"We hardly know till we find her," replied the lieutenant, guardedly.
The Steephill Castle dipped her ensign in farewell, and the Frome returned the compliment; then, describing a quarter-circle, the destroyer headed due west on her quest for the filibustered Impregnable.
CHAPTER IV
THE OUTRAGE ON THE HIGH SEAS
It will now be necessary to follow up the events relating to the object of the torpedo-boat destroyer Frome's search.
The scrapped Dreadnought-cruiser Impregnable had been sold by public auction, the purchaser being Mynheer Van der Coote, shipbreaker, of Rotterdam. According to the usual terms of sale the purchaser was bound to complete the breaking-up of the ship within six months. The machinery could be utilised again, and, in consequence, was in fair order. Owing to the fact that it would be necessary to employ a large engine-room and stokehold staff to take the ship across to Holland under her own steam, Mynheer Van der Coote took the far more economical course of sending two powerful tugs to Portsmouth to tow the Impregnable to her last port.
Directly the cruiser gained Spithead the two dockyard tugs cast off and returned. The last link with Great Britain had been severed; the purchase money had been paid, and the obsolete craft was now private property.
Before the Warner Lightship was abeam the fog enveloped the ship, so that her tugs were quite invisible. Captain Stalkart, the master of the leading tug, therefore eased down to half speed, reduced the scope of hawser by one half, and steered a compass course towards the English Channel. The tugs' syrens kept up a continuous and discordant bellow—one prolonged blast followed by two short blasts, signifying that they had a vessel in tow—for the appalling risks of a collision in a fog were more than doubled by reason of the fact that the unwieldy craft lumbering astern was almost incapable of being manoeuvred with any degree of celerity.
At 4.45 the master of the tug heard the characteristic blast of the reed-horn of the Owers Light vessel, and deeming that the warning came from a bearing well on his port bow, altered his course a couple of points to starboard.