CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

THE PIRATE CRUISER.

When, having reached the dining-room of the Flying Fish, Mildmay changed out of his diving-suit into his ordinary clothes, it was found that he was so severely bruised and strained that the professor, in his capacity of emergency medical adviser to the party, insisted upon his immediate retirement to his cabin and his bed. There the worthy man subjected him to so vigorous a massage, and so generous an anointing with a certain embrocation of his own concocting, that two days later the genial sailor was again able to be up and about. And, meanwhile, Sir Reginald and Colonel Sziszkinski continued the examination of the wreck, but unfortunately without any satisfactory result; for although they succeeded in finding the captain's cabin, and bringing therefrom, and from some of the other cabins, a considerable number of documents, it was found that, owing to their long submersion, they had become so completely sodden that any attempt to handle them, while still wet, reduced them to pulp; and when the alternative of carefully drying them was tried, they became so exceedingly brittle that they simply crumbled to pieces, while, even on the fragments that they contrived to preserve, the writing was so nearly obliterated as to be quite undecipherable. Nevertheless, they preserved as much as they could, in the hope that the experts in such matters, at home, might be more successful than themselves. But it may here be stated that the experts also failed; and the name and nationality of the ship, as well as the identity of those who perished in her at the murderous hands of the savage M'Bongwele, remain a mystery to this day.

On the third day following Mildmay's adventure with the octopus, the Flying Fish being once more berthed on the beach near the spot where the party had made their amazingly rich haul of rubies, all hands had adjourned to the deck after dinner to enjoy the delicious coolness of a breeze off the sea. Ida had gone to bed somewhat earlier than usual that evening, complaining that she was not feeling very well, her symptoms being a feverish pulse and a slightly increased temperature, toward the alleviation of which the professor had administered a fairly liberal dose of quinine.

Sir Reginald and Lady Olivia, naturally anxious in everything relating to their only child's health, were discussing the matter with von Schalckenberg, who was endeavouring, without his usual success, to reassure the pair, who were of opinion that the African climate was to blame for their daughter's indisposition.

"Well," at length said the professor, "if you really think so, nothing in this world is easier than for us to change it. We can ascend into the atmosphere to any height we please, thus obtaining any desired temperature; we can, in a very few hours, reach any other country that you would care to visit; or, which is perhaps better than either, we can go out to sea and leisurely cruise about in any required direction, and in absolutely pure air."

"Hear, hear!" exclaimed Mildmay, who, although chatting with Mlle. Feodorovna, had overheard the professor's words. "There is no sanatorium like old ocean; no doctor like Father Neptune, believe me, Elphinstone. A week's cruise somewhere away out there to the eastward would set the little darling up far more effectively than all the professor's drugs. Try it, man; it can do no harm; and I'll bet you a— a—well, let us say a peck of rubies, that you'll not regret it."

"Well, while declining your modest little bet, Mildmay, I really feel more than half inclined to act upon your suggestion," answered Sir Reginald, with a laugh. "There is no particular reason why we should not, I fancy, beyond the fact that the professor wants to shoot one or two of those new zebras, and we can easily return here for that purpose. The fact is that I am beginning to tire a little of shore life, and I think a trip out to sea would do us all good. What do the rest say?"

"So far as I am concerned I will gladly go anywhere, or do anything, for Ida's sake," answered Lethbridge.

"Thanks, old chap; I know you will," said Sir Reginald. "What say you, Colonel?"—to Sziszkinski—"would you like to go with us, or would you prefer to remain here until our return, and go in for shooting under the aegis of our friend Lobelalatutu?"

"Thank you very much, Sir Reginald, for offering me the choice," answered the Russian. "I prefer to accompany you. I am quite of your own opinion, that a change will do us all good; and, like my friend, Monsieur Lethbridge, I will gladly go anywhere and do anything for the sake of the charming little Mademoiselle Ida."

"And you, Mademoiselle?" asked Sir Reginald, turning to Mildmay's companion.

"I?" she answered. "Oh, Monsieur Edouard—Sir Reginald, I mean—I am so happy on board this beautiful ship that I feel I shall never want to leave her. Please accept papa's answer as mine also."

"I am really very much obliged to you all for so cheerfully and readily falling in with my wishes," said Sir Reginald. "Very well, then; it is settled that we go to sea for a week or two, as the mood takes us. Now, the next question is, Where shall we go? We certainly ought to have some definite objective, don't you think? Does any one desire to go anywhere in particular?"

There was silence for a minute or two. Apparently no one wished to go anywhere in particular; or, if they did, they were not sufficiently eager to feel called upon to mention the fact.

At length Lady Olivia looked up.

"Has nobody a suggestion to make?" she asked, with a smile. "Then I will make one that I think will be sympathetically received by at least one of us—yourself, my dear Feodorovna. I have long had the wish to possess a really fine set of pearls, not the kind that one can go into any jeweller's shop and buy, you know, but something quite out of the common; and it appears to me that this voyage of ours affords just the opportunity for somebody to fish those pearls up for me from the bottom of the sea. And I dare say that your papa—or somebody else—would be quite willing to do the same for you, dear. What do you say?"

"What do I say?" repeated the lovely young Russian. "Why, that I simply adore pearls."

"Then, I think, Reginald, that you have your answer," said Lady Olivia, turning to her husband.

"All right, dear," he answered. "Pearl-fishing will suit me down to the ground; and if the ocean holds pearls enough to satisfy you, you shall have them. Now, Professor—Mildmay—where must we go in order to get those pearls? For, of course, we must go to some definite spot to look for them; we can't go grubbing along the sea-bottom at random until we happen to stumble upon a bed of pearl-oysters, you know."

"The most famous pearl-fishing grounds are situated in the Persian Gulf and off the coast of Ceylon," answered Mildmay. "And I believe," he added, "that in both cases they are Government property, and strictly preserved. But I have no doubt there are plenty of oyster-beds which are beyond the reach of the ordinary pearl-diver; and it is one of those that we must seek. We shall not be poaching on anybody's preserves if we do this; and shall also stand a better chance of securing some good specimens."

"Before you come to any definite decision, I should like to refer to a rather interesting manuscript book that I have in my cabin—the book that I recovered from the sunken wreck of the Daedalus, under circumstances which, perhaps, yet remain in your memory," observed von Schalckenberg, addressing Sir Reginald. "I seem to remember," he continued, "having come across a passage in it relating to a bed of pearl-oysters of immense value, the situation of which was then unknown to any one except the writer. If you will excuse me a moment, I will go and fetch it."

"By all means," said Sir Reginald. "From what you say, Professor, it would appear that the bed to which you refer is the identical one we want to find."

The professor accordingly retreated; and presently returned with a small, leather-bound, and much discoloured book in his hand. His forefinger was between the pages, and he opened the book there.

