"Yes," he said, "she has stopped, which looks as though she wanted to speak us. And I see no very particular reason why we should not go alongside and hear what they have to say about the affair. We need not tell them very much about ourselves, you know, except that we are the yacht _Flying Fish_, cruising in these waters for our pleasure and to test the value of a new principle in shipbuilding. It is just possible that he may have something of importance to communicate to us." "Very well," said Sir Reginald, "let us go alongside, then, by all means." "In that case," said Mildmay, "I would recommend that the boats be got up from below. It is not unlikely that the skipper may wish us to go aboard him, and, if so, it is scarcely worth while to trouble him to send one of his own boats for us." "As you will," agreed the baronet. "You know what will be the correct thing to do, under the circumstances." Accordingly the engines were once more sent ahead, at a twenty-knot speed; and while Sir Reginald took the helm and headed the ship for the liner, Mildmay and von Schalckenberg stepped out on deck, raised the deck-flaps beneath which the boats were housed, and swung them and their supporting davits into position, one on each quarter. By the time that this was done, and the pair had satisfied themselves that the boats were all right and quite ready for lowering, the _Flying Fish_ was within easy enough distance of the liner to enable those in the pilot-house to read her name. As Mildmay had shrewdly surmised, she was an X. and Z. boat, and her name was the _Baroda_. Her engines were still motionless, and she had by this time quite lost her way. There were two men in uniform on her bridge, and her promenade deck was crowded with passengers, many of whom were women, attired mostly in white flimsy muslins; and there were also several children playing about the decks. A number of seamen were aft, busy about the fallen mast, and casting adrift the rigging of it. As the _Flying Fish_ crossed the _Baroda's_ stern, and ranged up on the latter's starboard side, it was seen that the gangway-ladder had been cast loose and lowered; it looked, therefore, as though her skipper fully expected a visit. Possibly the sight of the white ensign had caused him to imagine that his rescuer was, as Mildmay had remarked but a short time before, in connection with the pirates, "some sort of new-fangled British gun-boat;" and past experience would doubtless have taught him that the British naval officer has an inveterate habit of getting right to the bottom of things whenever he encounters anything that has the least smack of irregularity about it. "All hands" were now on deck aboard the _Flying Fish_, and the ladies looked up with marked interest at the decks of the towering liner, the occupants of which looked down upon them with unconcealed wonder and curiosity.