TheTitaniaremained at Gib. for thirty-six hours, refilling her fuel-tanks, provisioning, and making good slight damage done during the gale.
At six in the morning, having received her clearance papers, the yacht weighed, and was soon bowling along with the strong current that sets perpetually eastward into the almost tideless Mediterranean.
Villiers, now officer in charge of the starboard watch, was pacing the deck with Harborough. For the present there was little to do. TheTitanialay close hauled on the port tack; she had plenty of sea-room, and there were no hidden shoals to worry about. Fontayne was taking his trick at the wheel, and the rest of the duty watch, having scrubbed decks and "flemished down", were standing easy.
"She shows a clean pair of heels," remarked Villiers, watching the vessel's wake. "I should imagine we're doing a good eight knots."
"Yes," agreed Harborough. "But we won't stand here gazing aft. It's a little antipathy of mine. Why, I don't know. You read in books of people standing aft and watching the phosphorescent swirl of the propellers and all that sort of thing. Sentimental! I prefer to look for'ard and see what's ahead. There's precious little fun in taking life retrospectively. It's anticipation—call it hope if you like—that is the lodestone of life!"
"I wonder if you'll be of the same mind when you near the end of your journey," remarked Villiers.
"That I can't say," replied Harborough. "But, candidly speaking, would you care to go through the last five years again?"
"I had some good times," said Jack reflectively. "Perhaps I was lucky."
"Supposing you'd been a Tommy in the trenches?" prompted Harborough.
"Ah, that's a proposition," rejoined Villiers gravely. "I don't think I'd care for the idea. In fact, I feel certain I wouldn't. And I know dozens of fellows who've been and come back, and they are all of the same opinion—that it was a physical and mental hell. But if they had to start all over again, they'd do it."
"As a matter of patriotic duty," added Harborough. "We're a weird nation—slow to adapt ourselves to changing conditions, blunderers in war and blunderers in peace, and yet, somehow, we come out on top in the end. The Old Country's in a pretty rotten state just now, I admit, but in another twelvemonth or so things will begin to shape themselves. Eh! what's that?"
O'Loghlin, lightly clad, perspiring freely and reeking with oil, had come up from the motor-room and stood before his chief.
"We've a stowaway, sir," he reported.
Harborough knitted his heavy brows.
"Bring him along," he ordered.
The stowaway came quietly. He followed O'Loghlin like a lamb—a tall, powerfully-built negro, on whose ebony features was a smile of beatific contentment, in conjunction with a wide-open mouth that displayed a double row of glistening ivories extending almost from ear to ear.
Harborough looked straight at him and said nothing. O'Loghlin, standing behind the black, afterwards maintained that the skipper was looking through the nigger. In less than fifteen seconds the smile had vanished and the stowaway was on the verge of tears.
"What are you doing here?" demanded the skipper of theTitania.
"I jus' come aboard, sah."
"For what reason?"
"Me tink dis packet is bound for 'Merica. I jus' want to go dere," and again a broad smile stole over the nigger's face. "Me British born," he continued proudly. "From Hole Town, Barbadoes, which am in British West Indies; but I specks you know dat bit, sah."
"And so you thrust your unwelcome carcass on board this yacht," rejoined Harborough. "Do you know where we are bound for?"
The nigger shook his head.
"Don't much, sah," he replied. "Me work berry hard to please you."
"You'll jolly well have to," declared Harborough grimly. "There's no room for idlers on this craft. Can you cook?"
"Yes, sah, me berry good cook," assented the black, and immediately he broke into a loud roar of laughter until he had to hold his sides as the tears streamed down his face.
The laugh was distinctly infectious. There was something so boisterously gusty in the merriment that every one of theTitania'screw on deck began smiling in varying degrees of intensity.
"What about your cooking?" inquired Harborough, whose face was puckered in a multitude of crinkles.
"Me cook aboard deLucy M. Partington, three-masted schooner from N'Orleans to Naples," explained the black. "Me cook berry well all de time. One day de fellah played a prank, an' put Epsom-salts in the sugar canister. I made Spotted Dick for de Ole Man—pardon, sah, de Captain, I mean—an' dere you are."
Another tornado of laughter followed.
"And what happened then?" prompted Harborough.
"Ole Man kick me out at Gib.," replied the nigger soberly. "Big gum-boots, too," he added, with painful reminiscence.
"Well, carry on in the galley," ordered the skipper of theTitania. "None of your Epsom-salt touches here, remember, or you'll find my boot heavier than theLucy M. Partington'sOld Man's. What's your name?"
"Pete, sah; Pete Johnson."
