it was a month later. the goalong was six hours out of hamilton, bermuda, bound for newport news. the time was something after six o’clock in the evening, and the sun had just sunk below the horizon, thirteen miles away. the season was the first week in september—a month during which few if any tourists ever think of visiting the bermudas.
but maxwell kane had for many years been in the habit of spending a week or two of the summer season in hamilton, because having, on one occasion, visited the place by accident at that time of the year, he had discovered that the statement frequently made by the permanent residents of the place that bermuda was much pleasanter in the summer than in the winter was true.
ever since that knowledge was impressed upon him he had not lost a season of rest there, away from the hurly-burly of new york, away from the heat of gotham, which is infinitely greater than among the islands—but, above all, away from people.
this particular day had been one of exceptional beauty, and the evening promised to excel it. the ocean was as nearly calm as it ever is, and only the long, heavy rollers, which seafaring men have named “dead swells,” suggested that such things as violent storms ever visited that portion of the world.
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and these swells were so far apart, so regular in their motion and so devoid of even a ripple to mar their mirror-like aspect, that the yacht seemed scarcely to feel them at all, but met them and sailed over them with the grace and ease of a living thing.
seated under the awning on the after-deck were four people, three of whom were women, for maxwell kane had left men out of his plans for that trip. he liked to take his annual trip to bermuda without men of his own class around him; and so it happened that the passengers aboard his yacht numbered merely his wife, his wife’s sister, who was miss bessie harlan, and mrs. starkweather, who was their mother.
“i do not see why you do not make directly for new york, max,” his wife had said to him when the anchor was weighed, and all preparations were made for their start, and he had replied that newport news was nearer, and that he was going to north carolina himself for the early shooting. “from there,” he added, “you and bessie, with your mother, can return home by rail, if you like, or you can remain on the yacht and go where you please.”
and now they were six hours out from hamilton; the sun had dropped out of sight, and the evening was upon them. bessie harlan left the low wicker chair in which she had been seated and walked forward along the deck. suddenly she paused and shaded her eyes with one hand, while she gazed steadily at some object she had discovered off the starboard bow.
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“max, come here,” she called, and her brother-in-law rose lazily from his chair and strolled over beside her.
“hello!” he said, before she could call his attention to the object which had attracted her. “you have discovered a sail, haven’t you?”
“hardly a sail,” she replied. “what a strange-looking craft it is.”
maxwell kane started. then he raised his voice and shouted:
“forward, there!”
“aye, aye, sir!”
“what do you make of that craft off the starboard bow, captain?” he asked of his skipper, who now walked aft to join them.
“well, sir,” replied the skipper slowly, “if you had asked me that question a month ago—which would be about the time we had to do with a fellow of about that cut, wasn’t it?—i should have replied that i thought she was a very good copy of the shadow, sir.”
“the shadow!” gasped bessie, turning a startled gaze upon the skipper, and then removing it to max. “do you mean the pirate? do you mean captain sparkle?”
kane laughed aloud, although a close observer might have detected a note of uneasiness in his merriment.
“captain sparkle is in sing sing, bess,” he said.
“he was in sing sing when we left new york for bermuda,” she replied.
“that craft there certainly does look like the shadow,” muttered the skipper. “she’s bearing down upon us, too,[115] and coming with the swiftness of the thing she’s named after.”
“sparkle couldn’t have escaped,” said max uneasily; “and if he had done so, he could not very well have repossessed himself of the shadow, could he?”
“i can’t rightly answer that question, mr. kane,” replied the skipper. “you see, sir, i don’t know any more about it than you do, seeing that i’ve been with you all the time, and that we left new york so soon after the capture of the pirate and his wonderful vessel, i don’t even know what was done with the shadow. she was libeled, wasn’t she?”
“blessed if i know,” replied kane. “there was a whole lot of red tape about the disposition of her, and i didn’t remain around to find out how it did turn out. the westchester county authorities claimed her; the new york police claimed her, and the united states district attorney claimed her. the last i knew of her, she was in charge of an inspector of the treasury department, and nobody seemed to know what would be done with her eventually.”
bessie harlan had remained very quiet during this discussion, but now she interrupted:
“you have forgotten one thing, max,” she said.
“well, what?”
“you have forgotten the count.”
“oh, blast the count!” was the somewhat savage rejoinder.
“all the same,” continued bessie, “the count escaped, did he not?”
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“escaped! i should say he did. not a sign of him was seen after nick carter, with his assistant chick and myself, captured sparkle and the shadow.”
“then you may depend upon it,” she said, “that the count of cadillac has managed somehow to repossess himself of the shadow. it was his craft as much as his brother’s, was it not?”
