The _Caratana_, the fastest mail-ship afloat, as well as being nearly the largest, was sixty hours out of New York with 350 passengers on board, when she came up with a strange warship flying a red flag. The warship hoisted an unintelligible signal, which the captain of the _Caratana_ did not understand. It was followed by one of which there could be no mistaking the meaning: "Stop, or I will sink you." The captain of the Atlantic liner knew all that was known about the _Maria Braganza_, and at once realised his danger. If he did not realise it, there came a shell from the warship which passed astern. Fortunately, there was a mist on the water, which grew heavier every minute--a dense bank of fog, not usually met with so far east. The captain of the _Caratana_ decided upon the course of action he would take. Very quickly he signalled "I surrender," and rang his engines to "stop." The men on the warship seemed satisfied with his action, and no further demonstration was made against the liner. Such was the "way" on the big ship that, although her propellers had ceased to revolve, she continued her course--nearer and nearer she grew to a thick patch of the fog that lay ahead of her. The _Maria Braganza_ may have suspected the manoeuvre, for she signalled "Go astern." For answer, the captain of the _Caratana_ put port and starboard engines full ahead, and, whilst men were running to their stations on the warship, the _Caratana_ slipped into the fog-belt. In an instant, the _Maria Braganza_ was blotted from view. The liner captain put his helm over to starboard, and it was well that he did so, for, with a reverberating crash, the warship opened fire in the direction in which he had disappeared. Shell after shell came flying through the thick mist, and the thud of their impact as they struck the water came to the ears of the affrighted passengers. The sound of spasmodic firing grew fainter and fainter every minute as the great steamer went threshing through the swirling fog, until it ceased altogether. Although no harm had befallen the liner, the news of the attack produced a profound sensation. Its effect was to paralyse the business of ocean travel. The "Mad Warship" terrorised the seas. It was on the day the report of this new outrage reached England that T. B. Smith located Poltavo. * * * * * * * There languished in a prosaic prison cell at Brixton Gaol a Monsieur Torquet, who was admittedly a victim of police persecution. That much T. B. himself was prepared to admit. Monsieur Torquet was suspected not of a crime against any particular section of society, but indeed of being accessory to a crime against humanity; and T. B. was prepared to run a tilt at the very Habeas Corpus Act rather than release his grip upon the stranger with the straggling beard who had so heavily insured the _Taglan Castle_ before she started out on her adventurous voyage.