"
"Some day--that's a long way off. However, shout as much as you
please."
And with this ironical advice, Engineer Serko leaves me to my own
reflections.
Towards four o'clock a big ship is reported about six miles off to
the east, coming in our direction. She is moving rapidly and grows
perceptibly larger. Black clouds of smoke pour out of her two funnels.
She is a warship, for a narrow pennant floats from her main-mast,
and though she is not flying any flag I take her to be an American
cruiser.
I wonder whether the _Ebba_ will render her the customary salute as
she passes.
No; for the schooner suddenly changes her course with the evident
intention of avoiding her.
This proceeding on the part of such a suspicious yacht does not
astonish me greatly. But what does cause me extreme surprise is
Captain Spade's way of manoeuvring.
He runs forward to a signalling apparatus in the bows, similar to that
by which orders are transmitted to the engine room of a steamer. As
soon as he presses one of the buttons of this apparatus the _Ebba_
veers off a point to the south-west.
Evidently an order of "some kind" has been transmitted to the driver
of the machine of "some kind" which causes this inexplicable movement
of the schooner by the action of a motor of "some kind" the principle
of which I cannot guess at.
The result of this manoeuvre is that the _Ebba_ slants away from the
cruiser, whose course does not vary.
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