DESCRIBES A CHASE
The driver, with the southerner's disregard of the feelings of animals,
lashed his weedy horse into a gallop, as up-hill and down-hill we sped,
back to the town.
Entering the city gate, the man scattered the dogs and foot-passengers
by his warning yells in Arabic, until at last we were down upon the
long, semi-circular quay, our eager eyes looking over the blue, sun-lit
sea.
No sign could we discern of the motor-boat, but Fournier, with his hand
uplifted, cried--
"See! Look at that white steam-yacht at the end of the Mole--the long,
low-built one. That belongs to the Count. Perhaps he has already boarded
her!"
I looked in the direction my companion indicated, and there saw lying
anchored about half a mile from the shore a small white-painted yacht,
built so low that her decks were almost awash, with two rakish-looking
funnels, and a light mast at either end with a wireless telegraph
suspended between them. The French tricolour was flying at the stern.
From the funnels smoke was issuing, and from where I stood, I could see
men running backwards and forwards.
"She's getting under weigh," I cried. "The fugitives must be aboard. We
must stop them."
"How can we?" asked the Frenchman, dismayed. "Besides, why should
we--except that we were nearly suffocated in that room."
"That man you know as the Comte d'Esneux is the most dangerous criminal
in all Europe," I told him. "To the Prefecture of Police in Paris--to
you in Algiers also--he is known as Jules Jeanjean!"
"Jules Jeanjean!" choked out the man in the shabby straw hat. "Is that
the actual truth, M'sieur?"
"It is," I replied. "And now you know the cause of my anxiety."
"Why, there is a reward of four hundred thousand francs for his capture,
offered by companies who have insured jewels he has stolen," he cried.
"I know. Now, what shall we do?" I asked, feeling myself helpless, for
at that moment I saw the motor-boat draw away from the yacht, with only
one occupant, the man driving the engine. It had turned and was speeding
along the coast back in the direction of the villa, white foam rising at
its elevated bows.
"What can we do?" queried my companion. "That yacht is the fastest
privately owned craft in the Mediterranean. It is the _Carlo Alberta_,
the Italian torpedo-boat built at Spezzia two years ago. Because it did
not quite fulfil the specifications, it was disarmed and sold. The Count
purchased her, and turned her into a yacht."
"But surely there must be some craft on which we could follow?" I
exclaimed. "Let's see."
We drove down to the port, and after a few rapid inquiries at the bureau
of the harbour-master, found that there was lying beyond the Mole, a big
steam-yacht belonging to an American railway magnate named Veale. The
owner and some ladies were on board, and he might perhaps assist the
police and give chase.
Quickly we were aboard the fast motor-boat belonging to the harbour
authorities, but ere we had set out, the _Carlo Alberta_, with long
lines of black smoke issuing from her funnels, had weighed anchor and
was slowly steaming away.
Silas J. Veale, of the New York Central Railroad, a tall, very thin,
very bald-headed man in a smart yachting suit, greeted us pleasantly
when we boarded his splendid yacht. When he heard our appeal he entered
into the adventure with spirit and gave the order to sail at once.
Beside us, on his own broad white deck, he stood scanning the
low-built, rapidly disappearing _Carlo Alberta_ through his binoculars.
"Guess they'll be able to travel some! We'll have all our work cut out
if we mean to keep touch with them. Never mind. We'll see what the old
_Viking_ can do."
Then he shouted another order to his captain, a red-whiskered American,
urging him to "hurry up and get a move on!"
As we stood there, three ladies, his wife and two daughters, the latter
respectively about twenty-two and twenty, all of them in yachting
costumes, came and joined us, eagerly inquiring whither we were bound.
"Don't know, Jenny," he replied to his wife. "We're just following a
couple of crooks who've got slick away in that two-funnelled boat
yonder, and we mean to keep in touch with them till they land. That's
all."
"Then we're leaving Algiers!" exclaimed the younger girl regretfully.
"Looks like it, Sadie," was his reply. "The police have requested our
aid, an' we can't very well refuse it." Then turning to me he exclaimed,
"Say, I wonder where they're making for?"
"They are the most elusive pair of thieves in Europe," I replied. "They
are certain to get away if we do not exercise the greatest caution."
The ladies grew most excited, and as the vessel began at last to move
through the water, the chief officer shouting at her men, the girl whose
name was Sadie, a smart, rather good-looking little person, though
typically American, exclaimed to me, as she fixed her grey eyes on the
fleeing vessel--
"Do you think they are faster than we are?"