Harborough waved dismissal. Pete, pulling his woolly forelock, pattered away towards the fore-hatch.
"They didn't have a nigger on board theZug, I suppose?" inquired Harborough.
"No," replied Villiers. "This fellow seems quite above board."
"He may be a blessing in disguise," commented the baronet. "I don't envy the fellows who volunteered for the galley when we get down the Red Sea, and they'll be jolly glad to get out of it."
An hour later Villiers went below and inspected the galley.
Pete had quickly made himself at home. Arrayed in white-canvas jumper and trousers he presented a decidedly better appearance than he had done in the ragged dungarees. He had not been lacking in energy, for the pots and pans were burnished brighter than they had been since they left the ship-chandler's establishment in far-off Southampton.
He greeted Jack with one of his expansive grins.
"Quite shipshape now, Massa Villers," he exclaimed.
"You're making quite a fine show, Sambo," replied Villiers.
The black's smile vanished and he pouted his lip.
"I would hab you know, Massa Villers," he exclaimed, with studied dignity, "dat my name is Pete, not Sambo. Sambo Yankee niggah; me British born."
"Right-o, Pete, I'll remember," replied Villiers; and the black resumed his customary smile.
"I wonder how he got hold of my name," thought Jack.
It was O'Loghlin who solved that little mystery. O'Loghlin had discovered the stowaway hidden behind the main fuel-tank that was fitted athwartships just abaft the main hold. Pete would not have been surprised had the engineer officer dragged him out by his woolly hair and booted him in addition. That was the sort of thing he was used to aboard theLucy M. Partington, but nothing of the kind happened, and Pete felt grateful. He described in detail how he contrived to get on board without being "spotted" by any of the watch on deck. After he had been rated ship's cook the nigger asked O'Loghlin to tell him the names of every man on board, and, with a retentive memory that many West Indian negroes possess, Pete "had them all off pat".
Throughout the greater part of the day the wind held, but towards the end of the first dog watch it fell a flat calm with considerable haze. Away to the south'ard the African coast, although only five miles distant, was lost to view. Night was approaching, so in order to keep clear of the unlighted coast theTitania'scourse was altered a full point, and the motors were started to give her steerage-way.
"We'll have the canvas stowed," decided Harborough; "one never knows what's behind the mist. The glass is a bit jumpy, I notice."
Accordingly the sails were lowered and stowed, and throughout the night theTitaniaheld on under power, riding over the long, sullen ground-swell that was a sign of a gale raging not so many miles off. The sea was highly phosphorescent, and, although from crest to crest the rollers measured a full hundred yards, not a catspaw ruffled the undulating surface.
Morning came and with it no change in the weather. A couple of miles on the port bow was a large three-masted schooner with her canvas slatting violently as she wallowed in the long swell. From her mizen truck was displayed a two-flag signal.
"Stand by with the code-book," cautioned Beverley, who was in charge of the deck.
He levelled his binoculars at the vessel. There was no need for the code-book. Every seaman knows the significance of the letters YF—Mutiny.
"On deck both watches," shouted Beverley. "Close up with the answering pennant."
The order was obeyed in double-quick time, the watch below turning out in a state of attire that could not by any stretch of the imagination be termed uniform. Harborough, stopping only to don oilskin coat and sea-boots over his pyjamas, came on deck.
"Serve out the arms, Mr. Beverley," he said, "and hoist a signal saying we are sending a boat. Mr. Villiers, will you take half a dozen armed men and proceed to yonder vessel?"
Almost as soon as the signal flags GTM—"I am sending a boat"—were toggled and hoisted, theTitania'swhaler was swung outboard ready for lowering, and under power the yacht rapidly bore down upon the mutinous schooner.
"Golly!" exclaimed Pete, who, in the midst of preparing breakfast, had answered to the hail for all hands on deck. "Dat's the oleLucy M. Partington."
Before theTitaniahad entirely lost way the whaler's rounded bilges hit the water with a resounding smack. The lower blocks of the falls were disengaged, and the bowman adroitly fended off.
"Give way, lads!" ordered Villiers.
Fifty steady strokes sufficed to lay the boat alongside the schooner's port quarter, from which a rope-ladder had been dropped by her now considerably-relieved skipper.
Leaving one hand in the whaler, Villiers and the rest of the boat's crew swarmed up the side and gained theLucy M. Partington'spoop. The mutiny was over. The rebellious hands had been overawed by the sight of the approaching armed boat's crew.