"Yes," he said, "I thought I was not mistaken. Here is the passage, under the heading of 'Pearls. In Longitude 155 degrees 32 minutes 17 seconds East, and exactly under the Equator, there exists a small atoll, unnamed, and, I believe, unknown, unless it be to the natives of Matador and Greenwich Islands, which are in its neighbourhood. The islet, which is uninhabited, is little more than a mere rock, about a quarter of a mile long, and some fifty feet wide, over which the sea makes a clean breach in heavy weather; but the lagoon is about five miles long and three miles wide, with good anchorage for ships in a pretty uniform depth of ten fathoms. Two miles due west of this island there is a shoal, some seven miles long, by from two to four miles wide, with twenty-eight feet of water over it. And this shoal is almost entirely covered with pearl-oysters, yielding some of the finest and most perfect gems that I have ever seen.' Now, what think you of that, my friend. Is that good enough for you?" demanded the professor.

"Quite good enough," answered Sir Reginald. "Now, skipper," he continued, turning to Mildmay, "how far off is this famous oyster-bed, and how long will it take us to get there?"

"What did you say is the position of the spot, Professor?" asked Mildmay.

The professor restated the longitude.

"Um!" observed Mildmay, figuring upon a piece of paper that he drew from his pocket; "it is a goodish step from here to there! roughly, about seven thousand miles, as the crow flies. As to how long it will take us to get there; we can do the distance in sixty hours, by going aloft into the calm belt, shutting ourselves in, and going full speed ahead. Otherwise—"

"Thanks, very much; and never mind the 'otherwise,'" answered Sir Reginald. "This is going to be a sea trip; and we are going to do at least a part of it in leisurely fashion, say, about ten to fifteen knots an hour. When we are tired of that, and at night, we can go aloft and put on the speed if we wish. And, now that I come to think of it, is there any reason why we should not start at once?"

No one, it appeared, had any reason to advance against the baronet's proposal. Accordingly, he and Mildmay forthwith adjourned to consult the chart and lay off the course; and ten minutes later the remainder of the party, who were still sitting on deck, awaiting the return of the absentees, became conscious of the fact that the night-breeze had suddenly strengthened; and when they looked about them in search of an explanation, they saw the sea about three hundred feet beneath them, and the land slipping away into the gloom of the night astern.

The travellers had been at sea a week, pottering along on the surface during the day, and rising some three hundred feet into the air at night—just high enough, in fact, to take them over and clear of the masts of any ships that they might happen to encounter during the hours of darkness—maintaining a tolerably uniform speed of ten knots through the air—not counting the acceleration or retardation of speed due to the varying direction and strength of the several winds that they met with. Thus they had been able to sleep at night with wide open ports, to their great comfort and enjoyment, and the manifest improvement of their health, as was particularly exemplified in the case of little Ida, who was by this time as well as even her parents could desire.

The hour was eleven o'clock in the forenoon—six bells, Mildmay called it—and the ship had been running on the surface for about an hour. The entire party were sitting out on deck under the awnings, amusing themselves in various ways, the two ladies, each with a book on her lap, to which it is to be feared she was giving but scant attention, and Ida, her father, Lethbridge, and the Russian colonel playing bull. It was a most lovely day, the sky without a cloud, the water smooth, and a soft but refreshing breeze was breathing out from the southward. The ship was steering herself, the self-steering apparatus having been thrown into action, as no other craft were in sight.

The horizon was not to remain bare for very long, however; for just as Mildmay rose to his feet with some idea of going below, the dull, muffled boom of a distant gun was heard, and, everybody at once looking round the horizon in search of the source of so very novel an occurrence, the topmast-heads and smoke of a steamer were seen just showing above the ocean's rim, about three points on the starboard bow. She seemed to be in a hurry, too, if the dense volumes of smoke that poured from her as yet unseen funnels were to be taken as any criterion.

"Now, what craft will that be?" exclaimed "the skipper," as he studied the two mastheads attentively. "A liner, I should say, by the length of her between her masts. Probably an 'Orient,' 'Orient-Pacific,' or 'X. and Z.' boat. But surely she did not fire that gun? And, if she did not—oho! what is this? There is another craft astern of her! I can just make out her mastheads rising above the horizon. Now, did number two fire that gun; and, if so, why? I must get my glasses; this promises to be interesting. And we shall see more of it presently; they are crossing our hawse in a diagonal direction, and edging this way."

The game of bull was forthwith abandoned, as being of much less interest than the advent of two strange ships on the scene—for, singularly enough, these were the first craft that they had sighted since leaving the African coast—and everybody at once made a dash below for his or her own especial pair of binoculars.

The two strange craft were coming along at a great rate, and rising above the horizon very quickly; thus, by the time that Mildmay returned to the deck with his glasses in his hand, the leading ship was almost straight ahead, and had risen sufficiently to show her chart-house above the horizon, and to enable "the skipper" to see that she carried a wheel-house on top of the fore end of it, and a short awning abaft the wheel-house.

"Yes," he muttered to himself, "she is a liner, undoubtedly; and an X. and Z. boat at that, unless I am greatly mistaken. Two masts—the mainmast stepped a long way aft; and two funnels amidships, pretty close together—yes; she is an X. and Z.; I'll bet my hat on that. And she is steaming for all she is worth. I can see the 'white feather' blowing away from the top of her waste-pipes. Now, is she racing with that other chap; or—is she running away from him?"

He turned his binoculars upon the sternmost ship, which was also coming along at a great rate, and gradually lifting above the horizon. About half the length of her masts—two of them—was now showing; and as Mildmay focussed his lenses upon them an ejaculation of astonishment escaped his lips.

"A man-o'-war, by the Lord Harry!" he exclaimed. "Yes; there are her upper signal-yards, and her fighting-tops below them, clear enough. By the piper, this is growing interesting indeed. Now, who and what is she? and why is she chasing a British liner?—for she is chasing her, beyond a doubt!"

"Well, Mildmay, what do you make of them?" inquired Sir Reginald, as he at this moment stepped out on deck.

"I make of it," answered Mildmay, "that the leading ship is an X. and Z. liner steaming for all she is worth; and that the second ship is a man-o'-war—a second-class cruiser, I should say—chasing her!"

"The dickens you do!" returned Sir Reginald. "Then what does it mean? Is it not something rather unusual?"

"It is so extremely unusual, that I am going to ask your permission to haul up a point or two, presently, that we may investigate the matter," answered Mildmay. "There is only one possible explanation of it; and that is that war has quite suddenly broken out between England and some other Power. And yet that can scarcely be, either; for when we left home everything was quite quiet; the political horizon was as clear as it ever is, and—dashed if I can understand it. But anyhow, Elphinstone, I suppose we are not going to jog quietly along and see a British ship bullied by a foreigner without having a word or two to say about it, are we?"

"Not much!" answered Sir Reginald, emphatically, and with a flash of the eye that delighted Mildmay. "I know nothing of these matters," he continued, "or how to proceed; but you do; so take charge, old chap, and give us your orders. We will obey them to the letter, I promise you."

"A thousand thanks," answered Mildmay. "Of course I need not tell you that to interfere in a case of this kind, with no knowledge of the facts, is a somewhat ticklish business. But, all the same, that is not going to stop me. I see, yonder, a British ship flying from a stranger; and with your kind permission I am going to lend her a hand."

