"No," replied Henriques. "De order is all leave de ship. But I gif you fife minutes to perform de burial of de lady."
And so, setting to work rapidly yet reverently, Burgoyne, the purser, and the steward assisted the bereaved colonel to commit the remains to the deep. Under the watchful eyes of a couple of pirates, lest articles or documents of value should be disposed of at the same time, the corpse was swathed in a spare awning, lashed up, and weighted with a length of chain. The steward produced a Prayer Book and handed it to the temporary skipper. Burgoyne, noting that a bare ninety seconds remained, read a few portions of the burial service, then, with every man of the Donibristle's crew within sight knocking off work and standing bareheaded, the mortal remains of Mrs. Vivian were committed to the deep.
"Perhaps," thought Alwyn, as he turned away, "perhaps it was as well that Miss Vivian did go below. There are limits even to the endurance of human nature."
The voice of the pirate lieutenant bawling out orders in broken English attracted Burgoyne's attention. A signal had just been received from the Malfilio countermanding the previous order, and instructing Henriques to send the prisoners below and get under way. So the boats were swung in again and secured.
By the time that this work was completed, and before the British deck-hands and officers could be sent below, a faint buzzing that momentarily increased caused all hands to look skywards. Approaching the Malfilio at a high speed was a small seaplane. At first Burgoyne and many of his comrades thought that it was a naval scout, and that deliverance was at hand; but the fact that no hostile demonstration was made on the pirate cruiser quickly banished this hope.
The seaplane was winding in a wireless aerial as she circled round the Malfilio. Without the slightest doubt it was by this means that the Malfilio had been placed in touch with her prey. The fuselage was dumpy and the monoplane spare and small, and by the corrugations of the wings Burgoyne rightly concluded that they were of metal. She was of an earlier type with a single motor of comparatively low power —but quite sufficient to enable her to be a valuable adjunct to the pirate cruiser.
The "winding-in" completed, the seaplane alighted on the surface and "taxi-ed" alongside the Malfilio. A derrick swung outwards from the cruiser, and a steel wire rope was deftly shackled to the eyebolt of a "gravity band" round the fuselage. Even as the machine rose from the water, dangling at the end of a wire rope, her wings swung back and folded themselves against the body, and in this compact form the aerial scout vanished from sight behind the Malfilio's superstructure.
This much Burgoyne saw before he was compelled to follow the remaining officers and deck-hands, including the Cockney who had been told to stand by the whistle lanyard, and who, during the operation of swinging in the boats, had seen his officer's signal for recall.
Once 'tween decks, the men were herded for'ard and locked up in the forepeak, an armed pirate being stationed on the hatchway. The remnant of officers and the passengers were ordered aft, and secured in the steerage, where they found Captain Blair, Mostyn, and the other wounded. There were four cabins at their disposal, the whole separated from the rest of the ship by a transverse bulkhead in which was a single sliding door. Outside this a sentry was posted, while, as an additional precaution, that for some reason was not taken in the case of the men, four villainous-looking Orientals, armed to the teeth, were stationed with the prisoners. The dead-lights were screwed into the scuttles, and the captives warned that any attempt at tampering with them would be punishable with death; and, since the electric light had failed, the steerage was dimly illuminated by half a dozen oil-lamps.
The door had not been locked more than a couple of minutes before the prisoners heard the thresh of the twin propellers. The S.S. Donibristle under her new masters was steaming ahead, under greatly reduced speed, in the wake of the pirate cruiser Malfilio—but whither?