Joseph Baldwin's face was a study in intense anxiety.
"I'm afraid the steam yacht has gotten away from us, Captain," he remarked. "If that really has happened, I don't blame you. The chances, in a game of this sort, and under these conditions, are all with the fugitive."
"Perhaps it isn't a matter of blame," muttered Skipper Tom, his face chalk-white, his hands nervously gripping at the port deck rail. "But I'm chagrined—ashamed, just the same. What have those rascals done? Have they stopped speed altogether? Are they drifting, so that, if we go ahead, we are drawing further away from them all the time? Or did they shoot well ahead of us, then succeed in running with almost no noise, and on a new course, so that they are slipping further away from us every minute? Shall we stop and drift? Or, if we go ahead, what speed and which course shall we take? Confound the wretches!"
"It is a big problem," admitted Joseph Baldwin, his own face as white as that of the young skipper.
"Have you any orders, sir?" asked Halstead, quickly.
"No," replied Joseph Baldwin, slowly. "All I can do is to guess. That's all you can do, either, Captain Halstead; but your guess is just as likely to be the right one as is my own."
The "Panther" was now traveling at a speed of twelve miles, sounding her fog-horn twice in the minute.
"The worst of it is that our horn betrays us to the enemy," muttered Tom. "They have no respect for the laws of the sea, so that we give them guide, while they give us nothing in return."
"We won't quite give up hope," uttered Mr. Baldwin, dispiritedly. "At the same time, I fancy we're now as good as whipped. I don't see any chance for us."
"The only chance that's left," replied Skipper Tom, "is the chance of luck. Until you give other orders, sir, I shall keep to the same course, and at the same speed."