AROUND the table in the saloon cabin were an incongruous group as the two midshipmen entered. Phil smiled at the sight of Impey in his sailor uniform. There were two strange faces beside O’Neil and Marley; the latter men had risen respectfully upon the entrance of the lads.
“Mr. Impey’s friends,” O’Neil introduced them with a wave of his hand toward Wells and Randall.
Phil inclined his head, while the men thus unceremoniously presented looked half ashamed at being so designated.
“We’re all in for it,” Phil said bravely. “We were discovered by the Japanese battle-ships and will surely be chased by a torpedo boat. If we are overtaken before we clear the bay we’ll be brought back to Yokohama.
“To us that will mean only a failure to thwart the aims of the Japanese,” he added, “but for Mr. Impey and his friends something more serious will be in store.”
Impey’s face appeared pale and worried.
“They can do nothing to me,” he exclaimed, striving to show a bold front. “They can deport me, but I am quite ready to leave Japan.”
“Do you know the penalty, under the Japanese law, for breaking the Emperor’s seal?” Phil asked cruelly. “It’s five years in prison. How the Japanese lieutenant came to permit your two assistants to remain here, I can’t understand, unless they thought they’d be within easy reach. I shall take great pleasure in testifying against the lot of you, unless,” he added, “you stand by us and do all in your power to help us elude the vessel that soon will be in chase of us.”
The midshipman waited quietly for an answer.
“You can count on Wells and me,” Randall returned promptly. “I am in no mood to be introduced to a Japanese prison and a rice diet. If I can shake off the dust of this country nothing less than a Broadway beefsteak will suit me.”
Wells nodded his head and raised a hand in agreement with his companion’s views. Phil’s eyes were on Impey.
“I can’t see why you wanted me to go with you,” Impey said finally, in a petulant voice. “I offered you the yacht and gave you the permit from the Chinese cabinet. Of what further assistance can I be?”
Phil smiled mysteriously.
“I didn’t see the sense of taking only a paper permit when the living permit in the person of the agent for the builders of the ships was available,” he replied pointedly. “However, if you all will agree to obey me implicitly in everything and ask no questions, we shall elude the Japanese. If you don’t agree, then down you go under lock and key in one of the cabins.”
Impey’s lip quivered irritably as he reluctantly gave an assent to Phil’s proposal. His subtle mind was attempting to solve what the midshipmen’s intentions might be. Nothing less, he decided, than to checkmate Captain Inaba and win the Chinese ships for the United States fleet—the course he himself had already outlined.
The “Sylvia” was now tearing through the troubled waters of the bay at almost railroad speed. Her three turbine shafts were revolving at a far greater speed than they ever had before. The Chinese crew in the fire-room were told that their own lives depended upon the outcome of the race—that their old enemies the Japanese were chasing them. Their Oriental minds could not grasp the lack of logic in the warning. They knew that they had been hired for hazardous work, and were being paid a larger salary than they could get anywhere else in the Orient.
“I think we can all safely turn in,” Phil suggested, after O’Neil had returned from a tour of inspection with a report that everything was going finely, and that it was too thick to see more than a mile astern. “If they send a destroyer after us, it can’t overtake us until the morning. It will be a race of wits,” he added, “and not of speed, if a destroyer once gets us in sight, so sleep is what we need to clear our minds.”
The yacht had staterooms for the entire party, and Phil after a short conversation with Captain Bailey, who stuck manfully to the bridge, where he said he would remain all night and would call “all hands” if necessary, lay down in his clothes with a blanket drawn over him and was almost immediately asleep.
It seemed that he had only dozed when a sharp discharge as of a gun awakened him. Quickly jumping up he ran out on deck. A bright flashing search-light was visible on the port beam, and Phil’s heart was in his mouth as he saw a flash of fire and heard the whistle of a shell.
“The forts,” he cried in alarm. “They have been notified to stop us.” He glanced anxiously at the weather. The rain had ceased, and the wind had fallen light, but the air was misty and warmer. The “Sylvia” was rushing by the nearest fort at the speed of an express train. The search-light was now shining on the black hull, and flash after flash told that the fort was in earnest. Phil found his way to the bridge, passing an excited group of frightened Chinese crewmen on his way.
