Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/326

 latter, and her black hull looks threatening indeed to the officers of the dispatch boat.

Caramba! Surely she will not run down the royal vessel! Yet it looks very like it! But they will not dare! Still—the Spanish commander hesitates no longer. He signals his vessel to back at full speed.

Too late!

The Pizarro has moved less than half a length when the American yacht crashes into her. There is a grinding shock that brings Louise Hathaway in terror to the deck of the Semiramis, and then the yacht continues on her course, apparently unharmed. Van Zandt catches a glimpse of a great jagged hole in the bow of the Spaniard, into which the water is pouring in a cataract; of a panic-stricken crew rushing frantically for the boats; and then he turns to Miss Hathaway. It is nothing, he assures her tenderly; a slight collision, but the yacht is all right and perhaps she had better return to her state-room for the present. Later on—and Louise smiles, a little sadly, but permits Van Zandt to conduct her to the saloon.

Capt. Beals is awaiting Van Zandt as the latter bounds up the steps a minute later. "We are badly stove forward," he reports, "and are making water quite rapidly. With the steam pumps going, we may keep afloat three or four hours, but the yacht is doomed."

Van Zandt is so startled at the news that for a moment he is speechless. His eyes rove back to the Spanish warship, and then at the nearly perpendicular cliffs by which the Semiramis is steaming.

He looks for the dispatch boat, but it is not in sight. "The Spaniard?" he inquires, mechanically.

"Gone to the bottom," laconically replies the captain.

"Then there is no hope for us but to keep on and try to land by the boats somewhere on the coast," Van Zandt says. "The Spaniards will treat us all as enemies, now that we have sunk one of their boats. How long can we keep up this speed?"

"Perhaps an hour, perhaps more. The water will put out the fires."