"How would it be, Shafto," said Lord Orrel, "if, granted we could get the engines repaired, we were to play the lame duck, and turn the tables on them——"
"Thunder! You've just got it, Lord Orrel!" exclaimed the president, bringing his hand down on the table. "Whether the count and that pretty daughter of his are on board or not, I reckon they'll be a mightily dangerous crew to deal with, and I reckon they'll be safer as compulsory guests on board this boat than if they were free to knock around in their own ship. I feel pretty certain that they know a lot more about this scheme of ours than they would like to say; and if that's so, as I think it is, the less they run around loose about the earth the better for us."
"I quite agree with you, president," said Hardress. "That's the very thing to do, if we can do it: if it really is the Vlodoya that's on our track and she means taking or sinking us; well, we'll play 'possum. We'll have to let her fire on us first, I'm afraid; but I daresay she'll miss, for Russians are about the worst gunners in the world. Then we'll cripple her, take her distinguished passengers out of her, and make them our compulsory guests. After that we'll play pirate to pirate—empty her coal bunkers into ours, strip her of everything we want, and put the crew into the boats with plenty of water and provisions. They'll be certain to be picked up within a couple of days or so if they go south towards the steamer tracks. Then we'll smash his excellency's yacht into scrap-iron, and go straight to Boothia Land without stopping at Halifax at all."
"But, my dear Shafto," said the earl, "that would be a most flagrant act of piracy on the high seas, wouldn't it?"
"My dear dad," he replied, "you must remember that once we are in Boothia we are beyond and above the law, and if we like to indulge in a little piracy we can do so. The point really is to catch these people and take them there with us; so that we can be quite certain they're not going to do any more harm."
"That, viscount," said the president, "is right on the spot; and your idea of taking the coal out of the Vlodoya isn't any too bad. I reckon that's just what we've got to do. A little surprise party for our Russian friends right here in mid-ocean, and then straight away to the works. We'll show them some of the wonders from inside that they wanted to see from outside; and I guess we shall also be able to show them something pretty interesting if those two expeditions do happen to discover the Magnetic Pole instead of the North Pole. I reckon it'll be just about one of the most wonderful discoveries that Frenchmen or Russians ever did make."
CHAPTER XXI
Another two days had passed, during which the Nadine, instead of swirling through the water at twenty knots, had been waddling through it like a lame duck at eight.
Adelaide had professed the utmost wonder and concern at the accident, and Miss Chrysie, who now knew rather more than she did, watched her with unwinking steadiness from the time she came on deck in the morning till the time she retired with her aunt at night. Madame de Bourbon herself was completely in the dark as to everything that was taking place, and simply looked upon the breakdown of the port engine as one of the ordinary accidents of seafaring.
Adelaide had not slept for an hour continuously since she had seen the guns being mounted. That had convinced her that Hardress, whose suspicion she dreaded more than anything else, already suspected something. Williams had kept faith, and had been detected, thanks to the extraordinary precautions that had been taken in the engine-room, precautions which, so her instinct told her, could not possibly have been taken unless some design against the safety of the yacht had been either discovered or very strongly suspected.