"Head for the liner, in the first instance," answered Mildmay, as he threw the self-steering apparatus out of gear; "and then bring the ship's head very gradually round until you are pointing for the pirate's stern."

And, so saying, he stepped to the fore midship window of the pilot-house, laid his finger lightly upon the firing-b.u.t.ton that controlled the discharge of the torpedo-sh.e.l.ls from the tube in the extremity of the ship's sharp snout, and so placed his eye that he brought the jack-staff forward in a direct line with a very small notch in the window-frame. He stood thus, rigid and tense, while Sir Reginald did his part of the work; and presently he saw the jack-staff swinging slowly round toward the pirate cruiser. He waited thus until his two sights pointed something less than an eighth of a length ahead of the cruiser, and then he pressed the b.u.t.ton hard. As he did so, something flashed like a sudden gleam of sunlight from the _Flying Fish's_ stem, a sheet of water some four or five yards in length leaped into the air from under the bows, and some six seconds later a blinding flash started out from the side of the cruiser, midway between her stem and her foremast. As the flash disappeared, Lethbridge, who was watching the ship through his binoculars, saw a great black patch on the cruiser's side, exactly where the flash had occurred; and while he was still wondering what it could mean he became aware that the craft was rapidly settling by the head. And before he could sufficiently recover from his astonishment to utter a word, the cruiser's bows sank to a level with the water, her stern rose high in the air, with the propeller still spinning round, and in another second she dived forward and disappeared, with the black flag still fluttering from her main truck.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

A SHIP OF MYSTERY.

"Gone!" gasped Lethbridge, as he turned round and stared with startled eyes at the other occupants of the pilot-house. "By George! Mildmay, that was a splendid shot of yours; caught her fair, and tore a gap in her side as big as a church-door! Those torpedo-sh.e.l.ls of yours, Professor, must be truly frightful things, for a single one of them to be capable of destroying a ship like that in a moment. How big would she be, Mildmay?"

"Oh, I don't know; something over four thousand tons, I should say-- hillo! what is the matter? Have we stopped?" exclaimed Mildmay, as the ship's way suddenly eased up almost with a jerk.

"Yes," said Sir Reginald quietly, "I have stopped her until we can consider what is the proper thing to be done next. Are we to go on and speak that liner, or are we to let her go on her way without communicating?"

"What has the liner herself to say about it?" asked Mildmay, picking up his gla.s.ses from the small table upon which he had laid them down, and bringing them to bear upon the steamer.

"Yes," he said, "she has stopped, which looks as though she wanted to speak us. And I see no very particular reason why we should not go alongside and hear what they have to say about the affair. We need not tell them very much about ourselves, you know, except that we are the yacht _Flying Fish_, cruising in these waters for our pleasure and to test the value of a new principle in shipbuilding. It is just possible that he may have something of importance to communicate to us."

"Very well," said Sir Reginald, "let us go alongside, then, by all means."

"In that case," said Mildmay, "I would recommend that the boats be got up from below. It is not unlikely that the skipper may wish us to go aboard him, and, if so, it is scarcely worth while to trouble him to send one of his own boats for us."

"As you will," agreed the baronet. "You know what will be the correct thing to do, under the circ.u.mstances."

Accordingly the engines were once more sent ahead, at a twenty-knot speed; and while Sir Reginald took the helm and headed the ship for the liner, Mildmay and von Schalckenberg stepped out on deck, raised the deck-flaps beneath which the boats were housed, and swung them and their supporting davits into position, one on each quarter. By the time that this was done, and the pair had satisfied themselves that the boats were all right and quite ready for lowering, the _Flying Fish_ was within easy enough distance of the liner to enable those in the pilot-house to read her name. As Mildmay had shrewdly surmised, she was an X. and Z.

boat, and her name was the _Baroda_. Her engines were still motionless, and she had by this time quite lost her way. There were two men in uniform on her bridge, and her promenade deck was crowded with pa.s.sengers, many of whom were women, attired mostly in white flimsy muslins; and there were also several children playing about the decks.

A number of seamen were aft, busy about the fallen mast, and casting adrift the rigging of it.

As the _Flying Fish_ crossed the _Baroda's_ stern, and ranged up on the latter's starboard side, it was seen that the gangway-ladder had been cast loose and lowered; it looked, therefore, as though her skipper fully expected a visit. Possibly the sight of the white ensign had caused him to imagine that his rescuer was, as Mildmay had remarked but a short time before, in connection with the pirates, "some sort of new-fangled British gun-boat;" and past experience would doubtless have taught him that the British naval officer has an inveterate habit of getting right to the bottom of things whenever he encounters anything that has the least smack of irregularity about it.

