The firing was incessant now, and every one of the Howland party, as well as the crew, grovelled flat on the deck and heard lead whistling above. Virginia, glancing at the bridge in an agony of terror, saw the Captain crouching just a trifle, but still at his post. One man, a quarter-master, knelt at the wheel. But she missed her father, and a great dread filled her mind. It was but momentary, however, for Mr. Howland joined the party behind the deck-house.
"Oh father!" cried the girl, "I feared you were hurt. Why doesn't Captain Merrithew stop the boat and leave the bridge? Surely his life and those of his men there are of more value than your interests in Blanco!"
"I told him to stop, to throw ourselves upon the protection of our flag," and Mr. Howland laughed nervously. "But it was no use. I believe I reared a Frankenstein monster when I selected him as the man to land our guns. Frankly he as much as told me to mind my business. He's in a fighting mood now; his jaws are set like steel-traps—I know his kind. And do you know, Virginia, he will land us and the guns, too. You wait!"
The El Toro had stopped firing, and was bending all energies to heading off the freighter; it looked as though she would do it, too, for she had once been a private yacht and had evidently lost none of her speed. It was a mighty race. The Tampico was by no means a slouchy craft, and she ripped her way through the waters, clawing for the harbor mouth and San Blanco City like a thing possessed. Swinging on a tactical semi-circle, the trim little flag-ship flew like a white ghost, tearing the waters, curling them up on deck until they ran out of the scuppers. She unlimbered another gun and the leaden hail swept away the Tampico's port lifeboat, crumpling the stanchions and davits like thin wire.
"Their marksmanship is bad, as usual," said Mr. Howland, trembling nevertheless, in suppressed excitement.
But if their marksmanship was bad their speed was not. The El Toro was, in fact, shooting up rapidly; and as she began to circle in on the freighter it was plain to every one that her path would cross that of the fugitive. There seemed nothing to mar the success of the gun-boat in her efforts to prevent the steamship entering the harbor. Dan could judge of this better than any one else. And yet he kept on. His spirit dominated the entire vessel. Virginia, as she watched him, with all that anger that a loser must feel, knew that she was brave, too, felt that to be otherwise would be a sacrilege. Suddenly her eyes were riveted on the Captain; she saw him run to the megaphone rack and take up a cone. Then she saw him dash it to the deck and turn and speak a few words to the man still kneeling at the wheel. The man nodded and moved aside, and Dan took his place, erect, immovable.
As he did so, the pursuing gun-boat, not more than four hundred yards away, let fly another rain of lead, and a few minutes later she slowed down, swinging broadside across the course of the Tampico, firing a six-pounder shell over the bow of the advancing steamship.
"Too late, too late!" exclaimed Mr. Howland. "All this trouble and danger for nothing! Now we are caught! But some one will pay—"
His daughter seized his arm.
"Father! Oh, father! We are not stopping. Look!"