The chase was full of wildest excitement, which was certainly shared by the three ladies, to whom the hunting of criminals was a decided novelty.
With the aid of a whisky and soda now and then, and on odd ham sandwich, we worked far into the night.
The captain reported that before darkness had fallen the Carlo Alberta had, according to the laws of navigation, put up her lights. But an hour after the darkness became complete she must have either extinguished them or had passed through a bank of mist. For fully half an hour nothing was seen of the lights, though most of the men on board were eagerly on the watch for a sight of them. Suddenly, however, they again reappeared.
Then our captain, after consultation with Mr. Veale, decided to try a ruse. He extinguished every light in the ship, but still held on his course, following the distant yacht. For quite an hour we went full-speed ahead with all lights extinguished, keeping an active look-out for shipping, or for obstacles.
We did this in order that the fugitives should believe we had given up the chase. Though their vessel was so fast, it was apparent that something must have happened to them, for they had not drawn away from us so far as we had expected. An ordinary steam-yacht, however swift she may be, can never hold her own with a destroyer.
"Guess she's got engine-trouble," remarked the American captain as I stood with him upon the bridge, peering into the darkness. "We may overhaul her yet if you gentlemen keep the furnaces a-going as you have been. Hot job, ain't it?"
"Rather," I laughed. "But I don't mind as long as we can get alongside that boat." And then I returned to my place in the stokehold, perspiring so freely that I had not a stitch of dry clothing upon me.
Half an hour later I was again on deck for a blow, and saw that the fugitive steamer had perceptibly increased the distance between us. Had her engines been working well she would, no doubt, have been well out of sight two hours after we had left Algiers. Yet, as it was, we were still following in her wake, all our lights out, so that in the darkness she could not see us following.
The whole of that night was an exciting one. All of us worked at the furnaces with a will, pouring in coal to keep up every ounce of steam of which our boilers were capable. No one slept, and Mrs. Veale, now as excited as the rest, brought us big draughts of tea below.