The Old Man, a typical New Englander, with a goatee beard and huge leather sea-boots (Villiers found himself wondering how the skipper could wear heavy foot-gear on a hot day like that), left his strategical position, to wit, a round house abaft the mizen, and was bellowing incoherencies at a knot of sullen seamen clustered under the break of the raised fo'c'sle. With him were the two mates and three apprentices, who looked now as if they were enjoying the scene, and a couple of grizzled, bald-headed seamen.
"What's all this fuss about, skipper?" inquired Villiers genially.
"Tarnation blue snakes take the pizonous reptiles," bellowed the Old Man. "That's the durned skunk I want to get at; that skulking Finn."
He pointed to a gigantic man standing behind, but towering head and shoulders above the cosmopolitan crowd of malcontents.
"We've had just about enuff of your tarnation tricks, Cap'n Abe," shouted one of the mutineers. "Nary a square meal since you hiked our cook over the side."
"Guess I didn't boot the nigger jus' for nuthin'," explained Captain Abe to his rescuers. "The nigger tried to pizen me."
"There ain't as good a cook on board, an' there won't be," vociferated the mutineer. "Pete could cook, and there ain't no sayin' to the contrary, I guess."
So that was the trouble. In putting Pete ashore at Gib. the skipper of theLucy M. Partingtonhad laid up a rod in pickle for himself. No doubt the Old Man honestly thought that the nigger had deliberately put Epsom-salt into his pudding; but he had made a mistake in not taking the trouble to investigate Pete's story. And since the cook was a cook, the crew soon found out to their cost what it means to have badly-prepared meals.
Matters came quickly to a head. One of the men approached the skipper, holding in his hands a saucepan of watery potatoes in which floated hard balls that were supposed to be dumplings, and asked him whether he considered this sort of food good enough for human beings.
Captain Abe replied by booting the saucepan from the fellow's hands and throwing most of its contents into the grumbler's face. That started what soon developed into a serious affray, and how far matters would have gone remained questionable. The appearance of theTitania, which the mutineers mistook for a Government patrol-boat (of which some were yet employed on mine-sweeping work in the Mediterranean), rather took the wind out of their sails.
Villiers called the Yankee skipper aside.
"Look here," he said, "I don't quite know what you want me to do."
"Put the varmints into irons, I guess," suggested Captain Abe.
"Then who'll work the ship?" asked Jack. "There is bad weather coming, judging by the glass and the look of things. Short-handed, you'll be in a jolly tight corner. Those fellows have a grievance, although they were in the wrong to kick up a shindy. I can't lend you any hands, so what are you going to do?"
"Dashed if I know," admitted Captain Abe, in perplexity. "Say, what would you?"
"You've been at sea a jolly sight longer than I have, I should say," continued Villiers. "So it seems like teaching my grandmother to tell you how to handle men. Meet them half-way. If you've a grievance and they have one, there's always the Consular Courts to appeal to. That's better than jumping round the deck with sheath-knives and revolvers."
"Guess you're about right," considered Captain Abe. "Just you sound 'em for me, young man. For my part, I'm willin'."
Villiers went for'ard. In five minutes he had "talked over" the crew. They, too, were willing to carry on as before, on the understanding that a competent cook was shipped at the next port they touched.
Jack, proud of his moral victory, shook hands with the Yankee skipper and the two mates, and returned to theTitania.
"It's all right, now, sir," he reported. "They're carrying on."
At that moment theTitania, forging slowly ahead, was passing under the stern and within half a cable's length of the becalmedLucy M. Partington.
The latter's skipper caught sight of Pete sitting contentedly on the cat-head. His eyes opened in utter amazement.
"Pete!" he hailed. "Come you back!"
The nigger shook his woolly head.
"You kick me out, Cap'n Abe!" he reminded him.
"Fifty dollars, Pete, if you swim for it," almost implored the Yankee, finding as he thought an easy solution to the present difficulty.
Pete's head shook until his teeth almost rattled in his capacious jaws.
"Dere's no leather sea-boots with nails in 'em on dis vessel," he replied. "Only indy-rubber. 'Specks I know where dis nigger am comf'ble."
Then, using an expression that he had picked up from his new acquaintances on theTitania, he added: "Cheerio, you deah, priceless ole thing!"
"No, no, boy. Not 'la silence' but 'le silence'."
"But, sir," protested the boy, "it's according to rule; it ends in a silent 'e'."
"An exception, Beverley," explained Mr. Jaques. "An exception. One of the peculiarities of the French language. But this might help you to remember. Silence is one of the things that a woman cannot keep, therefore the French place that word in the masculine gender——"
"I say, sir," interrupted Dick Beverley. "Look at that moth. Rather late for this time of year, isn't it?"
"Never mind the moth," said his house-master. "You'll see plenty of varieties of moths during the next few months," he sighed, envious of the high-spirited youth. "Now, say in French: 'Will you kindly tell me the way to the police-station'. Good; 'poste' has two different meanings: 'post-office' and 'police-station', according to gender. Now say the same sentence in Italian. H'm, yes, passable. You have that written slip of directions the Head gave you? And your Italian passport: you're keeping that in a different pocket to your notes? And don't address strangers on Continental railways. If in doubt ask someone in uniform. All railway officials are in uniform on the other side of the Channel, you know."
Dick Beverley nodded. Already the well-meaning Mr. Jaques had dinned the various and somewhat bewildering instructions and injunctions into his excited head at least half a dozen times between Charing Cross and Folkestone. But the boy's brain had closed its doors, temporarily at least, to the advice of his house-master. On the eve of a vast adventure it is often so, although before long a confidant would be welcome.
"Monsieur Deschamps will meet you at the Gare du Nord," continued Mr. Jaques. "The journey across Paris is the most difficult part of the business, but that difficulty will, I trust, be eliminated. I believe there is awagon litstraight through from Paris to Brindisi."
Dick again nodded, but his attention was centred on the animated harbour as viewed from the lounge of the hotel.
"From Brindisi," resumed the master, "you proceed to Taranto. If theTitaniashould not be there, what do you do?"
"Stop at the Hotel d'Annunzio, Strada Miratore," replied Dick promptly. He knew that bit.
"That is so," agreed the pedantic Mr. Jaques; "and above all, be discreet. Remember what I told you about 'silence'. I was given to understand, during a brief interview with your brother, that absolute discretion is necessary—not only for your own welfare but for the people you are about to join. Remember also to keep your French paper money in a different compartment of your pocket-book from your Italian notes, and examine your change carefully. There is a lot of bad money about in those countries, I believe."
"Like a lot of bacon we get in England, sir," added the irrepressible youth.
Mr. Jaques nodded. He could well afford to be sympathetic on that subject.
"You have your keys, I hope," he asked, returning to the lengthy exhortation to a juvenile traveller. "Thedouaniers—custom-house people—will want to examine your luggage, you know."
Dick produced the keys; a large jack-knife, a catapult, and a piece of whip-cord were disclosed during the operation.
"You had better let me have that catapult," observed the house-master. "I cannot conceive why you should want to take a thing like that away with you, especially as the possession of a catapult is an offence against the rules of the school."
Beverley junior surrendered the catapult cheerfully. After all it was one of three that he carried about his person.
Ten minutes later Mr. Jaques and Dick parted company on board the cross-Channel steamer, the former to return with a feeling that he had carried out a duty conscientiously, the latter realizing at last that he was actually on the threshold of a big adventure.
Dick remained on deck. Even the strong desire to go below, to see if he could prevail upon the engineer to allow him to enter the engine-room, was not enough to tear him from the sight of the receding shores of Kent and the constant stream of shipping passing to and fro on one of the main arteries of the world's maritime trade.
He was a high-spirited youth, no better and no worse than the average British schoolboy. He had received his colours at "footer", was a moderate bat, could swim and box, and could ride almost any make of motor-cycle and understand its mechanism as well. True, he hadn't a motor-bike of his own, for the simple reason that funds wouldn't run to it, but his unfailing good nature and ability to undertake repairing jobs were sufficient to give him the run of the majority of motor-cycles belonging to his fellow-boarders.
Normally he was open and inclined to be communicative, but, with Mr. Jaques' warning somewhere in the back of his brain, it was not surprising that he showed a tendency to "choke off" an attempt at conversation on the part of a fellow-passenger on the Folkestone-Boulogne boat.
"Your name's Beverley, isn't it?" inquired the stranger. Dick had noticed him in the foyer of the hotel.
"Yes," he replied shortly. "He can see that by reading the labels on my luggage," he added mentally.
"I know your father," continued the stranger. "My name's Wilson."
"Really," rejoined Dick. "You didn't speak to him in the hotel, did you?"
"No," was the answer, after a moment's hesitation. "I saw you were both talking very earnestly, and naturally one doesn't like to butt in on the eve of parting."
Dick considered. Either the "old buffer" had made a genuine mistake or else he was trying to "pump him". Possibly the latter.
"I'm going as far as Brindisi to meet my daughter from Egypt," continued Mr. Wilson. "You are going farther, I see?"
"Yes, to Taranto," replied Dick. "Cruising in the Mediterranean."
"Then you are one of theTitania'sparty."
"Am I?" rejoined the lad.
The stranger smiled.
"Of course you are," he said. "And you are going farther than the Mediterranean, I believe."
"We were," declared Dick mendaciously, for he considered himself quite justified in bluffing the fellow. "We were, but the long cruise has been abandoned. Don't know why."
"You'll be quite a traveller. Have you journeyed on the Continent before?"
Dick shook his head.
"No? Then I'll have to give an eye to you," continued Mr. Wilson. "Rather a long journey without having anyone to talk to."
"Don't think I'd take it on if I were you, Mr. Wilson," said Dick in a well-simulated, confidential tone. "You see, I'm let out before I ought to be. I only came out of the sanny yesterday."
"The sanny?" queried Mr. Wilson, in perplexity.
"Yes, that is the sanatorium, you know," explained Dick, warming to his part. "Scarlet fever; 'fraid I haven't quite finished peeling yet."
"Er—er—I don't quite understand," murmured the stranger uneasily, moving back a pace.
"Of course with proper precautions it may be all right," continued the fever-stricken youth cheerfully. "I've been cautioned to keep to the lee side of the boat so that the germs—beastly things germs—don't get blown on the people. In the train I've got to keep the window open at night, if other passengers don't object, and sniff carbolic powder. But I'll be free from infection by the time we get to Brindisi, I expect."
Chuckling to himself, Dick watched Mr. Wilson beat a hurried retreat.
"If I'd taken old Jaques' advice about keeping silence I'd have had to have been awfully rude," he soliloquized. "As it is, I've put the wind up him. Wonder who he is? And he said he knows my father, too. That's rich!"
He did not see Mr. Wilson again, save for a glimpse of his back at the Gare du Nord, during the journey to the south of Italy. "Mr. Wilson", or to give him his real name, Herr Kaspar von Giespert, thought fit to alter his proposed route, for instead of proceeding via Brindisi he booked to Marseilles, hoping to catch a Messageries boat to Singapore.
It was a pure coincidence that von Giespert and Dick were fellow-passengers on the Folkestone-Boulogne boat, but Mr. Jaques' over-cautious exhortation had given the Hun a clue. Happening to hear the wordTitania, von Giespert pricked up his ears. He decided to sound the open-faced British boy; he might have succeeded but for an initial false move in assuming that Jaques was Dick's parent.
Von Giespert was cooling his heels at the southern French seaport days after Dick Beverley joined the yachtTitaniaat Taranto.
It was a dark, windless night. TheTitania, under power, was gliding through the tranquil waters of the Red Sea. The port watch had just been relieved, and Bobby Beverley, having "handed over" to Jack Villiers, lingered on the deck to have a yarn with his particular chum.
Already the port of Hodeida was left on the port quarter. Ahead lay the reefs surrounding the dangerous Hanish Islands. Two miles astern could be discerned the red, green, and white lights of a vessel that was obviously overhauling theTitaniahand over fist.
"Mail boat—P. & O. most likely," observed Beverley. "We needn't worry about her—she's the overtaking vessel. Shan't be sorry to get clear of the Red Sea. Too many Arab dhows sculling around without lights to my fancy."
"Enough to give a Board of Trade examiner a puzzler for the 'Rule of the Road' stunt," remarked Villiers. "Do you remember that white-bearded old buffer? I suppose it was the same fellow who examined you. Tried to catch me out with the 'single red light on my starboard bow', but I tumbled to it just in time. Narrow squeak, though."
"I remember him," replied Beverley. "He gave me a regular galaxy of light, and asked what I would do. 'Put my helm hard down and clear out', I told him. 'The best course, too', he agreed."
"After knocking about at sea without lights for three years," said Beverley, "it does seem a bit awkward to find yourself up against 'em. Something like that prisoner in the Bastille who asked to be shut up again after he was released. Question of use, I suppose."
"Light on the port bow, sir," sung out Merridew.
At that distance only a red and a white light were visible, but by the aid of his binoculars Villiers saw the gleam of the starboard light.
"Port helm," he ordered.
TheTitaniaand the approaching vessel cleared each other easily, but Villiers had little time to pay further attention to her. Ahead were a number of dhows, strung out in an irregular line, practically motionless in the flat calm.
"Good heavens, what's that!" ejaculated Bobby. "There's an almighty smash."
How it occurred was a mystery, but the fact remained that the overtaking liner and the vessel that had just passed theTitaniawere in collision. It was one of those instances that have taken place and will take place in the future—unaccountable yet none the less disastrous. In clear weather and in a perfectly calm sea two steamers crashed into each other.