He raised his glasses to his eyes again. The hull of the leading ship had by this time almost topped the horizon, and it was now possible to see something of her shape. She was a fairly big craft, measuring, according to Mildmay's estimate, about eight thousand tons; and her whole shape and appearance confirmed him in his original conviction that she was one of the X. and Z. Company's boats. She flew no flag at her masthead, it is true; but Mildmay could now see that she had hoisted a blue ensign on her ensign staff.

"Under the command of a R.N.R. man," he commented, as he saw this. "All right, old man; there is a friend within a few miles of you, whose proximity you probably don't suspect; and we will see that you don't come to any harm. Now let us have a look at t'other chap."

The second craft was still hull-down; but her masts, funnels, tops of her ventilators, and the head of her ensign staff were all visible; and Mildmay noticed that she was showing no colours. This fact rendered the whole affair more puzzling than ever; for there could be no possible doubt that she was chasing the liner, and for a man-o'-war openly and undisguisedly to chase another ship, and not show her colours, was unprecedented, and most certainly not in accordance with any recognised rule of warfare.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party had come on deck, and were all intently watching the two ships through their binoculars as they animatedly discussed the puzzling situation.

"When do you intend to haul up, 'skipper'?" asked Sir Reginald.

"Not yet," answered Mildmay. "Perhaps in about ten minutes' time— unless anything occurs of a character that would make it desirable to do so earlier. I want to see a little more of the game first."

"Then there you have it!" exclaimed Lethbridge, as a flash, followed by a puff of brilliant white smoke, issued from the bows of the pursuing ship.

A jet of foam leaped up from the surface of the sea, about half a mile astern of the liner, and dissolved like steam in the dazzling sunshine. Then the boom of the gun came floating down to the ears of the watchers.

"A four-inch, by the sound of it," remarked Mildmay. "And shotted, too. Clearly, the fellow is in earnest, whoever he may be. Now, what the dickens is the explanation of this enigma? And what is the nationality of the craft?"

"Can't you tell by the build of her?" demanded Lethbridge. "I have always understood that you sailors had but to look at a ship to tell her nationality at once; at least that is the impression that one gathers from the general run of sea novels."

"Yes," answered Mildmay. "But that refers to the old days of wooden ships. There was a distinctiveness in the model of the wooden ship that was an almost infallible index to her nationality. But nowadays ships— and particularly war-ships—are built so much alike in shape that, except in a few rather extreme cases, it is practically impossible to identify them. That fellow, yonder, for instance, might be British, Dutch, German, Austrian, Italian, or Japanese, for all that one can tell by merely looking at him. Ah, there goes another gun!"

The shot this time struck somewhat nearer, throwing up three successive jets of water, the last of which appeared to be unpleasantly close to the stern of the chase.

"The fellow is overhauling her," exclaimed Mildmay. "Now, Elphinstone, with your permission, I will shift our helm and alter our course forty-five degrees to the nor'ard."

And, so saying, he entered the pilot-house; and a moment later the watchers saw the two distant craft swing back along the horizon until the leading ship bore two points on the Flying Fish's starboard bow.

"If you have no objection, Sir Reginald, I should like a torpedo-shell put into our bow tube," observed Mildmay, as he emerged from the pilot-house.

"Certainly," answered Sir Reginald; "I will go below and put one in at once."

"Better let me do it," interposed the professor. "I know more about the working of them than you do; and, moreover, I am not so profoundly interested in this affair as you all seem to be. Besides, I shall not be gone longer than five minutes at the utmost."

And, Sir Reginald offering no objection, the worthy man turned away and vanished through the pilot-house door.

The leading ship was by this time within about five miles of the Flying Fish, and steering a course that would take her square across the bows of the latter; the two—or, indeed, the three—ships were therefore nearing each other fast, and the men fell to debating the question whether or not the Flying Fish had yet been seen by either of the strangers. The craft was in her usual surface-running trim; that is to say, considerably more than half of her polished hull was submerged, leaving little to be seen except her small superstructure and her pilot-house, both of which were painted a delicate blue-grey colour that would be scarcely visible against the horizon astern. The chances, therefore, were strongly in favour of her invisibility. On the other hand, there was just a possibility that some keen eye aboard the liner, anxiously scanning the horizon in quest of help, might have sighted her; in which case a glimpse of the white ensign might be comforting. Mildmay therefore went to the flag-locker and drew forth the white ensign which, in virtue of his being a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, Sir Reginald was entitled to fly, and ran it up to the truck of the ensign staff.

Whether it had been seen or not was difficult to say, for nothing in particular followed upon its exhibition, unless the discharge of another gun from the pursuing ship might be taken as a reply. And this time the shot went home to its mark; for as the observers turned their glasses upon the chase, her mainmast was seen to totter and fall by the board, cut short off by the deck. Luckily the spar did not go over the side, but lay, fore-and-aft, inboard; otherwise the rigging might have fouled the propeller and brought the ship to a standstill. As it was, she continued her flight as though nothing had happened.

"This matter has gone quite far enough," exclaimed Mildmay, sharply, as he saw the liner's mast fall. "Come inside, all of you, if you please. We may be under fire in another minute or two. Perhaps the ladies had better go below until this affair is settled—if you will be so kind," he added, with a bow to Lady Olivia as she passed in through the pilot-house door, outside which he was standing.

When all the rest had entered, he followed, closing the door behind him, and at once ascended to the working chamber of the pilot-house, whither Sir Reginald and Lethbridge had preceded him. His first act was to increase the speed of the Flying Fish to thirty knots; and as he moved the lever forward, admitting a larger flow of vapour to the engine-cylinders, Lethbridge, who was standing at one of the windows, with his binoculars to his eyes, turned and said—

"What do you think of that, Mildmay?"

"What do I think of what?" retorted Mildmay, stepping to his side.

"That!" answered Lethbridge, pointing to the pursuing ship and handing over his glasses for the other to use. "The unknown has just hoisted to her masthead a black flag with a white skull and cross-bones in its centre. Is not that—?"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Mildmay. "You surely do not mean it. Let me have a look."

He raised the glasses to his eyes for a moment and stared through them as though he felt that he could scarcely credit the evidence of his own senses. Then, as he thrust the glasses back into his friend's hand, he exclaimed—

"The 'Jolly Roger,' as I am a living sinner! Well, that 'takes the cake,' and no mistake! Yes; the fellow is undoubtedly a genuine, up-to-date, twentieth-century pirate. If it had not been for that last shot I might have been inclined to believe the whole affair an elaborate joke in the very worst taste; but a man does not shoot another fellow's mast away as a joke. No; that chap means business—and so do I! Ah, another shot! and—yes, here it comes—he is firing at us! Not at all badly aimed, either."

