The two British ships sped forward on the trail of the foe. But the latter made off at top speed, and in spite of the shells hurled at them by their pursuers, soon outdistanced the Gloucester. The Sylph, however, continued the chase and was gradually gaining, although, now that the battle was over for the time being, the strain on the little cruiser relaxed. Wounded men were hurriedly patched up by the ship's surgeon and his assistants, and the dead were prepared for burial.
Jack and Frank approached Lord Hastings on the bridge. The latter was talking to his first officer.
"They must be the Breslau and Goeben," he was saying, "though I am unable to account for the manner in which they escaped the blockade at Libau. They were supposed to be tightly bottled up there and I was informed that their escape was impossible."
"Something has evidently gone wrong," suggested Lieutenant
Hetherington.
"They probably escaped by, a ruse of some kind," said Jack, joining in the conversation.
And the lad was right, although he did not know it then.
The two German ships, tightly bottled up, even as Lord Hastings had said, in Libau, had escaped the blockading British squadron by the simple maneuver of reversing their lights, putting their bow lights aft and vice versa, and passing through the blockading fleet in the night without so much as being challenged. This is history.
"Well," said Frank, "we succeeded in putting our mark on them, even if we didn't catch them."
"We did that," agreed Lieutenant Hetherington.
Darkness fell, and still the chase continued; but the Sylph was unable to come up with her quarry, and the two German cruisers succeeded in limping off in the night.