Jack hastened back to the wireless room. He found Poffer, pop-eyed and frightened looking.
“There’s another cruiser coming up on the other side!” he exclaimed. “I just heard her talking to the Berwick.”
“That’s nice,” commented Jack, as Bill Raynor and de Garros appeared in the doorway.
“Hullo, Bill,” he continued. “You’ll have a chance to be under fire now.”
“What do you mean?” demanded young Raynor.
“Surely it is that the captain will stop?” asked the French aviator.
“Stop nothing,” rejoined Jack. “He doesn’t appear to care what he risks, so long as he saves his ship.”
“I thought I felt her speeding up,” said Bill. “So he’s going to cut and run for it?”
“That’s the size of it,” responded Jack, while the Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.
“They are not understandable, these Germans,” he commented.
“Here comes it anudder message,” struck in Hans, holding up his hand to enjoin silence.
They all looked over his shoulder as he wrote rapidly.
“Your last warning. Heave to or take the consequences.”
It was signed as before by the commander of the Berwick.
“My friends, this captain had better heed that warning,” said de Garros. “Englishmen are not in zee habit of what zee call ‘bluffing.’”
But when Jack came back from the bridge, whither he had sped at once with the message, it was to report the captain as obdurate as ever. His only comment had been to call for more speed.
“I guess he thinks we can show that cruiser a clean pair of heels,” said Raynor.
“That looks to be the size of it,” agreed Jack, “but he is taking desperate chances. Let’s go outside and see the fun.”
The cruiser was coming toward them on an oblique line now. From her stern flowed the red cross of St. George on a white field, the naval flag of England. They watched her narrowly for some minutes and then Jack exclaimed:
“Jove! I believe that with luck we can outrun her. The Kronprinzessin is the fastest ship of this line, and if her boilers don’t blow up we may be able to beat that cruiser out.”
“I hope so,” declared Raynor, fervently. “I’m not exactly a coward but I must say the idea of being made a target without having the chance to hit back is not exactly pleasant.”
“As I shall be in zee thick fighting not before very long, I might as well receive my baptism of fire now as any other time,” said the Frenchman. “I expect to be placed in charge of zee aviation corps, and I am told zee Germans have some very good aeroplane guns.”
“Look,” cried Bill, suddenly, “they are going to – ”
A white mushroom of smoke broke from the forward turret of the cruiser, followed by a screeching above their heads. Then came an ear-splitting report.
“Great guns! Where is this going to end?” gasped Bill, involuntarily crouching.
CHAPTER VII
A SHOT AT THE RUDDER
“Ach Himmel!” groaned Hans Poffer. “Suppose dey hit us vee – ”
He got no further. There was another burst of smoke, a quick, lightning-like flash and the same screech of a projectile. But this time, accompanying the sound of the report, was a sound of tearing metal and the ship shook as if she had struck on the rocks.
“The after funnel,” cried Jack, pointing to a jagged hole in the smoke stack.
“The next one may come closer,” choked out Bill rather shakily.
On the lower decks there was the wildest confusion. Women were fainting and the stewards and petty officers had all they could do to handle the frightened throngs. The striking of the funnel was the occasion for an angry and badly scared deputation to wait upon the captain and demand that he stop the ship at once.
But the deputation did not reach the bridge. They were met at the foot of the stairway leading to it by a polite but firm officer who informed them that under no circumstances would the captain tolerate any interference with his method of running the ship.
A third shot, which went wide, closely followed the one that had struck the after funnel. It flew high above them and caused Jack to observe:
“I don’t believe they mean to hit the hull, but only to scare the captain into heaving the boat to.”
“Looks that way,” agreed Bill, “and as for the scare part of it, I guess they’ve succeeded, so far as everybody is concerned but Captain Rollok and his officers.”
“We are gaining on zee cruiser without a doubt,” asserted de Garros, whose eyes had been fixed on the pursuing sea fighter for some minutes.
“Yes, but look, there comes another,” cried Jack, suddenly, pointing astern. “That must be the one Poffer heard signaling to the Berwick.”
“We’re in for it now,” said Bill. “I wish that pig-headed captain would heave to and let them take the gold and the Germans, if that’s all they are after.”
“Hullo!” exclaimed Jack, suddenly, as they all stood waiting nervously to see the next flash and puff from the cruiser’s turret. “I can see a gleam of hope for us. See what’s ahead!”
Ahead of them the sea appeared to be giving off clouds of steam as if it was boiling. As yet this vapor had not risen high, but it was rapidly making a curtain above the sunny waters.
“Fog!” cried Bill, delightedly.
“It cannot be too thick for me,” said de Garros.
“Perhaps Captain Rollok foresaw this and that was why he refused to halt,” said Jack. “Certainly, if we can gain that mist bank before we get badly injured, we’ll be all right.”
It was now a race for the thickening fog curtains. The cruisers appeared to realize that if the Kronprinzessin could gain the shelter of the mist, there would be but small chance of their capturing her. Increased smoke tumbling from their funnels showed that they were under forced draught. But as their speed increased so did that of the “gold ship.”
The gun boomed again on the Berwick, the foremost of the pursuers. The projectile struck the stern of the liner and knocked the elaborate gilt work wreathing, her name and port, into smithereens.
“Aiming at the rudder,” commented Jack. “That’s a good idea from their point of view.”
“But a mighty bad one from ours if they succeed in hitting it,” said Raynor, with a rather sickly laugh.
Two more shots, one of them from the second cruiser, flew above the fugitive liner and then the mist began to settle round her swiftly-driven hull in soft, cottony wreaths. In five minutes more the fog had shut in all about her.
Then ensued a game of marine blind-man’s buff. Captain Rollok, having steamed at full speed some miles through the fog, – and this time there were no protests from passengers, – altered his course and deliberately steamed in circles.
“Hark!” exclaimed Jack, during one of these manœuvers. “What was that?”
Out in the fog somewhere they could hear a sound like the soft beating of a huge heart. It was the throbbing of another vessel’s engines. To the fear of the chase now was added the peril of collision, for in the fog, dense as it was, the captain would not permit the siren to be sounded.
It was almost impossible to tell from which direction the sound was proceeding. It seemed to be everywhere. Was it another peaceful vessel like themselves, or a man-of-war? Much depended on the answer to this question.
All