As he spoke the loud rushing sound of the shot broke upon their ears; and a moment later it struck the sea about three yards astern of the Flying Fish, sending a column of white, steam-like foam and spray shooting some twenty feet into the air. Almost instantly another shot followed, which, judging from the sound, must have passed close over the pilot-house roof; to be followed, a few seconds later, by a third, which struck the water within a fathom of the ship's sharp nose, which was just level with the water's surface, and, owing to the speed of the ship, was sending up a fine, perpendicular jet of glassy water some ten feet high.

"Confound the fellow's impudence!" exclaimed Sir Reginald. "Does the rascal think that he is going to make a prize of us? A fine rich prize we should make, too, did he but know it!"

"It is not that," explained Mildmay. "It is the white ensign that he doesn't like the look of. He probably takes us for some new-fangled sort of British gun-boat, bent upon interfering with his little game; and he wants to disable us. He is one of those pestilently persistent fellows who won't take a hint and sheer off; he is as full of obstinacy as was the mammoth that chased me over yonder,"—with a jerk of his thumb toward the north—"on our first trip, and must be treated as we treated that mammoth. For if we don't kill him, he will kill us—if he can. You see? Here comes another shot!"

It was a very close shave that time, the missile passing so close athwart the front of the pilot-house that its wind actually came, in a sudden, violent gust, in through the pilot-house window.

"We must put a stop to this at once, or the fellow will do us a mischief," exclaimed Mildmay. "Kindly take the helm for a moment, Sir Reginald, if you please."

Sir Reginald at once stepped to the tiller and laid his hand on it. "Where am I to steer for?" he asked.

"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-button that controlled the discharge of the torpedo-shells 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 button 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-shells 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 glasses 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 circumstances."

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 passengers, 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 passengers, 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 muffled 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 identity 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 anticipated 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 assist 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 passengers, 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 spacious 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-glass 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, assigned 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 amusement 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 passed 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 passengers, 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 circumstances, a hundred gulls constitute a very respectable flock, there appeared to be at least ten times this number hovering about the stranger; and it was this unusual circumstance 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 glasses 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 glass-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 assumed 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. She was a ship with a dead crew!

The professor promptly dashed into the pilot-house, and backed the ship off to a distance at which she would be safe from infection; and then the men of the party held a consultation as to what should be done in the matter of this ghastly tragedy upon which they had stumbled. Here was another case wherein it was desirable, for obvious reasons, that the name, nationality, and other particulars of the ship should be ascertained; and this, of course, could only be done by boarding her. It is true that her name and nationality might perhaps be determined by the simple expedient of running round her and reading the inscription upon her stern; and this was tried, but with no very satisfactory result, the only letters decipherable being "insch—en—otter—m."

It was at once apparent that Sir Reginald was distinctly averse from the idea of boarding the ship; and this was not to be wondered at, for who was to say of what disease the unfortunate crew had died? It might be plague, cholera, or something equally malignant; and if so, what guarantee was there that the boarding-party would not bring the infection of it back to the Flying Fish? Even when Mildmay suggested the possibility that life might still be lingering in some poor wretch aboard the stranger, he still hesitated, questioning the prudence of exposing eight healthy persons—or eleven, if they included Ida's nurse, George, and the chef below—to serious risks of infection upon so remote a probability, as that there might possibly be a survivor of the tragedy still existing. Yet, the idea having been mooted, he could not bring himself to say the word that would leave the floating charnel-house unexplored. He therefore appealed to von Schalckenberg to say whether there were any means, either by the use of disinfectants or otherwise, whereby an examination of the ship might be rendered possible; and upon the latter answering in the affirmative, it was ultimately arranged that Mildmay should go alone on board her, and learn what he could, but that he was to bring nothing away from the ship. "The skipper" accordingly, following the professor's instructions, went below and changed into the oldest and most worthless garments that he could find; after which he joined the worthy German in the latter's own cabin, and there imbibed a certain draught, and otherwise underwent elaborate preparations for his projected expedition, that were guaranteed to render him personally immune.

Meanwhile, Sir Reginald and Lethbridge got out, lowered, and brought to the gangway, one of the boats, into which Mildmay presently stepped, and pushed off for the strange ship.

He was absent a full hour, or more, and he had scarcely reached the empty deck of the Flying Fish upon his return, when those who had been watching his movements from the dining-saloon ports saw thin wreaths of blue smoke go soaring upward between the masts from the two ends of the stranger. Mildmay had carefully set her on fire.



CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

CAPTAIN SILAS BARKER OF THE AMY PELHAM.

Pausing only long enough to hoist the boat to the davits, the adventurous sailor descended to one of the bathrooms, where the professor awaited him with a medicated bath already prepared, which was to remove from his person every germ of infection that he might perchance have brought with him from the ship. And the moment that he was safely immersed in this, and further seen to be vigorously applying it to his face, hair, and beard, von Schalckenberg made the rejected clothing into a bundle—which he carefully wrapped in a cloth saturated with disinfectant—and, carrying it up on deck, dropped it overboard. The result of these somewhat drastic, but perfectly justifiable precautions was, that when Mildmay emerged, fully clothed, from the bathroom, the professor announced him to be as clean and wholesome as any of the others of the party.

Meanwhile, Sir Reginald, having noted Mildmay's return, and waited until he was safely in the bathroom, at once proceeded to the pilot-house, and starting the engines, put the Flying Fish again on her course. Thus, when at length "the skipper" made his appearance on deck—exhaling a powerful odour of disinfectants—the ship that he had visited was on the horizon, and in flames from stem to stern.

"You did your work pretty effectually," said Sir Reginald to him, nodding towards the blazing ship. "I suppose it was the proper thing to do, eh?"

"Undoubtedly," answered Mildmay. "We could not salve her, you see; and to leave her drifting about, derelict, would only be to expose other ships to a very serious danger—not necessarily the danger of infection, but the peril of a disastrous collision. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that many a good ship has gone to the bottom, taking her crew with her, as the result of collision with a derelict in the dark hours of a dirty, windy night; and if a derelict is fallen in with under circumstances which render the salving of her impossible, she certainly ought to be destroyed. Yet, in the case of yonder ship— which, by the way, is the Linschoten, of Rotterdam, Dirk Dirkzwager, master, bound from Batavia to Amsterdam—the necessity was rather a regrettable one; for she carried a valuable cargo, consisting chiefly of coffee, indigo, and tobacco. Her logbook shows that she sailed for home nearly three months ago, and was becalmed on her fourth day out, her present position seeming to indicate that she has remained becalmed ever since—at least, her logbook makes it clear that she met with no wind for seven full weeks after running into the calm. And about that time it appears that sickness of some virulent and deadly kind broke out aboard her—the log does not specify what it was, possibly because the skipper did not know—and within twenty-four hours all hands were down with it. The entry conveying this information is the last in the book, and the rest can only be guessed at; but it must have been pretty bad, for there were nineteen corpses on board her, which is clear enough evidence that the living were too ill to dispose of the dead. And that, I think, is all I need tell you. I will not attempt to describe to you what I saw aboard her; for, in the first place, no language of mine could do justice to it, and, in the second place, there is no good to be done by attempting to harrow your feelings. In accordance with your wish, I brought nothing in the shape of documents or otherwise away with me; so, having told you all that there is to tell, I will now go below, and write a full account of the affair in my diary while everything is fresh in my memory."

