“What ails you, Moddridge?” demanded Mr. Delavan, turning and gazing wonderingly at his friend.
“I’m nervous, of course,” returned that gentleman.
“Pshaw! Sit down and let your nerves rest.”
“But I can’t!”
“Stand up, then,” pursued Mr. Delavan, coolly. “But you’re tiring yourself out, Moddridge, with that jerky gait over such a short course.”
“Delavan, have you no mind, no nerves?” cried Moddridge, raspingly. “When you stop to think of the great amounts of money that are at stake. When you – ”
Eben Moddridge paused, out of breath.
“Well?” insisted Mr. Delavan, placidly.
“Oh, pshaw!” snapped the nervous one. “There’s no use in talking to you, or trying to make you understand. You’ve no imagination.”
“For which I’m very thankful,” responded the owner, blowing out a cloud of smoke.
The fog was lifting more and more, the sun’s rays trying to pierce what was left of the haze.
“You may as well come in, lookouts,” hailed Captain Tom.
“Jed, if you’re through with deck duty,” called Mr. Delavan, “suppose you begin to think of getting lunch.”
“All right, sir,” Prentiss answered, and disappeared.
“Oh, Delavan, man,” groaned Mr. Moddridge, “how on earth can you talk about eating when everything lies at stake as it does?”
“Why, after I get the word,” rejoined the owner, “I shall be hungry enough to eat – anything.”
“But what if the news be of the worst kind?”
“Let us hope it won’t be, Moddridge.”
“Yet, if it is? You don’t mean to say, Delavan, that you could think of eating then?”
“Confound you, man,” drawled Mr. Delavan. “What do you think my stomach knows about news?”
The sounding of the fog-horn had died out some minutes ago, as the vanishing fog rolled further and further away. And now, Tom, gazing keenly ahead, saw a big black hull rapidly emerge out of a bank of fog more than a mile away. He looked sharply for a few seconds. Then —
“Gentlemen,” announced the young skipper, pointing, “that craft over to the eastward is, I think, the ‘Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse.’”
CHAPTER II
A WHIFF OF FORTUNE
MR. DELAVAN immediately raised a pair of marine glasses to his eyes, taking a long, careful look at the great hull.
“Yes; that’s the ‘Kaiser,’” he agreed.
“There’s a smaller craft, astern, that may interest you also, sir,” reported Jed, from the after deck.
Mr. Delavan turned quickly, though not with such a start as did his friend, Moddridge.
Astern, or, rather, over the port quarter, appeared a long, narrow racing hull. It was evidently the same motor craft that had so nearly rammed them in the deep fog.
“Confound that hoodoo boat,” muttered Mr. Delavan, in a low tone, to his companion. “I’d give quite a bit to know who are aboard that craft.”
“S-s-so would I,” stammered Moddridge. “It looks queer. Whoever they are, they’re dogging us, of course.”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” returned Delavan, musingly.
“Shall I keep to the same course, sir?” asked Captain Tom, as soon as his employer looked around.
“Why, now, I’ll tell you what I want you to do, captain,” answered the owner. “Run out towards the ‘Kaiser,’ though you needn’t be at pains to make it too plain that you’re seeking the big ship. After you get the ‘Rocket’ somewhat near, take a wide, sweeping turn to landward of the big craft. Run fairly near, keeping your port hull about parallel with the ‘Kaiser’s’ starboard. Run alongside for a little distance, until your orders are changed. Moddridge and I are going down into the cabin, to take our stations at port-holes. Prentiss will stand by the cabin doorway to pass up, in a low voice, any orders that I may give him for you. Is that all clear, captain?”
“Quite clear, sir.”
“Then come below, Moddridge,” continued the owner, turning to his friend. “And for goodness’ sake, man, if you can, behave differently. Don’t let your legs shake so under you.”
“I c-c-can’t help it,” stammered the smaller man, nervously.
“You’re not going to the hangman, man!” laughed Mr. Delavan, jovially, as he led the way below.
“I reckon I’d better drop down into the engine room for signals, hadn’t I?” proposed Dawson. Tom nodded, and his chum vanished, though his head soon reappeared, framed in the engine room hatchway. The beauty of a gasoline motor engine is that when all is running smoothly and no signals from the bridge are to be expected, the engineer may spend much of his time up on deck. On the bridge deck, near the wheel, are “controls” by means of which the helmsman can change the speeds, stop or reverse at will.
As Captain Tom headed in the direction ordered he heard Jed reporting to the owner that the long racing boat astern did not appear to be making any efforts to overtake the “Rocket” or to reach the “Kaiser Wilhelm.” Instead, the racing boat seemed to be playing wholly a waiting game. This racing craft was about thirty-two to thirty-five feet long. She was not fitted for cruising, but only for fast spurts. She had, instead of a cabin, a deck-over hood forward that protected her engine and galley from the spray.
The “Kaiser Wilhelm” being one of the swiftest of the ocean grayhounds, and the “Rocket” now making at least sixteen miles an hour, it was not long before young Halstead was ready to carry out the second part of his sailing orders.
He steered the “Rocket” so that she made a wide sweep around, then came up parallel with the big ocean steamship. There was about four hundred feet of water between the big hull and the little one as the two craft ran along parallel.
Tom yanked the bell-pull for more speed. This Joe provided, looking up once in a while to make sure that he was keeping up with the swift “Kaiser Wilhelm.”
“Ask Mr. Delavan if we’re running all right, Jed,” requested the young captain.
“Yes,” nodded Jed, after repeating the message without moving.
The big steamship’s deck was covered with passengers, most of them crowding fairly close to the starboard rail. It was plain that the voyagers felt some curiosity regarding this dapper, trim little cruising craft that kept so handily along with the racing grayhound.
There was a great fluttering of handkerchiefs, which Tom acknowledged by several short blasts on the auto whistle. The “Kaiser’s” heavy whistle responded.
“That’s all. Mr. Delavan says to head about for East Hampton,” Jed reported.
With a parting toot from the whistle, Halstead altered the course.
“Make your best speed, captain,” was the next order young Prentiss transmitted.
So it was not long before the “Kaiser” and the “Rocket” were some miles apart. Mr. Delavan came on deck, smiling. Tom tried not to wonder, though he could not help guessing what the Wall Street magnate could have accomplished by means of this brief, eventless cruise alongside the larger vessel.
But Mr. Moddridge! His face was positively wreathed in smiles. All his fears seemed to have vanished. The smaller man was still nervous, but it was the agitation of intense joy.
“It’s