"It looks to me," said Mr. Burdette, "as if she wanted to be captured!"
"I'd like to know," said the Captain, "what's the meaning of that queer bit of blotched bunting that's been run up on the Dunkery?"
"Can't tell," said the other, "but there's another one like it on the other steamer!"
"My friends," said Mr. Arbuckle, standing in a group of his fellow-clergymen on the main deck, "it is my earnest opinion that those two ships are accomplices in a great crime."
"If that be so," said another, "we are here in the position of utterly helpless witnesses. But we should not allow ourselves to look on this business from one point of view only. It may be that the intentions of that recently arrived vessel are perfectly honorable. She may bring later orders from the owners of the Dunkery Beacon, and bring them too with more authority than did Mr. Shirley, who, after all, was only a volunteer!"
The yacht was lying to, and at this moment the lookout announced a sail on the starboard quarter. Glancing in that direction, nearly everybody could see that another steamer, her hull well up in view, was coming down from the north.
"By George!" cried Burke, "most likely that's another of the pirates!"
"And if it is," said his mate, "I think we'll have to trust to our heels!"
Burke answered quietly, "Yes, we'll do that when we've got Shirley on board, or when it's dead sure we can't get him!"
The people from the Mediterranean steamer did not remain on board the Dunkery Beacon more than half an hour, and when they returned to their vessel, she immediately started her engines and began to move away. Making a short circuit, she turned and steamed in the direction of the distant vessel approaching from the northward.