"I fear so," was my reply. "But your father has promised to do his
best."
"What crime is alleged against the men?" inquired Mrs. Veale, in a
high-pitched, nasal tone.
"Murder," replied Fournier, in French, understanding English, but never
speaking it.
"Murder!" all three ladies echoed in unison. "How exciting!"
And exciting that chase proved. Old Mr. Veale entered thoroughly into
the spirit of the adventure. With Fournier, I took off my coat and,
descending to the engine-room, assisted to stoke, we having put to sea
short-handed, three men being ashore. Amateur stoking, of course, is not
conducive to speed, but Veale himself, his coat also off, and perspiring
freely, directed our efforts.
Still our speed was not up to what it should have been. Therefore the
owner of the yacht went along to the storeroom, and dragging out sides
of cured bacon, chopped them up, and with the pieces fed the furnaces,
until we got up sufficient steam-pressure, and were moving through the
calm, sun-lit waters at the maximum speed the fine yacht had attained on
her trials.
As the golden sun sank away in the direction of Gibraltar, the fugitive
vessel held on her course to the north-east, straight to where the
nightclouds were rising upon the horizon. Far away we could see the long
line of black smoke lying out behind her upon the glassy sea. And though
we had every ounce of pressure in our boilers, yet with heart-sinking we
watched her slowly but very surely, getting further and further away
from us, growing smaller as each half-hour passed.
The fiery sun sank into the glassy sea, and was followed by a wonderful
crimson afterglow, which shone upon our anxious faces as, ever and anon,
we left our work in the stifling stokehold, and went on deck for a
breath of fresh air.
Fournier's face was grimy with coal-dust, and so was mine, while Veale
himself also took his turn in handling the shovel.
The chase was full of wildest excitement, which was certainly shared by
the three ladies, to whom the hunting of criminals was a decided
novelty.
With the aid of a whisky and soda now and then, and on odd ham
sandwich, we worked far into the night.
The captain reported that before darkness had fallen the _Carlo Alberta_
had, according to the laws of navigation, put up her lights. But an hour
after the darkness became complete she must have either extinguished
them or had passed through a bank of mist. For fully half an hour
nothing was seen of the lights, though most of the men on board were
eagerly on the watch for a sight of them. Suddenly, however, they again
reappeared.
Then our captain, after consultation with Mr. Veale, decided to try a
ruse. He extinguished every light in the ship, but still held on his
course, following the distant yacht. For quite an hour we went
full-speed ahead with all lights extinguished, keeping an active
look-out for shipping, or for obstacles.
We did this in order that the fugitives should believe we had given up
the chase. Though their vessel was so fast, it was apparent that
something must have happened to them, for they had not drawn away from
us so far as we had expected. An ordinary steam-yacht, however swift she
may be, can never hold her own with a destroyer.
"Guess she's got engine-trouble," remarked the American captain as I
stood with him upon the bridge, peering into the darkness. "We may
overhaul her yet if you gentlemen keep the furnaces a-going as you have
been. Hot job, ain't it?"
"Rather," I laughed. "But I don't mind as long as we can get alongside
that boat." And then I returned to my place in the stokehold, perspiring
so freely that I had not a stitch of dry clothing upon me.
Half an hour later I was again on deck for a blow, and saw that the
fugitive steamer had perceptibly increased the distance between us. Had
her engines been working well she would, no doubt, have been well out of
sight two hours after we had left Algiers. Yet, as it was, we were still
following in her wake, all our lights out, so that in the darkness she
could not see us following.
The whole of that night was an exciting one. All of us worked at the
furnaces with a will, pouring in coal to keep up every ounce of steam of
which our boilers were capable. No one slept, and Mrs. Veale, now as
excited as the rest, brought us big draughts of tea below.
In the stokehold the heat became unbearable. I was not used to such a
temperature, neither were the railway magnate nor the detective. The
latter was all eagerness now that he knew who was on board the vessel
away there on the horizon.
"She's making for Genoa, I believe," declared the captain, towards four
o'clock in the morning. "She's not going to Marseilles, that's very
evident. If only we had wireless on board we might warn the
harbour-police at Genoa to detain them, but, unfortunately, we haven't."
"And they have!" I remarked with a grin.
Dawn came at last, and the spreading light revealed us. From the two low
funnels of the escaping vessel a long trail of black smoke extended far
away across the sea, while from our funnel went up a whirling,
woolly-looking, dunnish column, due to our unprofessional stoking.
