haunted by a memory, and lashed by my conscience?  No--no--
never!"

She threw her head up proudly.

"You may go to safety in this ship; but--I--I will do what I have said."

"You mistake us," said Hume; "neither Mr Webster nor myself asks you to
give up the enterprise.  We have no thought of turning from it; but we
do think strongly that you should not share in the work and worry of it.
It is not fair to you; it is unjust to us."

"Unjust, sir--how?"

"Madam, you may not know it, but every man on board the _Swift_ thinks
more of you than of his own safety, and if they all knew you were ashore
they would be happier in working out your purpose."

"You are right there, Frank," said Webster.  "We'd go into action with a
laugh if you were not aboard, madam, but every shell would make our
hearts beat with fear if you were with us."

"Ah! my friends," she answered with emotion, "you make my sorrow all the
greater to think I should have brought you to this, and be myself so
fearful of the end.  Forgive me, but I am proud and weak by turns.  Oh,
if I had the courage of a man!"

"You are better as you are," said Frank.  "Your weakness has more power
over us than if you never winced or wavered."

Suddenly she stood back and looked at them, laughing low.

"What is it?"

"It has occurred to me, gentlemen, that you are both to remain on the
_Irene_."

"Yes, madam; but why does that amuse you?" said Frank helplessly.

"And so you have been scheming to have my company.  I am sure I am
greatly charmed, and would be more if you had not pretended an anxiety
for my safety."

"Pretended, madam!" gasped Webster.  "I'll see the Captain hanged before
I leave the _Swift_.  He can sail this old tub himself, so that he takes
you with her."

"Thank you, sir," she said, with another rippling laugh, "though you
might have turned me over to the Captain more gracefully.  And you, Mr
Hume?"

"We are plain men," he began stiffly.

"Yes, you are very plain, and very stupid."

At this unexpected retort the two men fell into a gloomy silence, being
too much in earnest and too greatly surprised to laugh.

"Ah, dear," she said, "that I had one woman with me, then I could laugh,
and rage, and weep upon her neck within a minute, and have no ill looks
in return.  Come, my friends, be not angry."

She gave each one a hand, and each raised it to his lips, which showed
that they could express themselves well in deeds, though not in words.

She placed both hands to her cheeks, and her fine eyes glowed as she
looked at them.

"It is the kiss of brave men," she said in low, thrilling tones; "the
pledge of your lives to me.  Ah, my friends, I read that little act more
clearly than what you could tell me in words, and see, for those who
love you, for the mother who has treasured you, in return for the homage
the strong and brave pay to woman, I kiss you."

She leant forward, and pressed her lips to their cheeks in turn.

They stood back and straightened themselves with kindling eyes, feeling
as the young knight who has received his spurs.

"Out with all lights!"  It was the Captain's voice, ringing out loud and
stern.

There was a breathless pause, followed by a confused murmur of voices.

"Silence, forward, there.  Is that you, Mr Dixon?"--a quiet, grave man,
whose heart was with his wife and child at home.

"Yes, sir."

"Get up steam, but be careful with your fire."

"What can the matter be?" gasped Miss Anstrade, at the sound of men
moving quietly from the _Irene_ into the _Swift_.

Webster, at the first cry from the Captain, had sprung to the bulwark,
holding to a wire rope-stay.

"There's a steamer's lights away aft.  I wonder she has escaped us."

The Captain's dark form appeared on the poop.

"Mr Webster, see the fires relit on this ship."

"Ay, ay, sir.  What do you make her out to be?"

"When did you mark her?"

"When you called, sir."

"Ah!  She appeared an hour since, and I judge from her movements and her
lights she is a man-of-war, probably the same cruiser which surprised
this ship before."

"Do you think she has seen us?"

"I'm afraid so, though our lights must be very dim, for she altered her
course and is bearing down.  She may pass us, unless she brings the
spars of the _Irene_ against a star.  I won't leave this prize, however,
until I am obliged."