When the party assembled on deck after dinner that evening, somebody suggested that, as there was now a good moon coming on, rendering the nights light and beautiful, the remainder of the voyage should be proceeded with on the surface of the sea, by night as well as by day, for the sake of securing a full measure of enjoyment of the delightful weather then prevailing. It was true that such a method of progression would entail upon the men—or at least the four of them who understood how to work the ship—the necessity to keep a watch; but they were unanimous in declaring that this would be no hardship at all, but a pleasure rather than otherwise, if only on account of the novelty of the thing. The new arrangement was therefore adopted that same night. The route chosen was through the Straits of Sunda, the Java Sea, the Straits of Macassar, and the Sea of Celebes, into the Pacific, this route taking them past many small islands, and perhaps affording them a few novel and interesting sights. The speed was, under ordinary circumstances, to be the exceedingly moderate one of fifteen knots.

Java Head (the westernmost of the three headlands so named) was sighted shortly after noon on the following day; and the ship entered the Straits—at that point about forty miles wide—as the party sat down to lunch, which Sir Reginald had ordered to be served on deck. There were several craft in sight, native and otherwise, under steam and sail, and as the Flying Fish drew farther into the Straits, and the waterway narrowed, the scene became very animated. They passed Krakatoa, and gazed with interest and amazement at the evidences of the awful havoc and ruin that had been wrought by the terrific eruption of '83; and emerged into open water again in time to witness a magnificent sunset behind the mountain of Radja Bassa, on the island of Sumatra.

It took them sixty hours to traverse the Java Sea, the helm being shifted for the passage through the Macassar Strait at sunrise on the third morning out from the Straits of Sunda. The Balabalongan Islands were safely passed that same evening, ere darkness fell; and twenty-four hours later they emerged into the open Sea of Celebes, and again shifted their helm.

Thus far nothing of importance had happened; they had enjoyed glorious weather, and found almost constant entertainment in watching the various craft fallen in with, and the beautiful pictures offered to their gaze by the islands that they had passed. But on the evening that witnessed their entrance into the Sea of Celebes there were indications that a change of weather was impending. A somewhat rapid decline of the mercury in the tube of the barometer was the first symptom, and this was quickly followed by a dimming of the hitherto crystalline blue of the sky that produced a wild, fiery, smoky sunset, suggestive of a whole continent ablaze away down there to the westward. As the darkness closed in there were but few stars to be seen, and they quickly vanished in the mistiness that gradually obscured the heavens. The moon, now near the full, appeared for a short time as a shapeless film of hazy light, and then she also vanished. The north-east monsoon, which had been blowing fresh and steadily for the last few days, died away, and the stagnant air became close and suffocatingly hot.

"Phew!" exclaimed Sir Reginald, as the party stepped out on deck; "this is the hottest night we have had this trip, and stark calm. What does it mean, skipper? I thought that we were now in the monsoon region."

"So we are; but, as you see, the wind has fallen calm," answered Mildmay. "Moreover, the mercury is dropping a good deal faster than I like; and this thickening up of the atmosphere means bad weather; I am sure of it."

"Very bad weather, do you mean, Mildmay, or merely a bit of a breeze?" questioned Sir Reginald.

"Something very much worse than 'a bit of a breeze,' I imagine," was the reply. "Indeed, it would not greatly surprise me to find that we are in for a regular typhoon."

"A typhoon!" ejaculated Lethbridge, who was standing close by; "that means something pretty bad, doesn't it?"

"Well, about the same sort of thing as we encountered upon the memorable occasion when we saved the life of the lady who is now our charming and gracious hostess," answered Mildmay.

"What is that? Are you talking about me?" demanded Lady Olivia, who, a few feet away, had happened to catch the word "hostess."

"Mildmay has just been telling us, my dear, that appearances point to the approach of a gale of somewhat similar character to that which occurred in the Bay of Bengal on a certain memorable occasion," explained her husband.

"Oh dear, how dreadful!" exclaimed Lady Olivia. "I shall never forget that time,"—with a shudder—"it comes to me, even now, sometimes, in my dreams. Shall we be in any danger, Captain?"

"Danger! in such a ship as this?" cried Mildmay. "None whatever. But, of course, if you feel nervous, we can go up aloft, and avoid it by the simple process of rising above it; or we can descend one or two hundred feet below the surface, and ride it out there."

"Oh, but I do not think I should like that; at least, certainly not the last. It is one thing to go down to the bottom in fine weather, as we did when you were examining the wreck, and quite another to do the same when a hurricane is blowing. And, of the three alternatives, I really think I should prefer to remain on the surface of the sea, and watch all the wild commotion, if I could feel assured that we were quite safe."

"You certainly may feel assured of that, my Lady," exclaimed von Schalckenberg. "With this ship afloat and in the open sea, you may laugh to scorn the fiercest gale. The wind may smite her in its wildest fury, the waves sweep her from end to end, and she will still go unharmed and undeterred on her way."

"Then let us stay on the surface and risk it. I should love to witness a really furious storm, with the feeling that I was perfectly safe," said the lady. And so it was settled.

But when Lady Olivia retired to her cabin that night the air was still calm, and the only difference perceptible to her was that, whereas earlier in the evening the sea had been almost perfectly smooth, her swinging bedstead was now swaying with a very perceptible movement due to the fact that a heavy westerly swell had arisen, and was now following the ship.

It was not until close upon midnight that any very decided change occurred; and then came a shower that burst upon the ship with true tropical suddenness and violence, and in the midst of the shower the wind came away strong out of the westward, blowing in fierce, sudden gusts that quickly hardened down to a strong and rapidly increasing gale. When daylight laggingly came upon the scene the wind was blowing with true hurricane force, and a very high, steep sea was running, which would undoubtedly have been still higher had not the wind taken the crests of the seas, torn them off, and sent them flying away to leeward in blinding torrents of scud-water that lashed the walls of the Flying Fish's pilot-house with a sound like that of the continuous crash of hail. Although the ship's engines were set for a speed of only fifteen knots, she was going through the water at something more than twenty; yet, despite the fact that she was being swept from end to end by the wildly breaking seas that followed her, her movements were so easy and comfortable that Mildmay became quite enthusiastic upon the subject. Shortly before noon they sighted and passed, within a quarter of a mile, a big battleship. She was riding head to wind, and apparently steaming ahead dead slow, or, at all events, merely at a speed sufficient to give her steerage-way. She was making positively frightful weather of it, diving deeply into every sea, as it met her, and literally burying herself in a perfect smother of whiteness which had no time to flow off her decks ere she plunged into the next sea. And, strangely enough, within the hour they fell in with and passed a small gun-boat, undoubtedly British. She was rigged as a barquentine. Her three topmasts were housed, and she was hove-to under the lee clew of her close-reefed topsail and a small storm-trysail. She was being flung about in a manner that was absolutely appalling to look at, at one moment standing almost upright, and anon thrown down on her beam-ends at such an extreme angle that, to the onlookers, her decks seemed to be almost vertical. Yet, with it all, she was making better weather of it than her bigger sister, for though the spray flew over her in heavy clouds, she seemed to be shipping very little green water. Still later, they passed something that had the appearance of being a capsized junk, after which they sighted nothing more; and on the following morning, with sunrise, the gale broke, the sky cleared, the wind softened down and finally shifted; and by the afternoon the north-east monsoon was again blowing, and nothing remained of the gale save the turbulent sea that it had knocked up. The same evening saw them abreast and about ten miles to the north of the island of Tagulanda, and twenty-four hours later they sighted and passed North Cape, on the island of Moro, and swept into the great Pacific ocean.

