There were two great ships abreast of each other, and they were steaming with so great a pressure of steam that the dark green water was cleaved into two huge waves of foam before their bows; and the spray ran right over their fo'castles and fell in tons upon their decks.
The more distant of the two ships was long in shape and dark in colour; she had four masts upon which topsails and staysails were set, and two funnels painted white, but marked with the anchor which clearly set her down to be one of the famous Black Anchor fleet. My powerful spyglass gave me a full view of her decks, which I saw to be dark with the figures of passengers and crew all crowding to the port side, wherefrom the other ship was approaching her.
Yet was it this other ship which drew our gaze rather than the great steamer which seemed to be pursued. Almost of the same length as the passenger steamer, which she now approached obliquely, she rode the long swell with perfect grace, and many of her deck-houses and part of her prow shone with the brightness of pure gold. Full the sun fell upon her in a sheen of shimmering splendour, throwing great reflected lights which dazzled the eye so that it could scarce hold any continued gaze upon her. And, indeed, every ornament on her seemed to be made of the precious metal, now glowing to exceeding brilliance in the full power of the sunlight.
She was a very big ship, as I have said, and she had all the shape of a ship of war, while the turrets fore and aft of her capacious funnel showed the muzzles of two big guns. I could see by my glass a whole wealth of armament in the foretop of her short mast forward; and high points in her fo'castle marked the spot where many other machine guns were ready for action. At her towering and lofty prow there was indicated clearly the curve of the ram which now ploughed the dark water and curdled it into the fountains of foam which fell upon her decks; while amidships, the outline of a conning-tower showed more clearly for what aggressive purpose she had been designed. There was at this spot, too, a great deck erection, with a gallery and a bridge for navigation; but no men showed upon the platform, and, for the matter of that, no soul trod her decks, so far as our observation went. Yet her speed was such as I do not believe any ship achieved before. I have spent many years upon the sea; have crossed the Atlantic in some of the most speedy of those cruisers which are the just pride of a later-day shipbuilding art; I have raced in torpedo-boats over known miles; but of this I have no measure of doubt, that the speed of which that extraordinary vessel then proved herself capable was such as no other that ever swam could for one moment cope with. Now rising majestically on the long roll of the swell, now falling into the concave of the sea, she rushed onward towards the steamer she was evidently pursuing as though driven by all the furies of the deep.
As we watched her, held rooted to our places as men who are looking upon some strange and uncanny picture, the gun in her foremost turret belched out flame and smoke, and we observed the rise and fall of a shell, which cut the water a cable's length ahead of the straining steamer and sank hissing beneath the sea. At that moment she ran up a flag upon her signal mast, and, as I read it with my glass, I saw that it was the flag of the Chilian Republic.
Now, indeed, the pursuit became so engrossing that my own men began to sing out, and this reminded me that every soul aboard the Celsis had watched with me when I first set eyes on the nameless ship. I turned to our skipper, who stood near on the hurricane deck, and saw that he in turn was looking hard at me. Roderick had come up from his cabin, but rested at the top of the companion ladder in so dazed a mood that no speech came from him. The first officer had scarce his wits about him to steer our own course, and the whole of the hands forward in a little group upon the fo'castle now called out their views, then turned to ask what it meant.
It was a matter of satisfaction to me that Mary still slept, and I looked for the appearance of Paolo with some question. But he remained below through it all. And at that I wondered more.
The skipper was the first to speak.
"That ship yonder," said he, jerking his thumb to starboard; "is it any business of ours?"
"None that I know of," I replied; "but it's a mighty fine sight, skipper, don't you think, a Chilian warship running after a liner in broad daylight? What's your opinion?"
He shrugged his shoulders disdainfully, and took another sight through his glass. Then he answered me—
"It's a fine sight enough, God knows, but I would give half I'm worth to be a hundred miles away from it"; and here he suddenly wheeled, and, facing me roughly, he asked—
"Do you want me to get this boat into port again?"
"Of course. Is there any great need to answer a question like that?"
"At the moment, yes; for, with your pleasure, I'm going to put up the helm and sheer off. I'm not a man that loves fighting myself, and, with a ship and crew to look after, I've no business in any affair of that sort; but it's for you to say."
Before I could answer him, Roderick moved from his place and came up on the bridge where we stood.
"Hold on a bit, skipper," he cried, "as we are, if you please; why, man, it's a sight I wouldn't miss for a fortune."
The skipper searched him with his eyes with a keen, lasting gaze, that implied his doubt of the pair of us. His voice had a fine ring of sarcasm in it when he replied after the silence; but all he said was, "It's your affair," and then turned to the first officer.
"Don't you think he was right?" I asked Roderick in a low voice, when the chief's back was turned, but he whispered again—
"Not yet—we must see more of it; and they're too much occupied to hunt after us. We'll be away long before those two have settled accounts; and, look now, I can see a man on the bridge of the yellow ship. Do you mark him?"
I had my glass to my eye in a moment, and the light was so full upon the vessel, which must then have been a mile and a half away from us, that I could prove his words; for, sure enough, there was now someone moving upon the bridge, and, as I fixed my powerful lens, I thought that I could recognise the shape of a man; but I would not speak my mind to Roderick until I had a nearer view.
"You are right," I answered; "but what sort of a man I will tell you presently. Did you ever see anything like the pace that big ship is showing? She must be moving at twenty-five knots."
"Yes, it's amazing; and what's more, there isn't a show of smoke at her funnel."
This was true, but I had not noticed it. Throughout the strange scene we saw, this vessel of mystery never gave one sign that men worked at her furnaces below. Neither steam nor smoke came from her, no evidence, even the most trifling, of that terrible power which was then driving her through the seas at such a fearful speed.
But of the activity of her human crew we had speedily further sign; for, almost as I answered, there was some belching of flame from her turret, and this time the shell, hurtling through the air with that hissing song which every gunner knows so well, crashed full upon the fore-part of the great liner, and we heard the shout of terror which rose from those upon her decks. The men appeared at the signal-mast of the pursuer, and rapidly made signals in the common code.
"Skipper, do you see that?—they're signalling," I cried out. "Get your glass up and take a sight"; but he had already done so.
"It's the signal to lie to, and wait a boat," he said; "there's someone going aboard."
The fulfilment of the reading was instant. While yet we had not realised that the onward rush of the two boats was stayed the foam fell away from their bows; and they rode the seas superbly, sitting the long swells with a beautiful ease. But there was activity on the deck of the nameless ship, the men were at the davits on the starboard side swinging off a launch, which dropped presently into the sea with a crew of some half-a-dozen men. For ourselves, we were now quite close up to them, but so busily were they occupied that I believed we had escaped all notice. Yet I got my glass full upon the man who walked the bridge; and I knew him.
He was the man I had met in the Rue Joubert at Paris, the