“They’re hitting pretty close, sir,” O’Neil exclaimed as a hissing shell threw a shower of salty spray over the speeding yacht. The boatswain’s mate spoke in a low tone to Captain Bailey, and then quickly disappeared from the bridge, followed by the faithful Marley.
It seemed to the two midshipmen, now standing side by side, entirely exposed to the terrific cannonading, that the next minute must be the yacht’s last. Then, as if by command, the firing ceased, but the search-lights, now three in number, illuminated the “Sylvia’s” trim hull from bow to stern. The fort had drawn aft to the quarter and the range was ever increasing. The point of greatest danger was passed. But what was the meaning of the sudden cessation of fire?
A cry from Sydney caused Phil to glance astern, expecting yet dreading to see the low olive green hull of a destroyer loom out of the night.
“What is it?” he cried in alarm.
Sydney silently pointed; there at the peak floated a large American flag. Then that alone had caused the Japanese to stop their cannonade! Phil was about to order it down, but quicker almost than it takes to tell it the fort disappeared in the mist and the flag fluttered down to the deck.
“That flag certainly talks, Bill,” O’Neil said as the two men walked quietly back to the bridge.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” Phil exclaimed after O’Neil had informed them that he had hoisted the colors. “You’ve advertised that American naval officers are running this yacht. With the present tension between Japan and the United States that flag made the Japanese army officers in the forts hesitate. They thought it might mean war, so they stopped firing.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Perry,” O’Neil returned quickly, “but if I hadn’t hoisted it, or hoisted any other flag, we would have all been swimming for the shore by this time.”
“It will only be a matter of hours now before destroyers will be hunting us from every naval port in Japan,” Phil said disappointedly, as he started again for his cabin and more sleep.
The morning dawned gray and cheerless. The “Sylvia” was steadily steaming to the southward. Great drifts of fog were frequently encountered through which the yacht plunged to emerge again into the semi-misty atmosphere surrounding it.
“We heard them talking last night, sir,” O’Neil announced after breakfast. “I was listening in the wireless room almost all night. Bill Marley and I took down some of the messages, but we can’t read Japanese,” he added.
“The Japanese navy uses our letters, but doubtless their messages are in cipher,” Phil returned as he took the penciled records from O’Neil, glancing at them carelessly. Impey stood near by apparently much interested. The lad handed the papers to him, a questioning look in his face.
“I can’t read them,” Impey said after a minute’s study. “Hello, here’s one not in cipher,” he exclaimed, scanning a sheet more closely.
The midshipmen waited impatiently. Phil could barely suppress a doubting smile as there came into his thoughts the garbled manner in which Impey had given the ambassador the contents of the lost document. Could they depend now upon his rendering of this mysterious aerial message? Impey again scanned the paper, apparently in deep thought.
“My knowledge of Japanese is limited,” he said finally, his eyes still on the paper. “But roughly this message directs that all vessels in this vicinity search for us and hold us.”
Phil nodded his head. There was no harm in believing that.
Steadily the yacht reeled off the miles over a sea that was becoming smoother now every hour. The air had become heavier and the rifts of fog were being encountered more frequently.
“It’s only a forlorn hope, Syd,” Phil exclaimed sorrowfully as the two leaned over the after rail, their eyes on the horizon to the north. “We are probably making twenty-three knots an hour, but a destroyer is good for at least thirty. I am afraid we were too hasty in our plans.”
Sydney was silent. Far astern above the low fog a dark smudge had caught his eye.
“Smoke!” he cried out dejectedly. “If the fog would only shut in to stay!”
Phil called for a spy-glass, and looked long and eagerly at the dark mass hanging above a distant fog bank. The sailors and Impey, seeing that something was in the wind, had joined the lads, and all eyes were peering at the dreaded signs of a chasing vessel.
They were not left long in doubt. From out of the mass of fog bank a dark speck suddenly became visible, and before their eyes it grew until a four funneled destroyer stood clearly outlined. A white line of foam at its bow told of its great speed, and it was heading directly for the yacht.
“There’s an end to all our hopes,” Phil exclaimed sadly. “We can’t fight her, for we have no guns, and if we fought and lost they could treat us as pirates and swing us at the yard-arm.”
A flash from the bow of the destroyer followed by a hissing splash astern told of the newcomer’s invitation to “heave to” and “be spoken.”