The weather had by this time again become all that the voyagers could desire. The sky was of a beautifully clear, rich blue tint, flecked here and there with thin, fleecy, fine weather clouds; the monsoon swept down upon their port bow in a cool gush, redolent of the exhilarating smell of the open ocean, a very life-giving tonic; and the long, low mounds of the Pacific swell, wrinkled with the sweep of the breeze, just sufficed to give life in a long, easy plunging movement to the hull of the Flying Fish, at one moment lifting her sharp-pointed nose and some twenty feet of her fore-body clear out of the blue, sparkling brine, and anon causing her to dive into the on-coming undulation until she was buried nearly midway to her superstructure.

About mid-afternoon they passed a small island that lay some half a dozen miles to the northward of their course, and about half an hour before sunset another and still smaller one was sighted, almost directly ahead.

As usual, every glass in the ship was at once brought to bear upon it; for, despite the ever-fresh and ever-changing beauty of sea and sky, a break in the monotony of it is always welcome, and even such an object as a barren rock becomes interesting.

"Mildmay, do you notice anything peculiar about that island ahead?" asked Sir Reginald, when he had been peering through his binocular for a minute or so.

"Looks to me, very much like a wreck of some sort upon it," remarked Lethbridge.

"It is a wreck," said Mildmay; "the wreck of a small craft—apparently a schooner. I have just been looking at her."

"Uncommonly awkward spot to be cast away upon," said Sir Reginald. "Why, it is a mere rock, by the look of it. And yet not quite a rock, either, for there is grass on it, and a few stunted bushes. But the whole place cannot be much more than ten acres in extent. And, as I live, there are people upon it. I can see smoke, and the flicker of a fire."

"You are right, Elphinstone. There is a fire there; I have just caught sight of it," said Lethbridge.

"Well," said Sir Reginald, "we must stop and take them off, although I don't much like the idea of admitting strangers to this ship, and so 'giving our show away' to a certain extent. But, of course, we can't allow any considerations of that sort to weigh with us where the question is one of saving life. And nobody could contrive to sustain life for any length of time on that little patch of earth. Why, if another gale should spring up, they would be washed off, for a dead certainty."

"Ay, that is a fact that there is no disputing," agreed Mildmay. "And, after all, you know, Elphinstone, there is no need for us to make those people acquainted with the fact that we are on an aerial and submarine, as well as an ordinary ship; they need know very little more about us than those people of the Baroda know. And we can trans-ship them into the next craft belonging to a civilised nation that we fall in with."

"Yes, of course we can," assented Sir Reginald. "Their fuel seems to be pretty damp, poor chaps; there is a good deal more smoke than fire there, to my thinking."

"That, I take it, is intentional," said Mildmay. "They have probably seen us, and are making that big smoke to attract our attention. With your permission, Elphinstone, I will hoist our ensign, to let them know that we have seen them, and will get one of the boats ready for lowering."

"Right, skipper; I will come and lend you a hand with the boat. Perhaps it would be as well to get both boats to the quarters, wouldn't it, as we are henceforth going to remain on the surface until we can say good-bye to those people."

Mildmay agreed that it would; and in a few minutes both boats were hanging from their davits over the ship's two quarters, and the ensign flying from the staff. By this time the ship was within two miles of the island, and the interested watchers had caught sight of a man standing upon the highest point of his mere hand's-breadth of territory, waving his arms, as though still doubtful whether he had succeeded in attracting their attention.

"There seems to be but one man there," observed Lethbridge, as the two men joined him. "If so, he must have had a pretty bad time of it. How long will he have been there, I wonder!"

"Not very long, I suspect," answered Mildmay. "He probably got cast away in the gale that we had two days ago."

Five minutes later the engines of the Flying Fish were stopped; and presently, when she had sufficiently lost her way, one of the boats was lowered, and Sir Reginald and Mildmay went away in her. There was no beach to speak of on the island, and it was so exceedingly small that the swell ran right round it, making the beaching of the boat both a difficult and a dangerous matter. The castaway, however—there was but one—solved the difficulty by watching his opportunity and rushing down into the water after a retreating wave and flinging himself and a bundle into the boat before the on-rush of the next sea came.

He was an elderly man, rather tall, slim of build, and somewhat cadaverous of feature, with light straw-coloured hair and goatee beard that was fast changing to white. He appeared to be about fifty years of age, and was a Yankee from the crown of his hatless head to the soles of his salt-stiffened boots.

"Thank 'e, strangers," he gasped, as he scrambled in over the bows of the boat and recovered possession of the bundle that he had flung in ahead of him. "That's all right. I guess you can shove off now."

"Are you alone, then?" demanded Sir Reginald, as he sent the boat's engines astern.

"Yes, sirree, I'm as much alone as I ever want to be. I, Silas Barker, am the sole survivor of the wreck of the fore-and-aft schooner Amy Pelham, of which I was owner and master. My crew consisted of seven hands besides myself, and every one of 'em is gone to his long home. How I managed to escape is a solemn mystery; for when the schooner struck I was knocked down and stunned by the first sea that broke over her, and I knew no more until I woke up and found myself lyin' on the shore of that lonely spot, clutchin' the grass with both hands, and the water washin' up round me and tryin' to claw me off ag'in."

"And when did this happen, Mr Barker?" demanded Mildmay.

"Two days ago," answered Barker. "And I don't mind admittin' to you gentlemen that they have been the longest two days I ever spent. Seems to me a good deal nearer like two months. To be two days alone, ashore in the country, is nothin' more than a mere pleasant change; but to be two days alone on a bit of earth hardly big enough to build a house upon—whew! I don't want no more of 'em!"

"And did you see nothing more of any of your crew when you came to yourself after being washed ashore?" asked Sir Reginald.

"Nary one of 'em," answered Barker. "Sharks got 'em, most likely; and I only wonder they didn't get me, too. But, I say, mister, what sort of a steamer do you call this of yourn? Darn my ugly buttons, but she's the all-firedest queer-lookin' packet that I ever set eyes on. And what may you be doin' down in these here latitoods?"

"We are yachting, for the benefit of my little daughter's health," answered Sir Reginald, briefly, as the boat ranged up alongside the gangway-ladder, and the baronet waved his not altogether welcome guest to precede him to the deck, where the rest of the party awaited his arrival.

