Chapter Twenty Three.
A Ship of Mystery.
“Gone!” gasped Lethbridge, as he turned round and stared with startled eyes at the other occupants of the pilot-house. “By George! Mildmay, that was a splendid shot of yours; caught her fair, and tore a gap in her side as big as a church-door! Those torpedo-shells of yours, Professor, must be truly frightful things, for a single one of them to be capable of destroying a ship like that in a moment. How big would she be, Mildmay?”
“Oh, I don’t know; something over four thousand tons, I should say—hillo! what is the matter? Have we stopped?” exclaimed Mildmay, as the ship’s way suddenly eased up almost with a jerk.
“Yes,” said Sir Reginald quietly, “I have stopped her until we can consider what is the proper thing to be done next. Are we to go on and speak that liner, or are we to let her go on her way without communicating?”
“What has the liner herself to say about it?” asked Mildmay, picking up his glasses from the small table upon which he had laid them down, and bringing them to bear upon the steamer.
“Yes,” he said, “she has stopped, which looks as though she wanted to speak us. And I see no very particular reason why we should not go alongside and hear what they have to say about the affair. We need not tell them very much about ourselves, you know, except that we are the yacht Flying Fish, cruising in these waters for our pleasure and to test the value of a new principle in shipbuilding. It is just possible that he may have something of importance to communicate to us.”
“Very well,” said Sir Reginald, “let us go alongside, then, by all means.”
“In that case,” said Mildmay, “I would recommend that the boats be got up from below. It is not unlikely that the skipper may wish us to go aboard him, and, if so, it is scarcely worth while to trouble him to send one of his own boats for us.”