Above the noise of grinding steel and the hiss of escaping steam came a clamorous panic-stricken yell from hundreds of throats.
"Not British this time," commented Jack, as he ordered the helm to be put hard over and the boats swung out ready for lowering.
"Get the searchlights running, Bobby," he added, "and inform the Old Man."
But the Old Man was at that moment bounding up the companion-ladder, a conspicuous figure in his white drill uniform.
Directly the two brilliant beams of the searchlights were brought into action Harborough took in the situation at a glance.
One of the colliding vessels was a liner. She was badly damaged for'ard and was deep down by the bows. The other, a chartered Belgian steamer conveying Mussulman pilgrims to Jiddah, the port of the Holy City of Mecca, had already sunk, having been cut completely in two by the impact.
"Have those boats swung inboard again, Mr. Villiers," he ordered. "We'll lay right alongside that fellow. There'll be time before she goes."
Villiers understood. The lessons learnt in the North Sea, where it was an everyday task to place an M.L. alongside a huge lumbering tramp, were not forgotten. To avoid delay in rescuing human lives Harborough had ordered theTitaniato be manoeuvred alongside the foundering liner.
Even under normal conditions it would have been no easy task, but the difficulties were increased tenfold, for while the colliding vessels remained locked together, nearly a hundred frantic Mussulmans had succeeded in clambering over the liner's shattered bows to find but a temporary refuge on her decks. These, in addition to a very cosmopolitan assortment of passengers, were already out of hand, despite the firm efforts of the liner's officers and crew to maintain discipline. There was a wild stampede for the boats—Arabs and Europeans mingled in a suicidal and homicidal rush, with the result that by the time theTitaniawas within hailing distance one boat only had been successfully lowered. The rest had either capsized or were hanging vertically from the davits. Those of the passengers who yet remained on board were either made of sterner stuff or else they had been tamed by the sight of the fate that had befallen the frenzied mob. As for the officers and crew of the foundering vessel, they were doing their best to try and preserve order, but the sudden addition of a swarm of pilgrims rendered their task almost superhuman.
Taking the helm, Harborough adroitly manoeuvred theTitaniauntil she lost way within ten yards of the sinking vessel. Instantly there was another rush on the part of the utterly demoralized Mussulmans.
"Women and children first!" roared Harborough. "Does anyone on board speak Swahili or Arabic? If so, tell those blacks to keep back. I'll shoot the first man who jumps without permission."
Apparently some of the pilgrims understood English, or else they guessed the purport of Harborough's words. Calm again succeeded the paroxysm of cowardice.
Carefully avoiding the outswung davits of the huge vessel, Harborough brought theTitaniaalongside so neatly and carefully that there was hardly any need to employ fenders to absorb the shock. Even though the ship was foundering she towered high above the yacht, thereby rendering the task of transhipping the survivors a somewhat difficult one. Had there been any sea running the operation would have been hazardous, butliftingupon the very gentle swell the vessels, large and small, lay almost motionless, although momentarily the former was settling deeper and deeper by the head.
Half a dozen women and children were the first to be received on board the yacht. Then came thirty or forty passengers, mostly French, but with a sprinkling of Italians and Dutchmen. Then the survivors of the pilgrim-ship were allowed on board, where, thinking themselves safe, they squatted on deck and took no further interest in the proceedings, or, if they did, they concealed it under a cloak of Oriental impassivity. Then followed the crew, most of whom had found time to collect their personal belongings, for nearly every man held a bundle made of a coloured handkerchief filled to its utmost capacity. Last of all came the officers, the dark-featured, white-haired Breton captain bringing up the rear.
He seemed reluctant to leave, and not until Harborough shouted a warning did the little Frenchman leap. It was not a moment too soon, for by this time the liner's bows were awash and water was entering the boiler-rooms.
TheTitania, her decks resembling a Bank Holiday Margate steamer, and submerged two feet above her water-line, backed slowly away, keeping her searchlight still running in the hope that they might see other survivors from the sunken pilgrim-ship.
"We're lucky," remarked Harborough to Villiers. "Decidedly lucky, otherwise I wouldn't give much for our chances if there had been a sea running. By Jove! What a pack. Makes one think of the good old days when Fritz started running amok with his U-boats."
"What are we doing with this lot, sir?" asked Jack.
"Run 'em into Massowah," replied the skipper of theTitania. "Seems to be the easier way out of the difficulty. Massowah's a bit out of our course, but it's an Italian port. They can't detain us to give evidence in a Court of Inquiry. At Aden we might be held up. Hallo! There she goes."
