low until this affair is settled--if you will be so kind,"
he added, with a bow to Lady Olivia as she passed in through the
pilot-house door, outside which he was standing.

When all the rest had entered, he followed, closing the door behind him,
and at once ascended to the working chamber of the pilot-house, whither
Sir Reginald and Lethbridge had preceded him. His first act was to
increase the speed of the _Flying Fish_ to thirty knots; and as he moved
the lever forward, admitting a larger flow of vapour to the
engine-cylinders, Lethbridge, who was standing at one of the windows,
with his binoculars to his eyes, turned and said--

"What do you think of that, Mildmay?"

"What do I think of what?" retorted Mildmay, stepping to his side.

"That!" answered Lethbridge, pointing to the pursuing ship and handing
over his glasses for the other to use. "The unknown has just hoisted to
her masthead a black flag with a white skull and cross-bones in its
centre. Is not that--?"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Mildmay. "You surely do not mean it. Let me have
a look."

He raised the glasses to his eyes for a moment and stared through them
as though he felt that he could scarcely credit the evidence of his own
senses. Then, as he thrust the glasses back into his friend's hand, he
exclaimed--

"The `Jolly Roger,' as I am a living sinner! Well, that `takes the
cake,' and no mistake! Yes; the fellow is undoubtedly a genuine,
up-to-date, twentieth-century pirate. If it had not been for that last
shot I might have been inclined to believe the whole affair an elaborate
joke in the very worst taste; but a man does not shoot another fellow's
mast away as a joke. No; that chap means business--and so do _I_! Ah,
another shot! and--yes, here it comes--he is firing at us! Not at all
badly aimed, either."

As he spoke the loud rushing sound of the shot broke upon their ears;
and a moment later it struck the sea about three yards astern of the
_Flying Fish_, sending a column of white, steam-like foam and spray
shooting some twenty feet into the air. Almost instantly another shot
followed, which, judging from the sound, must have passed close over the
pilot-house roof; to be followed, a few seconds later, by a third, which
struck the water within a fathom of the ship's sharp nose, which was
just level with the water's surface, and, owing to the speed of the
ship, was sending up a fine, perpendicular jet of glassy water some ten
feet