"I would sink him before he got the chance, rather than after he had picked you up," persisted the captain.
"I doubt if that would be a prudent measure," replied Louis, shaking his head.
"The pirate has changed her course to the southward," said Felix, coming to the window of the pilot-house again.
"What does that mean?" demanded the captain.
"It means that she is going to make a port at Rosetta."
"She is about off the Rosetta mouth of the Nile; but she is doing that only to shake off the Guardian-Mother. What is the ship doing, Flix?"
"She continues on her course, and takes no notice of the pirate;" and the lookout returned to his station.
Captain Scott rang the gong in the engine-room, and the screw of the Maud immediately ceased to revolve. The sea was comparatively smooth, and the little steamer rolled on the waves but slightly. As soon as the screw stopped, and the little craft began to roll on the long swell, Morris Woolridge put aside the "Chambers's" in which he had been reading up Assyria and Babylon, and went out of the cabin into the standing-room. He looked about him to ascertain the cause of the stoppage; but he could make nothing of it.
He was a good skipper himself, and he did not like to ask Captain Scott to explain the situation; for since he had gone into the cabin the relative positions of the three steamers had decidedly changed. His idea was that the Maud should follow the ship as usual; but she had dropped at least a couple of miles astern of her, and the Fatimé was headed to the southward. He could not understand the matter at all, and he continued to study upon it.
Louis had come out of the pilot-house, and, looking aft, he discovered Morris, and saw that he was perplexed by the situation, and that Assyria was no longer the subject of his meditations.