"Yes, of course," said Hardress, "that's about what it comes to, father. Now, Captain Burgess, you will kindly keep Mr Williams in his cabin. Let him have no communication with anyone. You can let Robertson give him his food, and mount guard over him generally. We can trust him, if we can trust anyone. I don't want to see him, or accuse him of anything. Just keep him quiet, and isolated. Tell Mr M'Niven we'll run along as well as we can with the starboard engine, and put all available hands on to repairing the damage to the other. I'll give the engine-room staff another hundred pounds among them if they get it fixed up in twenty-four hours." "Very well, my lord," said the captain, as he got up and went towards the door. "We shall, of course, do everything possible; and I hope that the damage is not so bad as it seems." "It appears to me," said the president, as the captain closed the door and Hardress locked it, "that our deductions from those few facts are coming pretty correct. This job's going to keep us back twenty-four hours at least, if not thirty-six; and so, granted that the Russian yacht started pretty soon after that telegram got to Cherbourg, she won't be very far behind us to-morrow evening, and she'll probably overhaul us about by dawn the next day. Seems to me the question is now, what we're going to do if she does?" "I say fight," said Hardress, between his teeth. "We can smash her into scrap-iron with that gun of yours before she can touch us, if she has guns; and if they do really mean foul play, as it seems they do, I fancy myself it would be better for all of us, women and all, to risk going down with the _Nadine_ than to fall into the hands of a pack of Russian pirates, for that's about all they will be, if they try anything of that sort on." "How would it be, Shafto," said Lord Orrel, "if, granted we could get the engines repaired, we were to play the lame duck, and turn the tables on them----" "Thunder! You've just got it, Lord Orrel!" exclaimed the president, bringing his hand down on the table. "Whether the count and that pretty daughter of his are on board or not, I reckon they'll be a mightily dangerous crew to deal with, and I reckon they'll be safer as compulsory guests on board this boat than if they were free to knock around in their own ship. I feel pretty certain that they know a lot more about this scheme of ours than they would like to say; and if that's so, as I think it is, the less they run around loose about the earth the better for us."