Instantly the course of the destroyer was changed several points to starboard and speed increased a trifle.
Through the haze there soon developed the outlines of a steam craft, set low in the water, and of not more than two thousand tons. She was not a handsome craft, but, on the contrary, appeared ghostlike as she stood only half-revealed through the fog.
Undoubtedly the stranger had a lookout up forward, but no sign of one could be made out as the "Grigsby" gained on her.
Her markings indicated that she belonged to one of the neutral countries to the northward. The wet flag that she flew drooped so tightly around the staff that nothing could be learned from that bit of bunting.
"One of the neutral traders," remarked Ensign Ormsby.
"She must give an account of herself," Dave answered. "Whatever she is, or carries, she doesn't look like a craft to be entrusted with a valuable cargo."
As the "Grigsby" ranged up alongside, an officer stepped out from the stranger's wheelhouse and came to the rail.
"What craft is that?" Dave demanded.
The skipper, if such he was, replied in broken English, naming a neutral country, and adding that the vessel was the "Olga," bound for an English port with a cargo of wood pulp.
"I knew she couldn't carry a costly cargo," Dave muttered, then commanded, through a megaphone: