“Well, I imagine our best plan is to convince him as speedily as possible that he can’t run away from us. I don’t like to see him wasting coal like that. Coal is more valuable than the ore he carries until we reach Teneriffe. Full speed ahead, captain.”
The hum of the turbines rose and rose, and the trembling of the yacht perceptibly increased as the sharp prow clove through the waters with the speed of a torpedo-boat destroyer. The steward, setting out cups and saucers for tea, on a wicker table, found some difficulty in keeping the jingling dishes from catastrophe. The Rajah had about four hours the start, and had probably worried away thirty knots of the long route she was to travel. Higher and higher she seemed to rise in the water, and the sun was still a good quarter of an hour above the horizon when The Woman in White came tearing up alongside to landward of her, carried now by her own momentum, for the turbines had been stopped some distance away. Apparently everybody on board was leaning over the rail watching the amazing speed of the swanlike craft, white and graceful, as she gradually slowed down. Stranleigh recognized the anxious face of the captain, and shouted up at him:
“Tell your stokers to economize on that coal.” The captain replied truculently:
“No one gives orders on this steamer but me.”
“Quite right,” replied Stranleigh, with less imperiousness than had barbed his first shout. “That’s why I’m asking you to give the command.”
The captain, after a moment’s hesitation, sent the order below, then turned again to the white vessel, which was now keeping exact time with his own black one.
“Captain,” said Stranleigh, in his ordinary tone of voice, “both Frowningshield and myself were very sorry you could not lunch with us, so perhaps you will be good enough to come aboard this yacht and dine with me.”
“A captain cannot leave his ship,” curtly replied the master of the Rajah.
“Ordinarily, no, but this is an exceptional case. I’ve got a letter for you, captain.”
“Then why didn’t you give it to me at noon?”