"The cunning sweep!" ejaculated Whittinghame.
Round swung the "Meteor," then, plunging steeply, she made off at full speed at right angles to her former course, until she was barely two hundred feet above the height of her antagonist.
The craft were now seven thousand yards apart. Each, when viewed from the other, resembled a thin dark line against the deep blue sky.
It was a long range, but Whittinghame decided to try his luck. The five broadside quick-firers spoke simultaneously. No reply came from the "Libertad," which now set off as fast as she could towards the mountains.
Evidently Durango was adopting Fabian tactics. Whittinghame muttered angrily. He had been out-witted by their manoeuvres and had lost the advantage of altitude which he had hitherto possessed.
Ten minutes later the "Libertad" vanished from sight behind a precipitous bluff in the mountains. Evidently the pilot of the Valderian airship knew of a means of escape. He had taken her into one of the deep gorges that penetrate these stupendous walls of rock.
Well it was that the Captain of the "Meteor" had not ordered the upper deck guns to be manned. There was, in consequence, no delay while the promenade-deck was being cleared.
At half-speed the "Meteor" again stood in pursuit of her rival.
A hundred miles an hour is a dangerous pace to navigate an airship between mountainous walls, but Whittinghame was not to be denied. What the "Libertad" could do, he would do—and more. Even then, he argued that if the pursued maintained her utmost rate of speed she would be practically out of sight before the "Meteor" emerged from the narrow valley. At all costs the "Libertad" must be brought to bay ere she reached Naocuanha.
Whittinghame now realized that, with true British contempt of foreigners, he had underrated the capabilities of his rival. He resolved, with bulldog tenacity, to carry on, heedless of risks.