“i suppose so.”
“and, as a matter of fact, you never did know which of the brothers was the real count, and which was the genuine captain sparkle, did you?”
“no; i’m in doubt if they knew themselves apart, let alone the possibility of a third person being wise about it.”
the eyes of all three were still fixed upon the approaching vessel, which was now not more than half a mile away.
“don’t you think we had better run for it?” asked bessie now.
kane laughed.
“why, bess,” he said, “if that craft is the shadow, we would have about as much chance of running away from her as a snail would have in a foot-race with a rabbit.
“and it is the shadow, too. i recognize her now, all right.”
“what shall you do, max?” asked bessie anxiously.
“do? nothing. what is there to do?”
“are you going to let that pirate board you, and do as he pleases with you, without offering the slightest resistance?”
“eh? look here, bess. in the first place, we do not[117] know that he is a pirate, and the chances are about a thousand to one that he is not. the last we knew about the vessel—that is, the last i knew about her, was that she was captured, that her captain and crew were all sent to prison, and that she was herself as much a prisoner as any of her former crew.”
“and yet we see her now, directly in front of us, and bearing down upon us as if she meant business. max, haven’t you got any revolvers or guns aboard?”
“why, yes; there are two or three, i imagine.”
“i’ve got one,” said the skipper. “the mate has another.”
“and, max, you have got two. wait; i will get them.”
she was gone in an instant, and presently she reappeared with a revolver in either hand. one of these she gave to her brother-in-law, retaining the other one herself.
the skipper, who had gone to possess himself of his own weapon, and also to call the mate to his side, reappeared at the same instant; and kane’s wife and her mother, having discovered that something out of the ordinary was happening, left their seats under the awning and added themselves to the group.
in the meantime the shadow had drawn much nearer, and she had now changed her course so that she would lie directly across the bow of the goalong, a maneuver which kane remembered as one which was a favorite with her commander. and now, too, the sharp crack of a rifled gun came to their ears from the deck of the[118] stranger, and a vaporlike smoke, which ascended from amidships, told them as plainly as words could have done that it proceeded from the turret, where they knew there had formerly been a machine gun located.
“what is it?” asked mrs. kane of her husband; but it was the skipper who replied.
“it’s the pirate, ma’am,” he said. “it’s the shadow. perhaps you’ll remember her, for this isn’t the first time we’ve been afoul of her. and that there gun from her amidships turret is an order for us to slow down and lay to. now, mr. kane, what shall i do? shall i obey it, or shall i go right along as if nothing had happened?”
kane had entirely recovered his composure. he was thoroughly master of himself, now that he knew an emergency was at hand.
he turned coolly, and faced his skipper.
“you will keep going ahead at full speed, just as long as the wheel will turn,” he said. “and, mr. manning, i wish you would call down to the engine and fire rooms and give orders to crowd her to the limit. if that fellow gets aboard of me he will have to do it on the fly, i can tell you that.”
“it’s more than likely that his next cartridge won’t be a blank,” said manning.
“i don’t care if it is loaded with dynamite; i won’t stop now till i’m obliged to,” was kane’s reply.
then he turned to his wife, who was standing beside him.
“cora,” he said, “you and bessie and your mother will have to go below. more than likely there will be[119] bullets coming aboard of us before we are many minutes older, and i don’t want you people here to get hit.”
“cora and mama can do as they like,” said bessie harlan, replying as if kane had addressed his remark to her, “but you don’t catch me going below, maxwell kane.
“i’d much rather be up here where i can see things than to go down there and never know a thing about what is happening.”
“but, bess, you’ll be—— there! look there!”
a half-dozen sharp reports, one following another with great rapidity, came from the deck of the shadow at that instant, and at least three of the half-pound shot fired from the machine gun knocked splinters out of the woodwork forward, and one of them went through the wheel-house and clipped off one of the spokes as deftly as if it had been a ninepin.
“that looks like business, mr. kane,” said manning coolly.
“yes,” replied max. “that chap means business. there is no doubt of that. hello! what is he going to do now? sheer off, do you think?”
“no; he’s up to some new deviltry. forward, there, at the wheel!” called the skipper.
“aye, aye, sir.”
“lay her off two more points to port.”
“aye, aye, sir; off she goes.”
“the pirate is coming about, now, mr. kane,” said the skipper, then. “i think i can tell you what her game is now.”
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“well, what is it?”
“why, sir, that pirate fellow means to run up alongside of us. the shadow is enough faster than we are for him to do that with ease, and with this smooth sea it will be like running a baby-farm. when he has done that, he’ll either make fast to us and board us, or he’ll riddle us with those half-pound shot at his leisure, sir.”
