Li Shoon's Nine Lives/Chapter 7

APTAIN MIKE ROURKE was speedily on deck.

"What's this I'm hearin' about a pirate?" he demanded, as he picked up a pair of glasses and stood at the open port window of the wheelhouse.

"That craft over yonder," Carrick answered quietly.

"A pirate, eh?" remarked Captain Mike, taking a long look through the glass. "Don't ye call that inthresting, sir-r?"

There was no hurry in his voice or manner. On the contrary, it was plain that he by no means discredited the information that had been offered him.

The strange craft, the Budzibu, or whatever she was, remained for several minutes at about the same angle on the port bow. She was making much faster time than the Terence could do, and was plainly moving to intercept the tug.

"Would ye be afther likin' me to change the course?" asked Captain Rourke.

"What would be the use?" questioned Carrick. "That craft can overtake us, and changing the course would be interpreted as conscious flight on our part."

Nearer and nearer dashed the overtaking yacht. Her hull was now plainly visible.

"It's the Budzibu, an' no mistake," commented Captain Rourke, now out on the deck behind the wheelhouse, as he studied the stranger. "I mar-rked her well whin she came into por-rt."

"I'm going to get out of sight before she plays the searchlight on us," declared Carrick. "I might be recognized, if that yacht is bossed by the man who I think controls her movements."

"What shall I say, av we're hailed?" demanded Mike Rourke.

Carrick gave the master some general instructions.

"And on the way you handle the matter, captain," finished the Master Hound, "will probably depend the safety of your craft and of all on board."

"I'll do me best to bring ye through safely, sir-r," promised the tug's master. "It'll not be my fault av ye and yer friend come to har-rm."

"I'm not thinking of myself, nor of my friend," replied the Master Hound gravely. "Fleming and I took these chances deliberately. I shall be sorry if I am the means of bringing you and your men to grief."

"It won't be the fir-rst time that anny av us has faced throuble," rejoined Rourke. "And, av we get through wid this, it won't be the last time we'll face throuble, ayther, I'm thinking. But I thank ye for the thought av us, sir-r."

Carrick and Fleming slipped into the wheelhouse, where, away from the windows, they could slip out of sight at need.

Ten minutes later, with the yacht not more than a mile and a half distant, the broad, white band of her searchlight shot across the sky, then dropped full across the Terence. "Shall I return the compliment by givin' her a glimpse av our own light?" queried the master, standing near the wheelhouse window.

"It could do no good," Carrick answered.

Presently Rourke reported:

"She's overhauling us right fast, sir-r, an' there goes her whistle to signal us that she'd like us to lay to for a hail."

"It would look strange if you didn't oblige," the Hound answered.

So bells jangled in the tug's engine room, and by degrees the Terence slowed down, running under reducing headway and then rolling on the waves.

"Ahoy, tug!" came the hail through a megaphone, as the yacht, also barely moving, rounded in as close as was safe. The voice from the yacht, though hailing in English, betrayed more than a trace of foreign accent. "Where are you headed, tug? What business?"

"Me own business, sure!" Rourke bawled back, in a seemingly good-humored voice, his lips to a megaphone.

"Have you any objection to answering us candidly?" came the demand.

"Surely not, since ye're askin' us in a civil way," Rourke returned. "The Red M two-stacker Pearl City is in some throuble wid her propeller shaft, and we're undher or-rders to proceed down the coast and stand by. Maybe we'll be r-reaching her be daylight, or an hour later." "We didn't hear any wireless signals from the Pearl City," remarked the voice from the yacht suspiciously.

"Then I'm glad ye didn't, av ye're in the same business as mesilf," retorted Rourke, a grin in his voice. "I'm wanting the Pearl City job all to myself. But ye're a gintleman's yacht, aren't ye?"

"Yes." "Then ye'll not be thryin' to take the job from me, for I want it, and ye've more speed."

"You know well enough that this is a pleasure yacht," came gruffly from the Budzibu.

"I've the best av reasons for knowin' it," Rourke retorted, good-humoredly. "You tould me so yersilf."

"I think I'll send a boat aboard of you," continued the voice from the yacht.

"Are ye in disthress?" queried Rourke.

"We are not."

"Thin ye'll sind no boat aboar-rd av us," declared Captain Mike. "Be yer own confession ye're no mon-o'-war, and ye'll put on none av the airs av wan."

"Rourke is handling it well," Carrick whispered in, "but the Budzibu is plainly suspicious. There are six life preservers in this wheelhouse, Fleming. Keep your eye on one of them if we're sunk."

"I'd sooner go to the bottom at once than prolong the agony," the chemist answered.

"Cap', sir," almost whispered the second mate, "there's a searchlight roaming the sky to the south of us."

Rourke wheeled, saw the distant flash of the new light, and took his cue.

"Ye'll have to be excusin' me, captain," Rourke bawled through the megaphone. "Av I'm not mistaken, that's our customer looking for us now to the south 'ard av here. Good-by, and thanks for the talk. Full speed ahead, Mr. Riley, as soon as the engine is turnin' well."

Instantly the second mate rang for half speed, the engine room responding. From the Budzibu there was no further hail, though two men could be made out as they stood, enveloped in caps and long coats, beside the yacht's officer on the bridge.

Within three minutes, at the latest, we ought to know whether we are going to be safe for the present," Carrick declared, as Captain Rourke, turning his back to the yacht, leaned in over the window sill.

Second Mate Riley, leaving the wheel in the hands of a deck hand, was now busy uncovering the tug's searchlight.

"Better signal and ask what ship is to the south of us," suggested Donald Carrick, and Rourke gave the order.

"Sometimes Heaven is good to liars!" ejaculated Riley, as the unseen stranger answered with her flash light in the code. "That craft is really the Pearl City."

"'Twas likely she would be," assented Mike Rourke. "Whin I lied to save me boat and its people, I gave the name av a steamer I knew was comin' up the coast, or was due to."

A bare quarter of a mile away, and still holding to the tug at reduced speed, the Budzibu seemed to watch as though her controlling spirits felt that their worst suspicions were about to be realized.

"How'd she be sinkin' us, av she thried it?" Rourke asked suddenly, after a glance over his shoulder. "Probably she carries, concealed, a quick-firing cannon or two," Carrick replied. "She may even have a torpedo tube, though I would doubt that, for a tube is not easily concealed when making port."

Again the yacht's searchlight lay broadly across the tug.

"She'll not give up thinkin' bad av us," muttered Rourke.

"It'll be all r-right, sir-r, av she does nothing more than thinkin'," ventured the man at ithe wheel.

"But if she fires on us," suggested Rourke, "surely the noise av her guns'll be heard by the Pearl City." "It wouldn't bother the scoundrels on that yacht to sink the Pearl City as well," Carrick answered.

"Thin I don't see much hope for us," Rourke growled. "For the boss av that yacht, 'tis plain, doesn't like the looks av us at all. See the way the sea terrier hangs at our heels."

Taking off his cap, and at infinite pains to expose only the top of his head, Carrick glanced swiftly out between Rourke's broad body and the window frame.

"She's undoubtedly going astern to rake us," declared the Master Hound gravely. "The Budzibu must mount her gun or guns forward."