All the bacon had been used, as well as other stores, to make as much
steam as possible, yet even though the _Carlo Alberta_ had plainly
something amiss with her engines, we found it quite impossible to
overhaul her.
The day went past, long and exciting. The captain held to his opinion
that our quarry was making for Savona or Genoa. The weather was perfect,
and the voyage would have been most enjoyable had not the race been one
of life and death.
To Veale and his party I related some of the marvellous exploits of the
criminal pair, and told how cleverly they had escaped us from the Villa
Beni Hassan. I described the dastardly attempt made upon my life, and
that of Lola, and my narrative caused every one on board to work with a
will in order to break up the desperate gang.
As we had feared, when night again fell the vessel we were chasing
showed no lights. Only by aid of his night-glasses could our captain
distinguish her in the darkness, but fortunately it was not so cloudy as
on the previous night, and the moon shone from behind the light patches
of drifting vapour much, no doubt, to Jeanjean's chagrin, for it
revealed their presence and allowed us to still hang on to them.
Our American captain was a tough-looking fellow, of bull-dog type, and
full of humorous remarks concerning the fugitives.
I recollected what Lola had told me in regard to her uncle's wireless
experiments with a friend of his in Genoa. Yes. Finding themselves
pressed by us they, no doubt, intended to land at that port. How
devoutly we all wished that their engines would break down entirely. But
that was not likely in a boat of her powerful description. Yet something
was, undoubtedly, interfering with her speed.
The second day passed much as the first. We were already within sight of
the rocky coast near Toulon, and in the track of the liners passing up
and down between Port Said and Gib'. We passed two P. and O. mail
steamers, and a yellow-funnelled North German Lloyd homeward bound from
China. Still we kept at our enemies' heels like a terrier, though the
seas were heavy off the coast, and a strong wind was blowing.
Fournier suffered from sea-sickness, so did Mr. Veale's second daughter,
but we kept doggedly on, snatching hasty meals and performing the
monotonous, soul-killing work of stoking. The run was as hard a strain
as ever had been put upon the engines of the _Viking_, and I knew that
the engineer was in hourly dread of their breaking down under it.
If she did, then all our efforts would be in vain.
So he alternately nursed them, and urged them along through the long,
angry waves which had now arisen.
Another long and weary night passed, and again we both steamed along
with all lights out, a dangerous proceeding now that we were right in
the track of the shipping. Then, when morning broke, we found we were
off the yellow Ligurian coast, close to Savona, and heading, as our
captain had predicted, for Genoa. The race became fiercely contested. We
stood on deck full of excitement. Even Fournier shook off his
sea-sickness.
Soon the high, square lighthouse came into view through the haze, and we
then put on all the speed of which we were capable in a vain endeavour
to get closer to the fugitives. But again the black smoke trailed out
upon the horizon, and suddenly rounding the lighthouse, they were lost
to view.
At last we, too, rounded the end of the Mole, and entered the harbour
where the _Carlo Alberta_ had moored three-quarters of an hour earlier.
Fournier instantly invoked the aid of the dock police and, with them, we
boarded the vessel, only, alas! to find that its owner and his English
guest had landed and left, leaving orders to the captain to proceed to
Southampton.
The vessel was, we found, spick and span, luxuriously appointed, and
tremendously swift, though, on that run across the Mediterranean, one of
the engines had been under repair when the Count and his friend had so
unexpectedly come on board, and the other was working indifferently.
The captain, a dark-bearded, pleasant-faced Englishman from Portsmouth,
believed that his master had dashed to catch the express for Rome. He
had, he said, heard him speaking with Mr. Vernon as to whether they
could catch it.
"Did they use the wireless apparatus on board?" I asked quickly.
"Once, sir," was the captain's reply. "The Comte was in the wireless
cabin last night for nearly an hour. He's always experimenting."
"You don't know if he sent any messages--eh?"
"Oh, yes. He sent some, for I heard them, but I didn't trouble to try to
read the sounds."
Therefore, having thanked Mr. Veale and his family, I set forth,
accompanied by Fournier and the two Italian police officers, to the
railway station up the hill, above the busy docks.
Eagerly I asked one of the ticket-collectors in Italian if the Rome
express had gone, knowing well that in Italy long-distance trains are
often an hour or more late.
"No, Signore," was his reply. "It is still here, fifty-five minutes
late, from Turin." Then glancing down upon the lines, where several
trains were standing in the huge, vaulted station, he added: "Platform
number four. Hurry quickly, Signore, and you will catch it."