'Keep her so,' answered the other, taking over the wheel.
Captain Brown spoke to his officer.
'Tell them to try and work the port engine up to eighty-six, Mr. Johnson.'
The chief mate went to the engine telephone, delivered the message, and reported that the engineer of the watch in the port engine said he would do his best, but that the port engine had not given quite such a good diagram as the starboard one that morning.
Then something happened which surprised and annoyed Captain Brown; and if he had not been a religious man, and, moreover, in charge of a vessel which was so very high-class that she ranked as third in the world amongst steam yachts, and perhaps second, a fact which gave him a position requiring great dignity [{396}] of bearing with his officers, he would certainly have said things.
The chased vessel had put out her lights and disappeared into complete darkness under the Sicilian coast. Again he and his officer looked at one another, but neither spoke. They were outside the wheel-house on the bridge on the starboard side, behind a heavy plate-glass screen. The captain made one step to the right, the mate made one to the left, and both put up their glasses in the teeth of the gale made by the yacht's tremendous way. In less than a minute they stepped back into their places, and glanced at each other again.
Now it occurred to Captain Brown that such a financier as his owner might be looking out for such another financier as the owner of the Erinna for some reason which would not please the latter, whose sailing-master had without doubts recognised the Lancashire Lass at once, because she was very differently built from most yachts.
'Search-light again, Mr. Johnson,' said the captain.
The great beacon ran out instantly like a comet's tail, and he stood behind it with his glasses. Instead of a steamer, he saw a rocky islet sticking up sharp and clear, half a point on the starboard bow, about three miles off. It was the largest of the Isles of the Cyclops, as he very well knew, off Aci Reale, and it was perfectly evident that the chased vessel had first put out her lights and had then at once run behind the islands, close inshore. Captain Brown reflected that the captain he was after must know the waters well to do such a thing, [{397}] and that the deep draught of his own ship made it the height of folly to think of imitating such a trick at night. Yet so long as the other stayed where she was, she could not come out without showing herself under his search-light.
'Half-speed both engines,' he said quickly.