“Nothing that I see, sir, saving the shovels.”
“And you didn’t know where she was bound to?”
“They gave it out as Rio, sir. I had a bit of a tumble-to with a Portuguese steward of theirs, and I gave him Port Arthur for himself. ‘You come to Rio,’ says he, ‘and I’ll d——n well pull your nose.’ It seemed to me a long way to go for the job, sir, and that I could get it done cheaper at home. I never see him again, and next day the ship sailed.”
We laughed at his manner of telling it, but the news proved acceptable enough. I had already come to a determination, and this I communicated immediately to Larry.
“We must stop them,” I said; “if we are to save Joan Fordibras; that steamer must not put her cargo on the deck of the Diamond Ship. The risk is small enough, Captain. I think that a signal will do it—if not a signal, then a gunshot anyway. Let us put it to the proof. The success or failure will mean more than any of you imagine.”
He obeyed me without question, and we steamed straight for the tramp, steering such a course that we overtook her on the port-quarter, and so were difficult to come at by any forward gun, should she carry one. My own impression was that she did not. Her safety from inquisitional officers in port would be better assured by the normal practice of ocean-going cargo-boats. I believed that the quartermaster had told us the truth, and upon that supposition I acted.
“Signal to her to bring to, Larry,” I said, and he assented immediately.
It was pretty to see our flags fluttering upon the breeze of morning, and to watch the commotion upon the deck of the tramp. We knew that she had sighted us almost as soon as we set our engines going. The far horizon disclosed no trace of the Diamond Ship. We two appeared alone in all that vista of the rolling waters.
Now, the ship answered by demanding our name and our business. We could make out the figures of two or three men upon her bridge; but the crew appeared an unusually small one and the aft decks were completely deserted. To their signal we replied immediately: (1.) That Imroth, the Jew, was flying from British warships; (2.) That their own safety depended upon their immediate submission.
Not the whole truth, perhaps, and yet as I hoped truth enough. It had been in my mind all along that the Government would send at least a patrol to the seas I had named. I could not believe that, after my revelations, ports would not be watched. So I signalled this message and waited, with not a little expectation, for an answer. To my astonishment, their Captain’s reply was to ask me to go aboard—meaning, of course, the master of the yacht.