"All hands" were now on deck aboard the _Flying Fish_, and the ladies looked up with marked interest at the decks of the towering liner, the occupants of which looked down upon them with unconcealed wonder and curiosity.

As the _Flying Fish_, handled by the professor, came to a halt within fifty yards of the liner, Mildmay, accompanied by Sir Reginald, stepped to the rail and hailed, in somewhat unconventional fashion--

"_Baroda_ ahoy! This is the _Flying Fish_, Royal Yacht Squadron, belonging to my friend here, Sir Reginald Elphinstone; and if it will not be unduly detaining you we should like to pay you a visit, and learn from you the full particulars of the extraordinary occurrence of this morning."

One of the two officers on the bridge--a grey-haired, good-looking man, wearing a navy cap with a badge upon it, and gold lace on his sleeves-- who had stepped over to the starboard side, on seeing that Mildmay was about to hail, hereupon waved his hand, and replied--

"I shall be very pleased to see you; indeed, I stopped my engines in the hope that you would pay us a visit. Before I say anything else, however, let me express my thanks, and those of my pa.s.sengers, officers, and crew for your most timely intervention just now, but for which I am afraid that matters would have gone rather badly with us. And now I hope that you and your party will give us the pleasure of your company to tiffin, which will be served in about an hour's time."

"Thanks, very much," replied Sir Reginald, "we shall be delighted to accept your kind invitation. We will board you a few minutes before your tiffin-time, if that will suit you. And meanwhile, if you are anxious to proceed--as you doubtless are--pray do so, and we will keep you company."

"That will suit me excellently," answered the captain. "I will stop again later to enable you to board me. What is your best speed? We can do sixteen and a half comfortably, under natural draught."

"Make your own pace," answered Sir Reginald, with a laugh; "I dare say we can manage to keep up with you."

Whereupon there ensued a m.u.f.fled jingling of bells from somewhere down in the liner's interior, and her propeller began to revolve, churning up the water into a frothy swirl about her rudder as she gathered way and began to forge ahead. At the same moment the professor sent his own engines ahead; and in a few minutes the two ships, as dissimilar in outward appearance as they were in every other respect, were sweeping along amicably on parallel courses, with about a quarter of a mile of clear water between them.

When the question of how many of the party should accept the invitation to tiffin on board the liner came to be discussed, it appeared that Colonel Sziszkinski and his daughter preferred to remain on board the _Flying Fish_. The recent escape of the colonel from the convict-ship rendered him desirous that his ident.i.ty and whereabouts should remain a profound secret, at least for the present. The professor also expressed a preference for the quietude of his usual surroundings over the bustle and fussiness that he antic.i.p.ated would ensue upon so unusual an occurrence as the visit of strangers to a mail-boat. The visiting party therefore consisted of Lady Olivia, Ida, Sir Reginald, Mildmay, and Lethbridge, most of whom availed themselves of the opportunity to scribble a hasty letter or two to friends at home.

It was about a quarter of an hour after "two bells" had pealed out on board the _Baroda_ that the visiting party stepped out on deck from the pilot-house of the _Flying Fish_, equipped for their excursion; and it was evident that the officer of the watch on the liner's bridge had received instructions to keep a sharp look-out for them, for immediately upon their appearance the steamer sheered in toward her consort until she had approached within easy hailing distance. When the hail came--

"_Flying Fish_ ahoy! Are you ready to come aboard us?"

"Quite ready," answered Mildmay, with a wave of his hand.

"Right!" responded the figure on the bridge, as he rang down to the engine-room the order to stop the engines. "Will you come in your own boat, or shall we send one for you?"

"Thanks very much," answered Mildmay. "We will use our own boat."

Whereupon, the engines of the _Flying Fish_ also having been stopped, Mildmay climbed into the starboard quarter boat, which Sir Reginald then lowered. Then, the tackles having been released, she was hauled up to the gangway-ladder and the remainder of the party descended into her.

Two minutes later she was alongside the _Baroda_, and a seaman was at the bottom of the accommodation ladder to a.s.sist the ladies out of the boat.

The captain of the mail-boat was waiting at the head of the ladder to receive his guests, and behind him a crowd of pa.s.sengers, all eager to get a nearer glimpse of the visitors, whose appearance upon the scene had been so romantically opportune.

