"Joe, take my signals. I think we're getting in closer—to something!"
Eagerly all bent forward to listen. After a minute or two more it seemed to them that they really could hear, faintly, the rather distant sound of the moving machinery of some steam craft. Yet this noise, none too distinct, was muffled still more by the ceaseless wash of the rolling sea, whose waves broke in white crests everywhere about them.
Halstead, whose ears were perhaps the keenest on board, listened and occasionally signaled for the launch to be veered a little either to port or starboard.
Surely, they were creeping up on something that ran by machinery, though through the curtain of white no eye could make out the form of a vessel.
Somewhere, away to starboard, a great, deep note boomed out.
"That's some big vessel, like a liner," Tom whispered to Jephson. Then, from away off to port sounded the tolling bell of a sailing vessel. Both appeared to be headed toward the "Panther" launch.
"They seem to be about half a mile apart," Halstead whispered. "The 'Victor,' I think, will pass between the two craft. While that deep whistle and solemn bell are going the people on the steam yacht are not so likely to hear us. Pass the word to Mr. Prentiss to increase speed a little, if he can do so without making more noise at the exhaust."
A little faster spurted the power tender, and a little worse became the tossing in that rolling sea. All the members of the party were in drenched clothing by this time. The water came aboard faster under this burst of speed; the two seamen began to bail it out.
"If I ever get out of this boat alive, large yachts will be small enough for me in the future," Mr. Jephson told himself, nervously.
Tom Halstead was paying no heed to the incoming water. That was Joe's affair, since Joe Dawson was handling the craft.