In the meantime the Nadine's boat had been lowered, and was pulling round her stern to the gangway of the Vlodoya, which had been lowered, and the president replied:
"We'll have to ask your excellency and the countess to be our guests for a bit; so if you'll just come right on board and tell your people to get your baggage fixed up, we'll be able to save you a certain amount of unpleasantness. You will be a lot more comfortable on board here than you will there, because we're going to take what coal you've got and then sink you."
As the president said this the captain of the Russian yacht nodded towards a man standing by one of the one-pounders on the fore deck. He pulled the lanyard, there was a sharp bang, and a shell bored its way through the plates of the Nadine amidships, just missing the engines. The next moment Miss Chrysie's Maxim began to thud, spitting flame and smoke and lead, sweeping the decks of the Vlodoya from stem to stern. Only those on the bridge were spared. For a full three minutes the deadly hail continued, and there was not a man on deck who was not killed or maimed. The president had jumped back to the breech of his gun, the muzzle swung round till it bore directly on the part of the Vlodoya which contained her boilers. He held up his hand and Chrysie stopped the Maxim. Then she swung it on to the bridge, glanced along the sights and touched the spring. There was a crack and a puff of smoke and flame, and the captain of the Vlodoya, who was standing about a couple of feet away from Count Valdemar and Sophie, reeled half round and dropped with a bullet through his heart.
"I guess your excellency and the countess had better come on board right away," said the president, still looking along the sights of his gun. "That's a pretty unhealthy place you're in, and my daughter's only got the patience of an ordinary woman, you know."
Sophie looked across at the Nadine's bridge, and saw Chrysie's white face and burning eyes looking over the barrel of the Maxim. Her thumb was on the spring and there was death in her eyes. She took her father by the arm, and said:
"Come, papa, it's no use. That she-devil will shoot us like dogs if we don't go. Come."
And so they went down to the deck, strewn with corpses and splashed with blood, to the gangway ladder, at the bottom of which the Nadine's boat was waiting.
Miss Chrysie at once left the gun with which she had done such terrible execution, and went with the chief officer to receive them. To the utter astonishment of both the count and Sophie, she held out her hand as cordially as though the meeting had taken place on the terrace of Orrel Court, and said with a somewhat exaggerated drawl:
"Well, countess, and your excellency, I am real glad to see you. We sort of thought we should meet you somewhere about here, and I am sure his lordship and the viscount and Lady Olive, when they get better, will do all they can to make you comfortable. Now, here's the stewardess. As she didn't have any of the marquise's punch last night, she's ready to show you to your room. Mr Vernon, perhaps you'll be kind enough to attend to his excellency. Good-bye for the present: I guess we shall meet at lunch."
"Really, after the unpleasantness that has happened," said the count, "your kindness, and your hospitality are quite overwhelming."