"Welcome aboard the _Baroda_, Sir Reginald," exclaimed the skipper, in a bluff, hearty manner, offering his hand to the man whom he remembered having heard so named when Mildmay had hailed the ship an hour or so before; "welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Permit me to introduce myself.

I am Captain Prescott, and this is Mr Mumford, my chief officer.

Perhaps you will have the kindness to introduce me to your friends?"

The ceremony of introduction having been duly performed, the tiffin-bell rang, and everybody at once filed below into the liner's grand saloon.

Meanwhile the throb of the engines betrayed the fact that the great ship was once more under way. The saloon was a very s.p.a.cious and handsome apartment, elaborately decorated with paintings on the panels between the ports, and with a double row of columns running fore and aft as supporters to the great stained-gla.s.s skylight overhead. And although the ship was but a degree or two north of the equator, the place was quite comfortably cool, for wind-catchers were fitted into each of the ports, and created a pleasant little breeze by the mere movement of the ship through the air; and this was further added to by the presence of large, handsome, lace-draped punkahs waving to and fro above each table.

The guests were, of course, a.s.signed seats to right and left of the skipper, and the conversation soon became general and animated. The captain of the liner started it by remarking--

"That is a very extraordinary-looking craft of yours, Sir Reginald; and small, too, for cruising so far afield, isn't she?"

"Well, she is not quite so small as she looks," answered Sir Reginald.

"The greater part of her bulk is below water; hence it is difficult for one to get a fair idea of her size. As a matter of fact, she is six hundred feet long and sixty feet extreme diameter; her hull is cylindrical in shape. Her outside dimensions, therefore, exceed those of this craft, and she is, I should say, about the same tonnage."

"By Jove!" exclaimed the skipper, "I had no idea that she was anything like that size. I noticed when you first came alongside that she is modelled like a cigar. I remember seeing some years ago a somewhat similar craft cruising in the Solent. She belonged, I believe, to an American. We used to call her 'the cigar-ship.' I fancy she was only a very partial success--at least, in the matter of speed. How does your ship answer in that respect? You seem able to keep pace with us fairly well."

"Yes," said Sir Reginald, with a twinkle of amus.e.m.e.nt in his eye; "oh yes. And upon occasion I dare say we could squeeze an extra knot or so out of her. But, to change the subject, if you have no objection, I should very much like to hear the full story of your adventure of this morning."

"Well," observed the skipper, "after all, I don't know that there is very much to tell. My own opinion is that the whole affair originated in the ill-advised publicity that is usually given to the fact when a ship is about to sail with an unusually large consignment of gold in her safe. Thus, for a full week before we sailed the Melbourne papers were daily proclaiming the news that we were to take home five hundred thousand pounds' worth of gold; and people used to come down and stare at us by the hour, as though we were a curiosity. I don't like that sort of thing at all, and I think the papers ought not to make public such matters; for honest men are not very particularly interested to know how much gold a ship is going to sail with; but such stories must be a frightful temptation to rogues, and in these days, when roguery has become almost a science, there is no knowing what the publication of such information may lead to.

"Well, it happened that during this particular time there was a cruiser belonging to a certain Power lying at anchor in the bay--I'm not going to tell you her name or nationality, because it may be that my suspicions of her are unjust--but, anyway, she was as like that craft that you destroyed this morning--by the way, I suppose it _was_ you, and not an accident aboard, as my chief officer maintains? Yes. I was certain of it. Well, as I was saying, this craft was lying there pretty nearly all the time that this talk was going on in the papers about the enormous consignment of gold that we were taking, and several of her people kept coming aboard of us at different times, under the pretence of showing their great friendliness for the British nation, and so on.

Well, of course we were as civil as we could be to them, never suspecting anything, you know, especially as they scarcely ever referred to the matter of gold--except once, I remember, one of them asked me if all these statements in the newspapers were true, and like a fool I answered that they were.

"Well, this cruiser that I'm talking about sailed two days before ourselves, the news being that she was bound for the east coast of Africa; and I thought no more about her until this morning when, upon turning out, it was reported to me that there was something coming up astern and overhauling us.