“O’Neil, tell Captain Bailey to stop and wait,” Phil ordered dejectedly. “We can’t afford to run risks. These Japanese know how to shoot, I am told.”
The “Sylvia” very soon lay dead in the water, steam pouring from her escape pipes, while a gangway was quickly rigged and the midshipmen stood ready to meet the officer who they knew would soon pay them a visit.
The destroyer drew rapidly up on the motionless vessel, and was soon stopped alongside, rolling deeply in the swell, scarcely a hundred yards away. Phil with rapidly beating heart saw a small dinghy dropped from the destroyer’s boat davit and, with an officer in the stern sheets, pull quickly alongside the yacht’s gangway.
His face fell as he saw the officer was no other than Lieutenant Takishima. Here were more complications. Takishima knew only too accurately the midshipmen’s plans, for had they not invited him to share them?
The midshipmen were in civilian’s clothes, and Takishima with a studied official manner looked past them seeking some one in authority to whom he might address himself.
“I am sorry to inconvenience you,” he said, his eyes on Impey, the one whom he took to be in authority. “My orders are to convey you back to Yokohama. You sailed without clearing from the port authorities, and you refused to stop when challenged by the forts.”
“We are on the high seas,” Impey replied quickly. “You have no right to detain us. By the law of nations except in time of war that flag protects us from such a high-handed proceeding.” He pointed to the British ensign, which had been run up to the gaff when the destroyer was first sighted.
Takishima glanced aloft and a sphinx-like smile appeared upon his upturned face.
“Last night you flew a different one,” he said calmly. “Are you under the protection of both governments? Maybe between times you carry the black flag of a pirate.”
Impey bit his lips, at loss for an answer.
“Just a mistake,” he replied hesitatingly.
Phil had from a distance observed his Japanese friend. After he had ignored the midshipmen’s presence and addressed himself to Impey, the lad had backed away, but kept just within ear-shot. He saw that Takishima was armed with a revolver, and knew that each man of the waiting boat’s crew also was armed. The destroyer had now ranged close alongside, and he could read the interest in the faces of its crew, so close was it. The mist was beginning slowly to shut down; a warm south wind had sprung up, and in contact with the cold sea-water was giving up its moisture in fog. O’Neil stood at the gangway, the boat-line in his hand to which the small boat was holding. There seemed no possible loophole of escape.
“I shall put some of our sailors on board,” Takishima said, turning toward the gangway, and then for the first time addressing Phil. “Will you come back with me to the destroyer ‘Hatsuke’? I can land you somewhere, and you and your friends can return to Yokohama by train without publicity.”
Tears of mortification stood in Phil’s eyes. His plans had miscarried. He bowed his acknowledgment to Takishima for his consideration. In being landed he and his companions would escape the disgrace of returning in the seized “Sylvia.”
Takishima raised his voice and hailed the “Hatsuke.” An answer quickly came back, and the water was churned to foam as the destroyer shot ahead, turning with port helm. Phil understood that Takishima had ordered the officer in command to come alongside the yacht in order to transfer passengers. While all eyes watched the graceful lines of the fleet craft, suddenly, as if a curtain had been dropped, the “Hatsuke” dissolved from sight. Acting upon an impulse as daring as it was sudden, Phil grasped the duplicate engine telegraph near the mainmast, and rang up full speed ahead. No word was spoken, but as the yacht forged ahead, O’Neil threw overboard the life-line to which Takishima’s boat was made fast. The men in the boat gazed up in startled surprise, but O’Neil waved his hand in the direction the destroyer had disappeared, and almost at once the boat had drifted astern and out of sight in the fog.
Takishima was completely taken by surprise. His hand went quickly to his revolver, but Sydney’s iron grip on his wrist prevented him from drawing it from its holster, while Phil’s revolver peered into his angered face.
“It’s our turn now, Taki; be game!” Phil exclaimed. “This gun isn’t loaded, and I wouldn’t shoot you if it were. It’s only a figure of speech; but if you try to draw I’ll wrestle you for your gun, and I am a lot bigger than you are and have a few friends to help me.”
Takishima wrenched himself angrily away, and the next minute his brightly polished revolver was held at Phil’s head, and it was only too plain from the light in his eyes that he would not hesitate to use it.