Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/325

 down the engines and the yacht is picking her way by the reefs that guard the channel.

"Ship ahoy!" suddenly rings out from the lookout forward. All eyes are turned ahead. A steamer, inward bound, has just come into view in the channel.

"Permit me," Navarro takes the glasses and focuses them upon the stranger. "It is the Spanish dispatch boat Pizarro," he says. "When the cruiser recognizes her she will doubtless signal her to intercept the yacht, and in the narrow channel she can make serious trouble, I fear."

The report of another cannon, followed by two more in quick succession, shows that the man-of-war has indeed recognized her compatriot almost as soon as the American. An answering gun from the dispatch boat also shows that she has heard and understands.

Capt. Beals looks inquiringly at Van Zandt. "We must continue straight on and take our chances in the channel with that craft," the latter says. Then to Navarro: "Do you know what her armament is?"

"Oh, she is not a fighting ship. She has no armament, merely one gun for saluting purposes, and her crew cannot number over fifty."

"Then we are all right. If she gets in our way she must take the consequences."

But the dispatch boat evidently does not intend that the American shall pass. She has taken a position in the narrowest part of the channel and lies stationary, presenting her broadside to the oncoming yacht.

"Signal that we propose to pass to port," Van Zandt says to Capt. Beals, "and if the Spaniard gets in our course run him down."

Capt. Beals nods and a second later the hoarse whistle of the Semiramis echoes over the waters. The signal is answered with a rifle shot from the Spaniard's forward deck and the dispatch boat moves forward two lengths, so that she lies fair and square in the announced course of the yacht.

But there are no signs of slackening on the part of the