yacht down the white path of the beam of light, and Tremayne, seeing that he would have to give an account of himself, stopped his engines and waited for the torpedo-boat to come within hail.
“Steamer ahoy! Who are you? and where are you going to at that speed?”
“This is the Lurline, the Earl of Alanmere’s yacht, from Plymouth to Queenstown. We’re only going at our usual speed.”
“Oh, if it’s the Lurline, you needn’t say that,” answered the officer who had hailed from the torpedo-boat, with a laugh. “Is Lord Alanmere on board?”
“Yes, here I am,” said Tremayne, replying instead of his sailing-master. “Is that you, Selwyn? I thought I recognised your voice.”
“Yes, it’s I, or rather all that’s left of me after two months in this buck-jumping little brute of a craft. She bobs twice in the same hole every time, and if it’s a fairly deep hole she just dives right through and out on the other side; and there are such a lot of Frenchmen about that we get no rest day or night on this patrolling business.”
“Very sorry for you, old man; but if you will seek glory in a torpedo-boat, I don’t see that you can expect anything else. Will you come on board and have a drink?”
“No, thanks. Very sorry, but I can’t stop. By the way, have you heard of that air-ship that was over this way this morning? I wonder what the deuce it really is, and what it’s up to?”
“I’ve heard of it; it was in the London papers this morning. Have you seen any more of it?”
“Oh yes; the thing was cruising about in mid-air all this morning, taking stock of us and the Frenchmen too, I suppose. She vanished during the afternoon. Where to, I don’t know. It’s awfully humiliating, you know, to be obliged to crawl about here on the water, at twenty-five knots at the utmost, while that fellow is flying a hundred miles an hour or so through the clouds without turning a hair, or I ought to say without as much as a puff of smoke. He seems to move of his own mere volition. I wonder what on earth he is.”
“Not much on earth apparently, but something very considerable in the air, where I hope he’ll stop out of sight until I get to Queenstown; and as I want to get there pretty early in the morning, perhaps you’ll excuse me saying good-night and getting along, if you won’t come on board.”
“No, very sorry I can’t. Good-night, and keep well in to the coast till you have to cross to Ireland. Good-bye?”
“Good-bye!” shouted Tremayne in reply, as the torpedo-boat swung round and headed back to the battleship, and he gave the order to go ahead again at full-speed.
In another hour they were off the Land’s End, and from there they headed out due south-west into the Atlantic. They had hardly made another hundred miles before it began to grow light, and then it became necessary to keep a bright look-out for the air-ship, for according to what they had heard from the commander of the torpedo-boat she might be sighted at any moment as soon as it was light enough to see her.
Another hour passed, but there was still no sign of the air-ship. This of course was to be expected, for they had still another seventy-five miles or so to go before the rendezvous was reached.
“Steamer to the south’ard!” sang out the man on the forecastle, just as Tremayne came on deck after an attempt at a brief nap. He picked up his glass, and took a good look at the thin cloud of smoke away on the southern horizon.
From what he could see it was a large steamer, and was coming up very fast, almost at right angles to the course of the Lurline. Fifteen minutes later he was able to see that the stranger was a warship, and that she was heading for Queenstown. She was therefore either a British ship attached to the Irish Squadron, or else she was an enemy with designs on the liners bound for Liverpool.
In either case it was most undesirable that the yacht should be overhauled again. Any mishap to her, even a lengthy delay, might have the most serious consequences. A single unlucky shell exploding in her engine-room would disable her, and perhaps change the future history of the world.
Tremayne therefore altered her course a little more to the northward, thus increasing the distance between her and the stranger, and at the same time ordered the engineer to keep up the utmost head of steam, and get the last possible yard out of her.
The alteration in her course appeared to be instantly detected by the warship, for she at once swerved off more to the westward, and brought herself dead astern of the Lurline. She was now near enough for Tremayne to see that she was a large cruiser, and attended by a brace of torpedo-boats, which were running along one under each of her quarters, like a couple of dogs following a hunter.
There was now no doubt but that, whatever her nationality, she was bent on overhauling the yacht, if possible, and the dense volumes of smoke that were pouring out of her funnels told Tremayne that she was stoking up vigorously for the chase.
By this time she was about seven miles away, and the Lurline, her twin screws beating the water at their utmost speed, and every plate in her trembling under the vibration of her engines, rushed through the water faster than she had ever done since the day she was launched. As far as could be seen, she was holding her own well in what had now become a dead-on stern chase.
Still the stranger showed no flag, and though Tremayne could hardly believe that a hostile cruiser and a couple of torpedo-boats would venture so near to the ground occupied by the British battle-ships, the fact that she showed no colours looked at the best suspicious. Determined to settle the question, if possible, one way or the other, he ran up the ensign of the Royal Yacht Squadron.
This brought no reply from the cruiser, but a column of bluish-white smoke shot up a moment later from the funnels of one of the torpedo-boats, telling that she had put on the forced draught, and, like a greyhound slipped from the leash, she began to draw away from the big ship, plunging through the long rollers, and half-burying herself in the foam that she threw up from her bows.
Tremayne knew that there were some of these viperish little craft in the French navy that could be driven thirty miles an hour through the water, and if this was one of them, capture was only a matter of time, unless the air-ship sighted them and came to the rescue.
Happily, although there was a considerable swell on, the water was smooth and free from short waves, and this was to the advantage of the Lurline; for she went along “as dry as a bone,” while the torpedo-boat, lying much lower in the water, rammed her nose into every roller, and so lost a certain amount of way. The yacht was making a good twenty-eight miles an hour under the heroic efforts of the engineers; and at this rate it would be nearly two hours before she was overhauled, provided that the torpedo-boat was not able to use the gun that she carried forward of her funnels with any dangerous effect.
There could now be no doubt as to the hostility of the pursuers. Had they been British, they would have answered the flag flying at the peak of the yacht.
“Steamer coming down from the nor’ard, sir!” suddenly sang out a man whom Tremayne had just stationed in the fore cross-trees to look out for the air-ship that was now so anxiously expected.
A dense volume of smoke was seen rising in the direction indicated, and a few minutes later a second big steamer came into view, bearing down directly on the yacht, and so approaching the torpedo-boat almost stem on. There was no doubt about her nationality. A glance through the glass showed Tremayne the white ensign floating above the horizontal stream of smoke that stretched behind her. She was a British cruiser, no doubt a scout of the