Webster moved off, and the others, including the sailors on board,
watched the approaching vessel; while Mr Commins, who could not, of
course, see the stranger from the hidden catcher, hurried on board to
find out the cause of the commotion.

"You think she is the Brazilian steamer?" he said in a voice of alarm,
listening to the explanation.  "Curse it!  Misfortune dogs us.  I wish
we were out of this!"

"Speak for yourself," answered the Captain in a growl.

Mr Commins lingered awhile, and then went off to give the news to
Juarez, who received it with a savage laugh.

The red light rapidly approached through the black of the night, and it
was evident she would pass very near.  The excitement grew rapidly as
the news was passed from mouth to mouth in rapid whispers.

"Mr Hume, will you help Miss Anstrade to the _Swift_; pass the word to
the men to get on board, and have them stationed at the guns."

In a few minutes Captain Pardee was the only man on board the _Irene_,
with the exception of the stokers, who were busily preparing the fires.

To those in the _Swift_ who could see nothing there followed a long and
anxious state of suspense, broken at last by the low voice of the
Captain speaking from above.

"Mr Hume, stand by to slip the fastenings."

They held their breath, listening, and to them came the regular beat of
engines.

Louder and louder grew the noise, but they could see nothing of the
danger, and its imminence seemed to them the nearer.  There was a
movement in the air, the pulsation of the distant screw affected them so
that they believed the _Swift_ itself was throbbing, and presently the
_Irene_ leant over towards them gently, and as gently rolled away.

"'Tis the wave from her wake," muttered the Quartermaster.

The sound of the engines gradually lessened.

The Captain's figure appeared above.  "She has passed," he said.

There was a rush for the tall sides of the _Irene_, and presently
everyone was staring forward at a green light fast diminishing in the
dark, now at its blackest before the dawn.

"Thank God for His mercy," murmured Miss Anstrade, who had stood near
Hume silent and white, though without a sign of fear.

"You may well say that, Miss Laura," said the Captain.

The green light sunk rapidly, and had almost disappeared, when suddenly
a brilliant glare shot up, throwing a sickly light over the group on the
poop.

The Captain gave a bound to the side, and next minute there was a hoarse
cry as his pistol rang out.

"It is that villain Juarez; send his black soul to hell!  Overboard with
him!" roared the Captain.

The black-bearded Quartermaster, balancing himself on the rail a moment,
sprang to the iron deck below, and next minute there was a howl of
mingled fear and rage, followed by a splash.

"Launch the boat, and smother that light with a sail!"

The Captain gnashed his teeth as he glared at the brilliant flare from a
life-saving light floating on the quiet waters, and sending forth an
appeal to the distant battleship.  Mr Commins stood in the catcher near
the spot where the slinking figure of Juarez had been shot down,
seemingly without power to move, as he looked horror-struck at the dark
waters.

Without a second's delay the boat was launched, and a strip of canvas
thrown over the light, when the darkness settled down blacker than
before.  But the mischief had been done, and sullen looks were directed
at the dim speck in the distance.

"Ay, ay, there she comes round," said the sailor Dick.  In the distance
a red light replaced the green, but as they watched it suddenly
disappeared.

"She has gone," said Miss Anstrade, with an hysterical sob.

The Captain shook his head.

"She has put out her lights, and will hang about till morning."

"We'd better slip away, sir," said Webster.

The Captain lifted his fist, and banged it into his open hand.

"By the Lord," he growled, "I'll not leave this ship without a fight for
it!"

The Captain, however, gave way so far to the urgent protestations of
Miss Anstrade, that he abandoned any idea of placing a crew on board the
derelict until daylight revealed whether there was any chance of getting
clear away.  Fires were kept going on board the _Swift_, a look-out was
stationed on the larger vessel, and the men were sent to their berths.
Miss Anstrade retired to snatch an uneasy sleep, and the Captain,
leaving Webster and Hume in charge, went also to his cabin, falling
almost immediately into a sound sleep.  The small hours of the night
passed anxiously to the two officers who patrolled the poop of the
_Irene_ in silence, listening for any sound that would indicate the
whereabouts of the stranger.  There was, however, no sign of her
presence, and when the intense darkness of the night began to fade
before the dawn, a thick, white, low-lying mist wrapped the ship as in
an impenetrable cloak.

