“I wonder they didn’t take some action,” commented Bill, “although I’m glad they didn’t.”
“Perhaps zey was so astonished zey forgot to fire zee gun,” suggested de Garros.
“I guess that was it,” agreed Jack, “but just the same it was a mighty lucky thing for us they didn’t come to their senses sooner.”
“Yes, this thing of playing tag in the fog gets on my nerves,” muttered Bill.
By nightfall, they had steamed through the fog belt, but every eye was anxiously turned astern as if their owners expected at any moment to see the ram-shaped bows of the black British sea bulldogs come poking put of the mist.
But nothing of the sort happened, however, though late that night, far to the eastward of their course, they could see the glowing fingers of the cruisers’ searchlights pointing in every direction across the sea. The next day passed without any untoward happenings, and when, the morning following, Jack gazed from the wireless coop he saw, in the first faint light of dawn, that they were steaming along a strange, unfamiliar, rugged coast.
By the time the passengers were astir, the outlines of the coast had become dotted with cottages and houses, and in the midst of breakfast they steamed into a harbor, and the anchor was dropped with a roar and a rumble. Like a flash, the tables in the saloon were deserted. There was a general rush for the deck.
“Why, that house over there looks just like my home at Bar Harbor,” cried one woman.
Ten minutes later her words were confirmed. It was Bar Harbor, Maine, into which the sorely-harried liner had taken refuge under the neutral protection of the Stars and Stripes. Not daring to run into New York or Boston, the captain had selected the world-famous summer resort as a harbor that the English cruisers would be the least likely to watch, and his judgment proved sound. And so ended the cruise of the “gold ship,” in whose strange adventures the boys were ever proud of having participated. An hour after the great liner’s arrival, she was almost deserted by her passengers who were choking the telegraph wires with messages.
The wireless disseminated far and wide the news of her safe arrival, and they learned, ashore, that for days the fate of the “gold ship” had been the puzzle of the country. All sorts of wild guesses had been printed as to her whereabouts. She had been reported off the coast of Scotland and again in the English Channel. One rumor had it that she had been captured, another that she had been sunk and most of those on board lost.