Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/152

138 questions with such rapidity, and he was so overcome, that we followed him in silence as he walked beneath the awnings of the upper decks, and showed us women still talking hysterically, men unnerved and witless as children, seamen yet finding curses for the atrocity that had been. By this time, the first of the American ships had come up with us, and the commander of her put out a boat, and having gone aboard the maimed cruiser, he came afterwards to the Black Anchor ship, and joined us in the chart-room. I will make no attempt to set down for you his surprise nor his incredulity. I believe that the scene in the fo'castle alone convinced him that we were not all raving madmen; but, when once he grasped our story, he was not a whit behind us, either in intensity of expression or of sympathy.

"It's an international question, I guess," he said; "and if he doesn't pay with his neck for the twenty men dead on my cruiser, to say nothing of the twenty thousand pounds or more damage to her, I will—why, we'll run her down in four-and-twenty hours. You took his course?"

"West by south-west, almost dead," said the captain; and I heard it agreed between them that the second cruiser of the American fleet should start at once in pursuit, while the iron-clads should accompany us to New York, so making a little convoy for safety's sake.

With this arrangement we left the ship and