The French linerCité d'Arraswas on the point of disappearing. With theTitania'ssearchlights flashed upon the scene, her stricken hull looked as though it were fashioned of silver. Her stern was high out of the water, and, after theTitaniahad pushed off, she had developed a terrific list to starboard.
A hush fell upon the crowd on theTitania'sdeck. All eyes were directed upon the sinking vessel, even the Mussulmans abandoning their hitherto impassive attitude to gaze upon the scene.
Steam was still issuing in dense clouds from her boiler-rooms; jets of water expelled by compressed air leapt high above her listing masts as the eddying, foaming water encroached upon her decks.
Then, with a movement not unlike the convulsive spring of a mortally wounded animal, the stricken craft lifted until her twin-propellers were clear of the water. For perhaps ten seconds she remained thus; then, to the accompaniment of a loud roar as her displaced boilers exploded, she disappeared from sight.
Harborough rang for full speed ahead.
Literally forcing his way along the crowded deck, Bobby Beverley went below to make up arrears of sleep. At the foot of the companion-ladder he encountered Claverhouse, on whom the task of providing accommodation 'tween decks for the women and children rescued from theCité d'Arrashad fallen.
"Do you know your young brother's been in the ditch?" inquired Alec.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Bobby. "Is that a fact? Where is he?"
"Fact," confirmed Claverhouse. "At the present time he's shedding his wet gear in your cabin."
Dick Beverley looked a little confused when his brother appeared. As a matter of fact he had changed his saturated garments, and was in the act of attempting to remove all traces of the pools of water from the floor when the cabin door was thrown open and Bobby entered.
"What silly game have you been up to?" inquired Beverley Major sternly.
"Only got a bit wet," replied Beverley Minor. "Nothing much; I'll soon get your cabin straight, Bob."
"How did it happen?" demanded Bobby.
"Sort of slipped in," declared Dick.
"Pushed in?"
"Well, there was a bit of a crush," observed Dick diplomatically.
"You young ass!" ejaculated his brother. "I suppose you know the water's teeming with sharks?"
Dick admitted that he was aware of the unpleasant fact. He had seen them following the yacht soon after she left Suez.
"How did you get on board again?" asked Bobby.
"Trevear hauled me up with a rope," replied Dick simply. "I wasn't in for more than fifteen seconds."
"Time enough for you to have been bitten in two," rejoined Bobby. "All right, carry on and wipe up the mess. I want to turn in."
He went out, leaving Dick to complete his self-appointed task, to seek Trevear and gain further particulars, since his brother was obviously "lying low".
He found the R.A.F. pilot talking French as spoken on the Somme in 1918 to a pair of children whose home was at Oléron in the Department of the Basses-Pyrénées. The result was not altogether a success, although by a wealth of dumb show Trevear contrived to keep the children amused.
"They've shoved me in charge of the crèche, old bird," he observed. "Know it's no use offering you a cigarette; try some of this."
He extended a well-used and bulky tobacco-pouch.
"What's on your chest, old man?" he continued.
"Something my young brother's been doing," rejoined Beverley.
"Eh, what's that?" asked Trevear, raising his eyebrows and simulating an air of complete ignorance.
"I want you to tell me exactly how he got into the ditch," declared Bobby.
"You know that much, then?" rejoined Trevear. "Non, non. Taisez-vous; c'est defendu de puller mon hair (that was an aside addressed to his charges, who, finding themselves ignored, reasserted their presence by tugging vigorously at the ex-airman's closely-cropped hair). All right, then; s'pose I'm no longer bound to secrecy. While we were lying alongside the Frenchman, young Dick spotted someone in the water—one of the Arab crowd. Before I knew what he was up to—I thought he was going to sling the fellow a coil of rope—he took a turn round his waist with the end of a line and jumped overboard. Pete and I hiked him back in double quick time, 'cause the Arab fellow was trying to drag him under. Yes, we got the pair of 'em just as a brute of a shark turned on his back and showed his ugly jaws. Gave me a bit of a turn, and I fancy young Dick had the wind up after it was all over. That youngster's got some pluck, old son."
Trevear would doubtless have held to his compact with Dick Beverley, but it was obvious that the secret would out, as Pete had been a witness of the affair. The negro had already told O'Loghlin and Swaine, and they, in turn, had communicated the news of the exploit to others.
Bobby returned to his cabin. Dick, having completed the tidying-up process, had turned in. His brother went to the side of the bunk.
"Dick," he said softly. "You're a silly young ass, but I'm proud of you."
