Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/171

Rh Yet I, myself, could not share their honest bravado. The black ship which had been but a mark on the horizon now showed her lines fully; there could be no two opinions of her speed, or of the way in which she gained upon us. Indeed, one could not look upon her advance without envy of her form, or of the terrifying manner in which she cut the seas. Churning the foam until it mounted its banks on each side of her great ram, she rode the Atlantic like a beautiful yacht, with no vapour of smoke to float above her; and not so much as a sign that any engines forced her onward with a velocity unknown, I believe, in the whole history of navigation. And so she came straight in our wake, and I knew that we should have little breathing time before we should hear the barking of her guns.

The skipper did not like to see my idleness or this display of inactive indifference.

"Don't you think you might help?" he asked.

"Help—what help can I give? You don't suppose we can outsteam them, do you?"

"That's a child's question; they'll run us to a stand in four hours—any man with one eye should see that; but are you going down like a sheep, or will you give them a touch of your claws? I will, so help me Heaven, if there's not another hand breathing!"

"The skipper's right, by Jove!" said Roderick; "if it's coming to close quarters, I'll mark one