"Now for a reception as 'ull touch us to the quick, as Loo-ee Sixteenth said----" The skipper cut himself short. "Aye, aye, sir," he cried, "they've spied us!" "They haven't!" groaned Murguia. "How could they?" "'T'aint important now, sir, how they could. There might be a gleam in our wake. But any'ow they 'ave." They had indeed. Less than a mile to port there suddenly appeared two red lights, two sullen eyeballs of fire. Then, a rocket cleft the darkness, its slant proclaiming the fugitive's course. Hurriedly the _Luz's_ quartermaster sent up a rocket also, but in the opposite direction. It was useless. A third rocket from the signaling blockader contradicted him. "We're bein' chased," announced the skipper. "One of 'em 'as slipped her chain and got off." As _La Luz_ had gained the open, the skipper let his quartermaster take the wheel. "'Old her to the wind, lad," he cautioned. "A beam sea 'ud swamp us." Next he whistled down to the engine room. They were to stoke with turpentine and cotton. At once Murguia began to fidget. "It, it will make smoke," he whined. "An' steam. We're seen a'ready, ain't we, sir?" "But it costs more." "Not if it clears us. Soft coal 'ud seem bloomin' expensive, sir, if we got over'auled." The race was on. In smooth water it would scarcely have been one. But the boiling fury cut knots from the steamer's speed, while the Federals sent after her only their sailing vessels, which with all canvas spread bent low to the chase. They had, however, used up time to unreef; and with the terrific rolling they would not dare cast loose a gun. When morning dawned thickly behind the leaden sky, the three men in the wheelhouse made out a top-gallant sail against the horizon. "By noon," said the skipper, "the beggars 'ull 'ave us." He was a small pert man, was the skipper, with a sharp face, an edge to his voice, and two little points of eyes that glowed. Salt water had not drenched his dry cockney speech, and he was a gamin of the sea and as keen to its gammon ways as in boyhood he had been to those of pubs around the old Bow Bells. Don Anastasio heard the verdict with a shudder. Given the nature of the man, his mortal fear was the dreadfullest torture that could be devised. The game little cockney peered into his distorted face, and wondered. Never was there a more pitiful coward, and yet the craven had passed through the same agony full twenty times during the last few years. Murguia knew nothing of the noble motives which make a man stronger than terror, but he did know a miser's passion. He begrudged even the costlier fuel that was their hope of safety. "Your non-payin' guest, sir," said the skipper, pointing downward. "'Spose he wants to buy them 'ere smokestacks?"