"Evenin', ladies and gents," remarked Barker, affably, as he passed in through the gangway, and gazed about him inquisitively. "Fine weather, ain't it, after the shindy that 'rude Boreas' kicked up two days ago?"

"Allow me," interposed Sir Reginald, who had closely followed the castaway in on deck. "My dear,"—to Lady Olivia—"this is Captain Silas Barker, the only survivor of the wreck of his schooner, Amy Pelham, which was cast away two days ago. My wife, Lady Elphinstone; Mlle. Sziszkinski, Colonel Sziszkinski, Colonel Lethbridge, Professor von Schalckenberg, and the gentleman who was in the boat with me is Captain Mildmay."

"Je-ru-salem!" exclaimed Barker, as he insisted on shaking hands with each of the persons named; "seems to me that at last the great ambition of my life is bein' gratified by my gettin' on intimate terms with the nobs. Quite a distinguished comp'ny, I'm sure. And you, sir, I presume, are Lord Elphinstone?"

"Oh dear no," answered the individual addressed, with a smile, despite himself; "I am merely Sir Reginald."

"Sir Reginald!" commented Barker. "Well, I guess it amounts to pretty much the same thing. But, where's your crew, Sir Reginald? I don't see no hands about your decks."

"We do not need any," answered Sir Reginald. "We work the ship ourselves—so far as she needs working. And now, if you would like to go below, Mr Barker, and have a wash and brush-up, my servant shall show you to your cabin. And if you are hard up for linen and a change of clothes, we can perhaps fit you out, amongst us."

"Well, that's uncommon handsome of you, Sir Reginald, I'm sure," answered Barker. "The fact is that I've got here,"—regarding his bundle somewhat doubtfully—"a shift of clothes that I got out of the cabin of the schooner this morning; but I guess they're pretty damp, and—"

"Quite so; I understand," returned Sir Reginald. "You shall have a suit of mine. You will probably be able to get into them without much difficulty."

"I guess I shall be able to git into 'em, and turn round and come out again," remarked Barker, eyeing his host's splendid proportions with undisguised admiration. "All the same, sir, if you don't mind, I'll have 'em; for they'll be dry, and I'm most awful subject to rheumatism."

At this juncture George appeared, and in obedience to Sir Reginald's instructions, conducted the new guest to a vacant cabin, indicated to him the whereabouts of the bathrooms, and laid out one of Sir Reginald's blue serge suits for him, together with such other necessaries as the exigencies of his condition demanded.

"What an extraordinary creature!" exclaimed Lady Olivia, with a laugh, as soon as the man was safely out of earshot.

"A distinctly queer fish," commented Lethbridge.

"Very much so," agreed Sir Reginald. "Yet, no doubt, a very worthy fellow in his own peculiar way. It would not surprise me if we find his conversation rather entertaining. But, all the same, I shall be glad of a decent opportunity to trans-ship him. And now, what about those pearls? Are we to take him with us to the island, and let him see what we are about; give the secret away to him, in fact?"

"I am afraid that we shall be obliged to take him with us," observed Mildmay, "unless, indeed, something comes along between now and then, into which we can transfer him. But we need not give away the secret of the position of the island, I think. These Yankees are very inquisitive and very cute; but I can work a traverse that will effectually puzzle him, I think."

"How?" inquired Sir Reginald.

"Simply by steering one course during the day, when he is up and about, and another course at night—a true course for the island—after he has turned in."

"Then we had better do that," said Sir Reginald. "The secret of the position of this pearl-island is von Schalckenberg's, we must remember, and the fact that he is kindly permitting us to share in and profit by his knowledge ought to make us especially careful not to betray that knowledge to a total stranger who, for aught that we know to the contrary, might perhaps return to the spot and clear every oyster off it."

"Yes," concurred the professor, "that is so, my friend; what you say is very true. At the same time we must remember that this poor man has just met with what, to him, is no doubt a very heavy loss. I think, therefore, that we must contrive to fish up for him a small parcel of pearls of sufficient value to recoup him his loss."



CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

BARKER'S TREACHERY.

The presence of Barker in the ship, and the working by Mildmay of the "traverse" which that presence seemed to render desirable, somewhat prolonged the passage of the Flying Fish to von Schalckenberg's pearl-island. A full week thus elapsed between the date upon which they had taken the man on board, and that upon which they arrived at their destination—during which nothing was sighted.

But Barker made that week a lively time indeed for the rest of the party; for what between his quaint manners and mode of expression, and the interminable string of yarns that he spun, he kept them continuously at the high-water level of hilarity. He possessed in a very high degree the faculty of telling a story humorously; he even contrived to infuse a certain measure of humour into the relation of his most recent misfortunes; and, finding himself in touch with a thoroughly appreciative audience, he appeared to throw himself heart and soul into the task of entertaining them, by way of repayment of their hospitality. And when, presently, they began to grow somewhat accustomed to his singularities of manner and speech, and their sensitiveness to it had begun to wear off, they told themselves and each other that, queer fish as he was, he was "not half a bad sort."

The only quality, indeed, in him that still continued to jar upon them was his phenomenal inquisitiveness. He appeared not to know the meaning of rudeness or impertinence; he sought to pry into everything, and seemed genuinely surprised and puzzled when Sir Reginald somewhat curtly yet courteously excused himself from complying with his request to be shown all over the ship, and have everything explained to him. Yet it was almost impossible to feel angry with him, because he appeared to be so overwhelmingly grateful for his deliverance from imprisonment upon that mere speck of an out-of-the-way, inhospitable islet that he was always talking about it, always striving to give expression to his gratitude in some way or other. To such an extent was this the case, indeed, that it quickly became embarrassing, almost to the extent of annoyance, to the rest of the party. There was nothing they did that he did not want to assist in; and they found the utmost difficulty in making him understand that they would really prefer that he did not take his turn with the others at the night-watches in the pilot-house.

They quickly realised that it would be quite impossible for them to preserve from him the secret of the nature of their operations at the pearl-island; they therefore made a virtue of necessity, and frankly told him all about the matter, merely retaining the position of the island from him. As might be expected, he exhibited the utmost interest in their plans; promptly demanded to be made useful in the carrying out of their operations, and—also as might be expected—betrayed no diffidence about making the suggestion that he should be permitted to share in such good fortune as might attend their labours.

The atoll was sighted a little after ten o'clock in the morning, and by eleven o'clock the ship had safely entered the lagoon, and come to anchor as nearly as possible in its centre. The islet—which, as von Schalckenberg's book had stated, was little more than a mere rock—was of coral formation, and appeared to be merely a volcanic or seismic upheaval of one small portion of the oval ring of coral that formed the lagoon. Looked at broadside-on, so to speak, it bore some resemblance in appearance to a whale asleep on the water. Sand had washed up and become lodged among the inequalities of the rock-surface, and the deposits of birds had converted this into soil that, poor as it looked, sufficed to nourish a small clump of coconut palms that reared themselves from the highest point of the islet, which rose some thirty feet above the surface of the ocean. The shoal upon which the oyster-bed was reputed to exist lay two miles to the westward of the islet, and had been sighted from the deck of the Flying Fish shortly before her arrival in the lagoon, its position being indicated by a very distinct discoloration of the water.