It was broad daylight when Bobby Beverley awoke to find Pete standing by his bunk with a cup of tea. Already the air was insufferably hot, in spite of the fact that the port-hole was wide open and an electric fan running. Without, the sun beat fiercely down, its hot rays glancing obliquely from the mirror-like surface of the water. On deck the tramp of many feet showed that the survivors of the catastrophe were giving signs of activity.
Looking at the clock, Bobby saw that he had but twenty minutes before going on deck to take over his watch. A plunge into a bath of tepid water, shaving and dressing, occupied half the allotted time; then, making a hurried breakfast, the watch-keeping officer went on deck.
TheTitaniawas approaching Massowah, somewhat to the discontent of many of the ex-passengers of theCité d'Arras, who wanted to be landed at the French colony of Obock farther down the coast and just below the Bab el Mandeb. But Harborough had decided otherwise. The objection to calling at Aden applied equally well to putting into Obock, so willy-nilly the survivors had to accept the hospitality of the Italian colony until they found means of resuming their interrupted journeys.
The moment the anchor was dropped and the yacht lost way theTitaniawas surrounded by a fleet of small boats. Into them the rescued people were placed and taken ashore, not before an impromptu meeting had been held on deck and a vote of thanks delivered in broken English by a tall, corpulent Frenchman who was about to take up a Consular appointment in China.
"Do you know what, in my opinion, is the height of embarrassment," asked Harborough, addressing his crew in general after the departure of the cosmopolitan crowd. "No? I'll tell you; being kissed on both cheeks by a demonstrative bearded Frenchman, with the temperature 125 degrees in the shade."
"Jolly funny thing," remarked Dick to his brother. "I met one of the liner's passengers on the Boulogne boat—a Mr. Wilson."
"Really?" remarked Bobby, to whom the announcement conveyed little interest. In his own experience the world was small, and he was used to knocking up against acquaintances, chance or otherwise, at various odd times. "Speak to him?"
"No," replied the lad. "For one thing, I didn't notice him until he had left theTitaniaand was sitting in the boat. For another, I didn't want to."
"Why not?" asked Bobby. When Dick took a dislike to anyone there was usually a sound reason.
The schoolboy told how "Mr. Wilson" had tried to pump him.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Jack Villiers, who was with Bobby at this time. "Pity you hadn't let us know half an hour ago. That's old Borgen for a million. He's on his way to join theZug."
"And what would you have done?" inquired Dick, forming a mental picture of burly Jack Villiers and "Mr. Wilson" fightingà l'outranceon the deck of the good shipTitania.
"Done?" echoed Villiers. "I owe him one for sand-bagging me—or getting his minions to do so, which comes to practically the same thing. I'd have kept him under the influence of morphia for the next twenty-four hours and taken him to sea with us. Then we'd see how the rival crush got on without a figurehead. We'll have to inform the skipper."
Harborough received the news with his inscrutable smile.
"'Tany rate he's boxed up in Massowah for a week or ten days and he's lost all his kit. That's rather put the lid on his activities for a bit. But since he owes us something for saving his life I hope he won't bear us a grudge on that account."
Three hours later, having shipped an additional two hundred gallons of oil and replenished the water-tanks, theTitaniaweighed and resumed her voyage.
It was a long, tedious stretch across the Arabian Sea, for more than 2500 miles lay between the yacht and the port of Colombo. For the most part there was little wind. When there was any it was generally too much ahead to give the vessel a useful slant, for it was the time of the north-east monsoon. Consequently, the heavy oil-engines were kept running almost continuously.
TheTitaniapassed to the south'ard of the Island of Socotra, which was the last land sighted for a space of twelve days.
"India's coral strand" was a wash-out as far as Dick was concerned, for theTitaniapassed a good hundred miles to the south'ard of Cape Comorin, but at sunrise on the following morning the lad had a distant view of Adam's Peak, its prominent outlines silhouetted against the rapidly-growing light.
Two days in Colombo Harbour gave the crew a much-needed rest before tackling the almost as long voyage across to Singapore.
Thence, threading her way cautiously between the islands of the Java and Banda Seas, and encountering no adventure in the shape of Malay pirates (somewhat to Dick's disappointment), theTitaniaapproached the outward limit of her long voyage.
Towards the latter end of the run Harborough rarely left the deck. He slept in the chart-house, going below for his meals and returning with the utmost haste. His usual coolness was noticeably absent. He was restless and uncommunicative, often pacing the deck for hours with hardly a word to anyone.
At length, shortly after daybreak, he touched Villiers on the shoulder and pointed to a rugged mountain-top just showing above the horizon.
"That's Ni Telang," he announced. "If I've worked our cards properly we ought to find theZugthere searching for treasure that does not exist."