This was what happened. The Lancashire Lass reversed her starboard engine with full speed astern, put her helm hard over to port, and turned back towards the Straits in the smallest space possible for her, passing less than a cable's length from the Scylla rock, and nearly running down half a dozen fishing-boats that pulled like mad to get out of her way; for they supposed that her steering-gear had broken down, unless her captain had gone raving mad.
While this was going on, Captain Brown himself, with the International Signal Code in his hand, was calling out letters of the alphabet to a quartermaster, and before his ship had made half a circle the flags ran up the single stick the yacht carried.
'My owner has urgent business with your owner,' was what the flags meant in plain English.
The Erinna was going slow, for Baraka was only just ready to come on deck, haste being, in her opinion, an invention of Shaitan's. Logotheti, who wished her to see the Straits, was just inside the door of the deck saloon, waiting for her to come out of her cabin. The officer of the watch read off the signals of the other yacht, ran up the answering pennant, and sent for the sailing-master, but could of course do nothing else without orders. So the Erinna continued to go slow. All this took some minutes, for the officer had naturally been obliged to look up the signal in the Code before answering that he understood it; and in that time Van Torp's yacht had completed her turn and was nearly alongside. The Lancashire Lass slowed down to the [{404}] Erinna's speed, and the two captains aimed their megaphones accurately at each other from their respective bridges for a little pleasant conversation. Captain Brown, instructed by Mr. Van Torp at his elbow, repeated what his signals had meant. The other sailing-master answered that he had already informed his owner, who was coming to the bridge directly.
At that moment Logotheti appeared. There was not much more than a cable's length between the two yachts, which in land-talk means two hundred yards. Van Torp also saw a slim young lady in blue serge, with a veil tied over her hair, leaning on the rail of the promenade deck and looking towards him. With his glasses he recognised the features of Baraka.
'Got 'em!' he ejaculated in a low but audible tone of intense satisfaction.
Logotheti had also seen Van Torp, and waved his hand in a friendly manner.
'Ask the gentleman if he'll come aboard, Captain,' said the American. 'I can't talk through your cornopean anyway. I suppose we can send the naphtha launch for him if we stop, can't we?'
'Can't stop here,' answered Captain Brown. 'The currents might jam us into each other, and we should most likely get aground in any case. This is not even a safe place for going slow, when the tide is running.'
'Well, you know your business, and I don't. Tell him we don't want to interfere with any arrangements he's made, and that if he'll kindly set the pace he likes we'll trot along behind him till we get to a nice place, [{405}] somewhere where we can stop. I suppose he can't run away from us now, can he?'