But we held to the chase as true pirates, not loitering at any port, and—since now I, also, had learned something of the intricacies of our engine, and could take a trick while the others slept—running twice the hours daily the haughty yacht would deign to log. I knew that Cal Davidson would stop to shoot and to visit, and knew that he could, by no human means, be induced to pass any telegraph point where the daily standing of the baseball clubs could be learned—he counted that day lost in which he did not learn the scores. As for myself, I have never been able to understand how any grown man or any one ungrown can take any interest whatever in the deeds of hired ball-playing Hessians, who have back of them neither patriotism nor even a municipal pride. But, for once, I was joyed that the organized business sense of a few men had put an otherwise able citizen under tribute, because now, though the Belle Helène must pause at least daily, the Sea Rover need do no such thing.
Nor did we. We were hot on the trail of the enemy as he flew south along the Chickasha Bluffs, hot as he left Memphis behind, and taking the widening waters which now wandered through low forest lands, reached out for the next city of size, historic Vicksburg on her seventy hills. And hot and eager, more than ever, were we when, chugging around the head of that vast arm of the river, where it curves like a boy of some southern sea, with its heights rising beyond and afar, we saw what caused me to exclaim aloud, “At last! There she lies, my hearties!”
I pointed on ahead. To my eyes, who had designed her, every line of that long, graceful, white hull was familiar. The jaunty rake of her air-shafts, like stacks of a liner, the sweep of her clean freeboard up to her shining rail, the ease of her bows, the graceful boldness of her overhang—all were familiar enough to me. She was my boat, and once I was wont to enjoy her. And on board her now was the woman who had taken away from me all desire to keep a yacht in commission, to keep open a house in town, or an office, or to frequent my clubs, or to meet my friends. Was she there, this woman; and was she still?—but I dared not ask that question.
“Full speed ahead, Jean!” I called. “That’s the Belle Helène! Yonder lies the enemy!”
And then the inevitable happened. Perhaps it was too much gas, perhaps too much lubricant, perhaps a spark plug was carrying too much carbon. At any rate, the engine of the Sea Rover chose that time to chug and cease to revolve!
It was more than a mile to the foot of that vast curve; and even as I leaped at the grimy oily motor, I saw a white dingey with blue trim make out from the wharf and leisurely pull alongside the landing stair of the yacht. It held two figures only, that of the deck-hand who rowed, and that of the large white-flanneled man who now disembarked from the dingey and went aboard the yacht. He was waving a paper over his head, so that I inferred the Giants must have won that day. And then, as we tugged and hurried with our arbitrary motor, I saw the Belle Helène, with a slight smiling salute to friends ashore, swing daintily about and head out and down the river! The faint and infallible rhythm of her perfect enginery came throbbing to us across the water ... I stood up. I hailed, I waved, I shouted, and I fear even cursed. Perhaps they thought some drunken fisherman was disporting himself; but certainly, a few moments later, we were rocking on the roll of the river, and the yacht was out of sight and sound around the next great bend.
“It shall go hard but we overhaul yon varlet yet,” said L’Olonnois grimly.
“Aye,” assented Lafitte; “we’ve busted a plug, an’ he has showed us a clean pair of heels, but it’s a long chase if the Sea Rover does not overhaul him. We’ll have to overhaul our engine first, though,” he added thoughtfully.
But the overhauling of our engine meant a voyage under sweeps to a precarious landing among divers packets, house-boats and launches, on Vicksburg waterside, and a later visit to a specialist in diseases of the carburetor; so that, when at last the Sea Rover was ready for the sea again, her chase might have been a hundred miles ahead an she liked.
“Gee!” exclaimed Jean Lafitte, as we were about to cast off. “Looky here, de Cubs licked de G’ints five to one to-day.” He pointed to figures in a newspaper which he had obtained. So then it might have been excitement of rage, and not of joy, which had animated Cal Davidson when he went aboard.