"What ship is that?" shouted Captain Dexter through a megaphone, as the Cerberus eased down, and glided a cable's length to lee'ard of one of the erstwhile combatants.
"His Majesty's ship Trincomalee," was the reply. "Stand by till daylight; we're badly hulled. Can you send a boat?"
Ten minutes later a pale-faced lieutenant, with his hair and eyebrows singed, his clothing rent and reeking with powder, came over the side of the Cerberus. His story confirmed Drake's surmise. The Trincomalee, steaming with lights screened, had fallen in with an unknown vessel which was also running without navigation lights. Before the British vessel could hail, a shot was fired into her at less than four hundred yards range. The Trincomalee instantly replied with all the quick-firers she could bring to bear upon her antagonist. Then the 6 in. and 9 in. guns joined in the deafening roar, and for forty minutes the two vessels were hotly engaged, till a searchlight directed from the only projector that had escaped destruction revealed the hideous truth. The Trincomalee had engaged and had nearly annihilated a French cruiser, the Tréhouart, of 19,000 tons. Orders were immediately given to cease fire; but it was quite five minutes ere the Frenchmen ceased to pound away with her undamaged ordnance at her unresisting antagonist.
The Cerberus stood by till daylight revealed the shattered ships. Both were leaking badly, but the inrush of water was being kept under by means of the ships' pumps. Their respective captains exchanged visits and expressed mutual regrets at the unfortunate occurrence; then slowly, under their own steam, both vessels headed towards the Nova Scotian coast, the Cerberus escorting them in case immediate assistance was required. Sixteen hours later the two badly mauled vessels crept into Halifax Harbour, and the Cerberus was free to resume her quest.
Did she but know it, the Independencia crossed her wake, unseen and unsuspected, at the time she was steaming at full speed to ascertain the cause of the firing. The pirate cruiser had run the gauntlet of the chain of cruisers and, with an open sea before her, was tearing at her utmost speed towards the desolate Arctic Ocean.
This incident naturally increased the attention already devoted to the quest of the modern buccaneer, and gave occasion for much discussion. On the one side experts and armchair critics boldly asserted that this regrettable incident was owing simply and solely to the blundering way in which the operations were conducted, and that had more caution been exercised there would have been no desperate encounter between vessels of friendly nations, and the accompanying loss of life; while on the other hand there were people who maintained that it was but the fortune of war, and mistakes of that sort were bound to occur. To harass naval captains with regulations that would tend to curb the natural ardour of their crews would be opposed to the best traditions of the service. Even in the House a member blandly suggested that it should be submitted to an international conference that hostile ships should hail each other before opening fire, and quoted instances from frigate actions during the Napoleonic wars. But he did not suggest a way whereby a destroyer on a dark night that was about to loose a torpedo at an enemy's ship a mile away, or a submarine stealing beneath the waves with a like purpose, could carry out the order.
It was also found that the use of wireless was not an unmitigated blessing, for what with deliberately false reports sent by tramp steamers—paid by Juan Cervillo for the purpose—the panic-stricken messages from some nervous skipper, and the practical jokes of not a few amateur operators, the search for the Independencia was hindered more than furthered, till the cruisers patrolling the liners' route had good cause to heartily malign the name of wireless telegraphy.
Day after day passed, and though columns in the daily papers were devoted to the all-important topic, the pirate-cruiser seemed to have mysteriously disappeared off the face of the waters.