As a flash of light upon a dark horizon, so it happened. The quivering rays of the great lantern skimming the limpid sea as it were jestingly on the part of the man who guided them, fell for an instant upon our decks and revealed us there as a black shape threatening and undeclared. Instantly signal guns were fired from the shore; the lights were extinguished; the after darkness fell impenetrably and unrelieved save where the crimson flame hovered above the gunboat’s funnel. Then for the first time a voice spoke upon my own yacht. It was that of Captain Larry, and he uttered a truth which was plain to all. “They’re running due west, sir—to the open sea. It is as you said it would be.” “And will be afterwards, Captain Larry. Full steam ahead, if you please. We must not lose sight of them again.” “Whatever it may cost, sir?” “It will cost nothing, captain.” To the men I said: “Fifty pounds apiece, my lads, if you track that steamer to port.” They answered me with a ringing cheer and were at their places in an instant. _White Wings_ began to race through the water with all the power of the great engines which drove her. I heard a second signal gun fired ashore, but could attach no meaning to it. There was no other light upon our horizon than that of the red loom of flame which betrayed the gunboat’s course. She was our goal—and yet not she alone. The ocean had her secrets to reveal. I did not believe that she could hide them from me now. “We have the legs of her, Captain Larry?” I asked him presently. “Undoubtedly, sir.” “And we will be up with her in half an hour?” “In a quarter if we hold this speed. Mr. Benson is showing off a bit, you see.” “Captain Larry,” I said, “they have arms aboard for certain, and I will risk the life of no man who came to serve me in ignorance of this. Let Mr. Benson be a little more discreet. We will keep out of gunshot, if you please.” “I understand you, sir. And none too early.” He meant that we were already upon the point of being within gunshot of the pursued, and he rang down for “half-speed” as he spoke. The order was not obeyed a minute too soon. A heavy gun thundered at us presently, and a shell fell impotently into the sea not a furlong from the starboard bow. The effect of this upon my crew was such as words can express with difficulty. It may be that the scene had been unreal to them until this time; a vision of which they could make little. But powder and shot! The poorest intellect of them all understood that, while as for my genial Irishman, he ducked his head like an old woman who believes that a tile is falling. “Ach, divil take them, Fabos! Am I wounded anywhere?” “It would be somewhere about the pit of the stomach, Timothy.” “But ’tis shell they’re firing!” “I will complain about it, Timothy, when we go aboard.”