"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.