Webster, to get a view over the mist, if possible, went aloft, his
figure soon becoming blurred, and after a long stay, descended rapidly.

"She is near us," he said in an excited whisper to Hume.  "Waken the
Captain.  We could slip away without being seen."

Very soon Captain Pardoe climbed on board, and heard what his Lieutenant
had to say.

"I should judge her position to be about a mile on the starboard beam,
and she is steaming ahead at eight knots.  If the mist doesn't lift we
could easily slip her by making a nor'-west course."

"Which way is the wind?  Ah! blowing across to her.  She would hear us
getting under way.  We'll lie close awhile; but do you, meanwhile, Mr
Hume, rouse the crew; see they have a nip to warm them up, and get them
to their quarters quickly and in silence.  Is all in readiness on board
the ship, Mr Webster?"

"Yes, sir--except the crew."

"I'll take a look at her myself;" and the Captain went heavily into the
rattlins.

There was a movement on the _Swift_ as the men presently went to their
stations, and a sound of murmuring voices, followed, presently, by the
rush of escaping steam from both vessels as the fires were stirred.  A
few minutes more, and the stranger would put himself out of hearing.
The engineer stood in readiness to set the screw in motion, and men were
at hand ready to throw off the lashings which moored the catcher to the
_Irene_.  Suddenly, however, the mist began rapidly to melt, showing in
an instant almost a wide stretch of grey water.

The Captain reached the deck with a bound, just as the notes of a
boatswain's whistle came faintly over the still waters from beyond the
melting mist.

"She has seen us," said the Captain hoarsely.

As he spoke, there appeared the blurred outline of a big ship, about a
mile and a half distant, over the starboard stern, and the next instant
she stood out, broadside on, just as she came round, with tall masts,
and lofty sides of gleaming white.

"She has caught us, Captain," said Webster quietly; "and we could easily
have got away in the night."

The Captain turned on his heels with a stormy look on his face, and
walked a few steps, when he stood with his eyes bent on the deck.  Then
he threw his head up, gazed keenly at the cruiser, and when he faced
Webster again his mind was made up.

"On board," he cried, waving his hand to the catcher, and in a moment
was on the deck of the smaller ship.

"Madam and men," he said in his deep tones, "the ship we saw last night
is, I fear, a cruiser of the Brazilian navy.  She is near us, and if she
is an enemy we are in danger.  The blame is mine.  I should have kept on
instead of remaining to save this vessel."

Miss Anstrade made as though she would speak, but the Captain waved his
hand.

"Madam--Miss Laura--no words you could say would add to the regret I
feel.  But there is no time.  I have brought you into this peril, and
please God I will deliver you.  I want nine men to fight this ship.  Who
volunteers?"

There was a moment's pause as the men looked at one another, then the
Quartermaster stood out.

"We are all yours, Captain; to the last man."

"Ay, ay," came the response.

A dull flush crept into the Captain's face.  "Thank you, men," he said
quietly; "but I want nine only.  Quartermaster, select eight.  Mr Hume,
help Miss Anstrade on board.  Mr Webster, take command of the _Irene_,
and make full steam as soon as I engage the cruiser."

The men lingered reluctantly, and Miss Anstrade, with heaving breast,
stood looking at the Captain.

"Quick, Mr Hume," said the Captain, and at the same moment he took Miss
Anstrade by the hand and led her to the ladder.  "I am very sorry," he
said; then his hand was seized by a sailor, and all the men in turn
wrung his hand as they passed.

He looked round, and saw Webster standing by the engineer.

"Come, Jim, my boy," he said to the Lieutenant, "it is your duty to save
Miss Anstrade."

Webster moved forward with a strange look in his face.

"Remember Loo," he said hoarsely, "and let me stay here."

"It cannot be, my lad.  Good-bye, my boy, good-bye, and tell her I did
what she would expect me to.  Up."  He almost forced Webster to the
ladder, then turned.

