“Which,” said Bill, “considering the number of passengers watching us and the Flying Fish from her decks—it isn’t. Shut up now, kid,” he added, cutting his gun and pushing forward the stick. “We’re going down and it sure would look rotten to nose into the drink with that gallery’s eyes on us.”
“Humph! And what about us in that case?”
“Boston papers,” said Bill, “please copy!”
Down they soared, straight into the wind to land with hardly a splash, went skimming over the water for fifty or sixty yards and came to rest just behind the Flying Fish. Charlie, at Bill’s bidding, flung out the sea anchor.
To port lay the Amtonia, now Baron von Hiemskirk’s traffic raider, and neither lad was surprised to see that she was blatantly flying the flag of piracy, a skull and crossed bones of white on a black field.
Bill had no difficulty in recognizing the Amtonia. She was one of the largest passenger ships afloat, and consequently hard to disguise. Her camouflaged hull and stacks, painted in broad wavy stripes of grey-green and black made it still harder to judge her length on the waterline. He knew, however, that she must be quite as long as two city blocks, and her many decks rose above the amphibian to the height of a ten-story building. Her four gigantic funnels—so huge that the greatest locomotive could have passed through one of them lengthwise without scraping—and her tall masts, made her easily recognizable to the young midshipman.
“Hello!” exclaimed Charlie, “there’s a gob on the Flying Fish signalling the liner. Gee, I wish I understood wigwag.”
“If you did,” said Bill, standing up on the pilot’s seat and flapping his arms like a semaphore, “you’d know he was signalling us and not the Amtonia. For heaven’s sake, kid, button that lip of yours. I want to get this message.”
Bill then snatched up the helmet he had just doffed and clapped it on again, buckling the flaps over his ears. Charlie watched proceedings with interest that for once was wordless. Presently the sailor aboard the Flying Fish stopped waving his two red flags. Bill answered him with his arms, and the man rolled up his flags and went below.
Bill Bolton unbuckled the chin-strap of his helmet and turned toward the rear cockpit.