The mate worked the engine telegraph almost as soon as the captain began to speak.
'Starboard five degrees more,' said Captain Brown.
The order was repeated to the wheel, and the quartermaster gave it back, and repeated it a second time when the vessel's head had gone off to port exactly to the required degree.
'Slow,' said Captain Brown. 'Stop her,' he said a moment later.
Twin-screw steamers cannot be stopped as quickly by reversing as those with a single screw can, and the Lancashire Lass would keep way on for three miles or more, by which time she would be abreast of the islands, and at a safe distance from them. Besides, the spring tide was now running fresh down the Straits, making a current along the coast, as Captain Brown knew. The instant the engines stopped, the third mate came round from the chart-room, where he had been sent to work a sight for longitude by Aldebaran for the good of his young nautical soul.
A moment later Mr. Van Torp himself appeared on the bridge in pyjamas.
'Got her?' he asked eagerly.
Captain Brown explained that he thought he had [{398}] cornered the Erinna behind the islet, but was not quite sure of her. Mr. Van Torp waited and said nothing, and the chief mate kept the search-light steadily on the rocks. The yacht lost way rapidly, and lay quite still with the islet exactly abeam, half a mile off, as the captain had calculated. He then gave the order to go slow ahead.
A minute had not passed when the vessel that had lain concealed behind the island ran out suddenly with all her regulation lights up, apparently making directly across the bows of the Lancashire Lass. Now the rule of the road at sea requires every steamer under weigh to keep out of the way of any steamer that appears on her starboard side forward of the beam. At such a short distance Captain Brown had hardly any choice but to stop his ship again and order 'half-speed astern' till she had no way, and he did so. She was barely moving when the order was given, and a few turns of the engines stopped her altogether.
'Is that the Erinna, Captain?' asked Mr. Van Torp.