"Mr Dixon," he said, and looked at the engineer.  "If I could spare you
I would, for it's death before us."

The engineer smiled softly.

"I am not sorry, Captain," he said, "for I understand."

He took one last look round at the wide sea and crimson heavens, then
his lips moved, he turned to grasp the Captain's outstretched hand, and
the two men looked into one another's eyes.

A pale figure of a man slipped out of the door and made furtively for
the steps.

"Mr Commins,"--the Captain's hand was laid upon his arm--"you will stay
with me, for your scheming nature and coward heart have brought us to
this."

Mr Commins trembled beneath the gloomy eyes turned upon him, cast one
imploring look at the faces above, then, without a word, allowed the
Captain to lead him to the cabin door.

The sound of a gun broke with relief upon the strained nerves of the
spectators.

"Cut the moorings!"

Silently the men on the _Irene_ cut through the ropes, and the _Swift_
floated free.

There was another sullen report, and a shell tore through the tall
rigging of the _Irene_.

The big, white cruiser, with a cloud of smoke hanging about her sides,
was leisurely steaming up about half a mile distant, and there was no
question of her nature, nor of the ferocity of her commander, who could
ruthlessly open fire for sheer devilment on a defenceless ship, for the
_Swift_ was up to the present completely hidden.

What must have been the astonishment of her people when, following their
last shot, there broke from the blockade-runner a murmur of cheering as
every soul on board cracked his throat in sending up a loud hurrah for
the _Swift_ and her gallant crew; and when, immediately afterwards,
there shot out from the shadow of the _Irene_ a long, low grey craft.
When the hunter, coming upon the dead quarry he had wounded earlier in
the day, suddenly discovers, crouching behind, the striped body of the
tiger, his feeling of dismay, perhaps, would be the same.

"Captain!  Captain!" cried Miss Anstrade, "what are you doing?  Ah,
heaven, I see it now; may the saints preserve him!"  She caught hold of
a rope, and stood looking from the catcher to the towering battleship,
with its broadside pierced for heavy guns, and its decks crowded with
men.

"Oh," she said, "it is cruel!"

Captain Pardoe stood on the bridge before entering the conning-tower,
his glass to his eyes, and his feet braced apart.  Then he turned and
waved his hand to the _Irene_, bringing it to his mouth in a trumpet.

"Steam away at full speed, and make for Cape Verde.  Good-bye."

Another cheer, strangely hoarse, broke from the _Irene_, and was
responded to by the men on the catcher, and a moment later the four-inch
gun opened fire with a roar.  The smaller guns spoke, and the whole five
of them flashed out shot after shot, making such a volume of smoke that
the low ship was at once completely hidden from those on the _Irene_.

"My God," murmured Webster, "why did I not stay with him?"

"Don't let his sacrifice be in vain," said Hume, touching Webster on the
shoulder.  "He will be happier if he knows we can escape."

"It is terrible, Frank; I cannot give the order.  Do so yourself."

Hume sadly went to the bridge and gave the order for full speed ahead,
but the _Irene_ had not gone a mile when, as though by common consent,
the steamer slowed down, and everyone on board, even to the stokers,
crowded on to the stern poop to watch the unequal battle, letting the
steamer drift as she liked.

The cruiser had made not the slightest attempt to stop the _Irene_, for
the storm of shot bursting in a sudden upon her, when she was in the
full security of conscious strength, had plunged her into a state of
wild confusion.  At the first smash and yell of the missiles along her
sides and through her tall rigging, there had been a wild rush from her
decks as the terrified crew sought shelter from the mysterious enemy,
and their panic was increased by the fierce bombardment which the
catcher poured in from her five quick-firing guns at the rate of thirty
shots a minute.  They saw approaching a revolving cloud of smoke, out of
which there flashed flames of fire, and the cruiser fairly turned and
fled, pouring in a scattering broadside which went wide of the mark.