"Now, if I have a weakness, it is in connection with this ship. She is a good boat, and I am proud of her; proud of her size, proud of her appearance, proud of her speed--yes, especially proud of her speed; I don't like to be overhauled and pa.s.sed by anything. So I sent word to the chief engineer to stir up his people in the stoke-holds. But, in spite of all that we could do, the craft astern steadily crept up to us until she was hull up; and then, notwithstanding the fact that she was differently painted, and was different in one or two minor respects as to rig, from the craft that had been so friendly with us at Melbourne, I couldn't help suspecting that she was the same. And when I began to ask myself why--if she really _was_ the same craft--she had turned up in my wake instead of pursuing her voyage to the spot to which she was bound, I at once thought of the gold in my strong--room; and, although I couldn't help acknowledging to myself that my suspicion was ridiculous, the idea seized hold of me that she had turned pirate, and was after that gold. Mumford, my chief officer, laughed in my face when I whispered this notion into his ear; but he changed his tune when they opened fire upon us, I can tell you. Well--but there, you know the rest of the yarn just as well as I can tell it you, for by that time you must have been heaving up over the horizon. But there was not an eye aboard of us that saw you until the other fellow opened fire on you; and then we couldn't see very much except your ensign. But that was enough for me; for, to tell you the truth, I thought you were a British man-o'-war of some sort, though what, I couldn't, for the life of me, tell; for I could see neither masts nor funnels. And now, gentlemen, I want to ask you to be kind enough, before you leave us, to sign--as witnesses to its truth--the entry that I shall be obliged to make in my official log; for the story is such a confoundedly queer one that, unless it is well vouched for by independent persons, I very much doubt whether my owners, or anybody else, for that matter, will believe it."

Sir Reginald, of course, readily undertook to do this; and while the skipper was drafting and making the entry the visitors chatted with the pa.s.sengers, who insisted upon keeping them for afternoon tea. The visit, therefore, did not end until nearly six o'clock that evening, at which hour the two ships parted company with mutual threefold dips of their ensigns; and the _Flying Fish_ was once more brought round with her head to the eastward.

Four days later, the ship being then within some three hundred miles of the western end of the Straits of Sunda, the weather being stark calm, with an absolutely cloudless sky, the craft at the time going about ten knots, and steering herself, as the party stepped out on deck after lunch and glanced around them, they became aware that during the period of their absence from the deck they had raised the canvas of a large full-rigged ship above the horizon. The stranger was then bearing about two points on the starboard bow. As this was the first craft that had been seen since they had dipped their ensign to the _Baroda_, she excited enough interest to cause everybody to make an instant rush for their binoculars; and within five minutes eight pairs of those very useful instruments had been focussed upon her. She was then hull-down, and to the non-professional eye there was nothing at all unusual in her appearance; she was simply a becalmed ship under topsails and topgallantsails, with her courses clewed up but not furled. A cloud of minute spots--which could only be birds--hovering round her, bore no significance to any one save Mildmay; and even he was not sure that he knew quite what it meant. For it is by no means unusual for whole flocks of gulls to hover in the wake of a ship at sea--especially if there happens to be land within a reasonable distance--for the sake of the fragments of waste food that daily go over a ship's side after every meal. But whereas, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, a hundred gulls const.i.tute a very respectable flock, there appeared to be at least ten times this number hovering about the stranger; and it was this unusual circ.u.mstance that prompted Mildmay to suggest to Sir Reginald that they should edge a little nearer to her, with the object of seeking an explanation of the phenomenon. The baronet raising no objection, Mildmay stepped into the pilot-house, and, adjusting the helm, brought the ship straight over the bows of the _Flying Fish_, and at the same time raised the speed of the latter to eighteen knots.

Under these conditions it was not long ere the stranger was near enough to admit of details being made out with the aid of the excellent gla.s.ses of the party; and it then became apparent to all that the canvas set was so old and thin and weather-perished, that it had become semi-transparent, the brilliant light of the afternoon showing through it so strongly that the masts and some of the rigging behind could be traced through the attenuated fabric. The next thing about the craft that attracted attention was the fact that some of the running and standing rigging had parted and was hanging loose, swaying gently to the almost imperceptible heave of the ship on the gla.s.s-smooth sea. And finally, when they had arrived within a mile of her, they saw that her paint was so bleached and blistered by the sun that it was difficult to say what its original colour had been, while much of it had peeled off altogether, exposing the bare wood which, in its turn, had turned blue-grey from long exposure to the weather. Not a soul was to be seen on board her, no sign of life about her save the great cloud of birds that swept hither and thither round her. Her boats still hung at her davits, therefore it was to be a.s.sumed that her crew had not abandoned her; yet what had become of them? The answer was supplied a little later, for as the _Flying Fish_, with stopped engines, slowly drifted to within about a quarter of a mile of her, the party of curious gazers suddenly caught a whiff of horrible odour that told the whole story.