The ship having been moored, the two boats were lowered into the water, and the party made an excursion to the islet, to view the place, and fill in the interval before luncheon. The islet was so small, however, and so absolutely devoid of interest, that half an hour sufficed the party to become perfectly acquainted with it; but they were repaid for their trouble by the discovery of a long, shallow, saucer-like depression, with a smooth bottom, that offered perfectly ideal facilities for the deposit of the oysters while undergoing the process of decomposition, which is the preliminary to the finding of such pearls as they may contain. There was no doubt that this would render the island and its immediate vicinity almost intolerably offensive to the olfactory nerves; but as the lagoon was to windward of the islet, and the ship was moored a mile and a half away from it, it was believed that her occupants would suffer no inconvenience from that source.

Luncheon over, two small nets, each with a sufficient length of rope to reach from the surface to the sea-bottom on the shoal, together with a couple of shovels and two rope ladders, were got out and put into the boats, while Mildmay and the professor arrayed themselves in their diving-suits and armour. Thus equipped, the two boats, with the six men of the party, set out for the shoal, Sir Reginald, the professor, and Barker going in one boat, while Mildmay, Lethbridge, and Sziszkinski went in the other. The passage through the reef lay to windward; the boats therefore were obliged to run some two miles to the eastward, to get outside and clear of the reef, and then go either north or south for about a distance of some two and a half miles to get round to the back of the reef and the island ere they could shape a course for the shoal. Luckily, although there was a considerable amount of swell, which burst upon the reef with a continuous sound of thunder, and threw up a wall of diamond spray some twenty feet high into the clear, sun-lit air, the trade-wind was blowing but a moderate breeze, and there was consequently not much sea. The boats therefore made excellent time, and arrived upon the shoal some three-quarters of an hour after leaving the ship. And here, again, they were favoured, from the fact that the shoal lay almost dead to leeward of the atoll, and but two miles distant from it; they were therefore in somewhat sheltered water, both as regards the swell and the sea, neither of which broke on the shoal.

The boats having anchored within a few yards of each other, well in toward the centre of the shoal, a rope ladder was dropped over the side of each, the nets were lowered to the bottom, each of them containing one of the shovels; and then Mildmay and the professor descended to the bottom, where they met. The water was beautifully clear, and the light good. They were therefore able to see without difficulty; and a single glance sufficed to show them that the account of the shoal in von Schalckenberg's book was in no sense an exaggerated one. They stood upon a bed of pearl-oysters, so thick that the sand could not be seen. Moreover, the oysters were of unusual size; not, of course, that that signified anything, because it is not always the largest oyster that yields the finest pearls.

The professor glanced about him, taking in as comprehensive a view of his surroundings as the dense medium in which he was immersed would permit, took up an oyster or two at haphazard, looked at them, and then said to Mildmay—

"It appears to me to be quite useless to attempt anything in the way of making a selection; the only thing that we can do is to take the oysters as they come, shovel them into the net until it is full, and then signal to those in the boats to draw them up. And, while doing this, we must keep a wary eye for sharks—not that the creatures could hurt us, attired, as we are, in this armour, but there is this danger, that we might be seized and carried so far away before we could free ourselves that it might be impossible to find our way back to the boats. If, therefore, any of them should appear upon the scene, we must use our daggers, and that right quickly."

The surrounding water was, however, quite clear of everything of a menacing character at that moment. The two men therefore got to work, spreading the mouths of their nets wide open, and simply shovelling the oysters into them until they were full, when they signalled to those in the boats to haul them up. This process they continued for something over an hour, until the boats were about half-full, and the time had arrived for them to return to the island.

The return journey was uneventful, except in so far as it showed them that the boats were loaded quite as deeply as was desirable for the safe negotiation of that part of the passage which lay to windward of the atoll; and when once they were safely inside the lagoon, they proceeded straight to the spot already chosen by them for the purpose, and discharged their cargoes into the shallow basin of rock. This afternoon's haul amounted to some thousands of oysters, but they now saw that the basin was sufficiently capacious to accommodate at least a fortnight's catch, reckoning upon the basis of their afternoon's work.

On the following day the same party again went out, making two trips to the shoal, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon, thus continuing for a fortnight, by which time their saucer-like depression in the rock was full, while about half of the entire catch was in a sufficiently advanced stage of decomposition to admit of being examined and the pearls abstracted therefrom. This, as will be supposed, was a most disgusting and intensely disagreeable task, but the returns were so unexpectedly rich that the revolting character of the work was quickly lost sight of in the interest with which discovery after discovery was made of pearls that, for size, shape, and purity of colour, promised to prove priceless. Their first day's work among the putrid fish resulted in their taking on board at night an ordinary ship's bucket nearly half-full of pearls, a considerable proportion of which might be ranked as specially valuable. The proportion of seed pearls was singularly small, and, toward the close of the second day's work, was considered of so little value, comparatively, as to be not worth the time and trouble of collecting. To attempt to put anything more than the merest approximate estimate of value upon their catch was of course quite out of the question; but when the result of their third day's labour was added to that of their first and second, von Schalckenberg, who claimed to be something of an authority in such matters, declared that the whole must be worth not far short of one hundred thousand pounds, if indeed it did not exceed that value.

The enthusiasm with which the men had been working at their highly unpleasant task of extracting the pearls from their loathsome envelopment had so far cooled by the end of the third day that it had been unanimously resolved to take a change of occupation on the following day by again going out to the shoal and securing a further supply of oysters. The suggestion emanated from von Schalckenberg in the first instance; he made it upon the plea that such a change was very highly desirable in the interests of their health; and the proposal had been eagerly welcomed by all hands, most of whom had already begun to complain of nausea, and to exhibit a more or less marked distaste for food.

That there really was distinct need for such a precaution seemed to be borne out next morning by the fact that when the party mustered for breakfast Barker was found to be an absentee, and upon George being dispatched to his cabin to awaken him, upon the assumption that he had overslept himself, the man presently returned with a message to the effect that the absentee was suffering from a splitting headache, that he required no breakfast, and that "he guessed" he would spend the morning in bed, if it was all the same to the others. Whereupon von Schalckenberg paid him a professional visit, looked at his tongue, asked him a few questions, and sent him a draught to take. Sir Reginald—who, now that his wife and child were with him, had evinced a rather marked tendency toward over-anxiety in all matters relating to sickness—was very particular in his inquiries as to the invalid's condition, and was with difficulty reassured by the professor's assertion that there was certainly nothing worse the matter with him than, possibly, a slight attack of biliousness. The remaining five men, therefore, went away in the boats after breakfast, Sir Reginald taking the precaution to carry his telephone along with him, in order that Lady Olivia might have the means of communicating with him in the event of further and more serious symptoms manifesting themselves in the case of the sick man.