When the _Irene_ slowed down, the cruiser, about two miles distant, was
steaming on a south-west course, and the _Swift_ was turning under cover
of her smoke, which hung low on the water.  The men on the derelict
raised cheer on cheer in a state of great exultation.

"It is magnificent," said Miss Anstrade, with shining eyes.  "Why don't
you cheer, Mr Webster?" and she gave out a ringing cry.

"It is too good to be true," murmured the Lieutenant, as he anxiously
watched the cruiser.  "Ah, I feared so.  See, he is coming round."

The stately white ship, making a wide sweep to port, came round, letting
go her broadside of six guns and her two heavy bow chasers before she
steadied on a course which would bring her very soon opposite the
_Irene_.  The water about the _Swift_ was torn up, and she heeled over
to the shock.

"She is struck!"

"Good God, she is sinking!"

"No; hurrah! she is righting."

Miss Anstrade covered her face with her hands, then threw them from her
with a passionate gesture, while Webster and Hume stood by with white,
set faces.

The _Swift_ had pointed her bows at the cruiser, and was firing now only
with her four-inch, at the same time steaming slowly astern, as though
waiting for some opening.

The contrast between the combatants was most striking, as the _Swift_
lay broadside on to the _Irene_, a long, low, grey line on the great
waste, while, though further off, the high bows of the cruiser, her
lofty decks and towering spars, loomed vast and terrible.

"God's truth!" cried one sailor, smashing his brawny fist against the
bulwarks, in a fury; "it's wrong; it's a shame; they're not matched!"

"Watch him; he's porting his helm."

The cruiser was now altering her course, and the water was piled up as
she turned a few points to port, bringing her bow chasers to bear on the
_Swift_.

"They'll rake the _Swift_ fore and aft; sweep her guns away," muttered
Webster, moistening his lips.

"Look! there he goes!  God bless the Captain!  Hurrah for our mates!"

The _Swift_ suddenly moved ahead, and gaining way from the tremendous
power of her engines, leapt towards her huge opponent.  That moment the
heavy guns roared, but the shells missed their prey by a few feet.  As
it was the two funnels were sheered off as though they had been cut, and
the fragments whirled aloft.  Then the catcher's guns maintained a
furious fire as she swept on, but the cruiser, completing her manoeuvre,
went round to port, and from her bow to her stern her broadside guns
thundered one after the other.

A shudder, a hoarse murmur of grief, ran round the group on the _Irene_.

Out of the smoke the _Swift_ swept to leeward, rolling heavily.  Her
long gun had been torn away from its fastenings and thrown across the
ship, the shields about the twelve-pounders were battered down, and the
brave men who had served them were stretched motionless.

Her guns were silenced.  There remained yet her torpedoes, but were
there any left to work them?

The cruiser was still going round to bring her port broadside to bear,
and it all depended now whether Captain Pardoe could turn the _Swift_,
carry her under the stern of the enemy, and discharge his torpedoes.

But the _Swift_ rolled heavily, and at the moment when she should have
turned to starboard her bows went round.

"Her steering gear has been injured," said Webster, with a groan.

Out of the raffle, forward by the conning-tower, a man appeared, and
with a perceptible stagger reeled aft to the wheel, which had escaped
uninjured.

"'Tis the Quartermaster," whispered the men.

From the cruiser's deck men fired at him, but he reached the wheel, and
threw his strength into it.

Then on the shattered portion of the bridge there stood the figure of
the Captain.  A moment he looked around him, then above his head to the
summit of a single bare pole on board there mounted a black ball, and
there streamed out the red and blue of the Union Jack!

Both ships came round, the _Swift_ stem on, and the cruiser with her
broadside.

The six guns flashed together in one thunderous roar, the _Swift_ seemed
to shrink at the shock, her decks were swept, the bridge torn to
fragments; then she leapt forward and buried her ram in the body of her
great enemy.  Through iron and wood the spur of steel forced its way,
and the splinters and crash could be heard above the fierce lashings of
the screws and the wild cries of the crew.

For a breathless pause the catcher battered at the wound she had made;
then she was swept round against the side of the

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