because she's
steaming fast."

Dick nodded, for he had marked the mass of foam that curled and broke
away beneath the vessel's bow, but Jake resumed: "It looks as if her
dynamo had stopped. There's nothing to be seen but her navigation lights
and she's certainly a passenger boat. They generally glitter like a
gin-saloon."

The ship was getting close now and Dick, who asked for the glasses,
examined her carefully as she came up, foreshortened, on their quarter.
Her dark bow looked very tall and her funnel loomed, huge and shadowy,
against the sky. Above its top the masthead light shed a yellow glimmer,
and far below, the sea leapt and frothed about the line of hull. This
drew out and lengthened as she came abreast of them, but now he could see
the tiers of passenger decks, one above the other, there was something
mysterious in the gloom that reigned on board. No ring of light pierced
her long dark side and the gangways behind the rails and rows of
stanchions looked like shadowy caves. In the open spaces, forward and
aft, however, bodies of men were gathered, their clothes showing faintly
white, but they stood still in a compact mass until a whistle blew and
the indistinct figures scattered across the deck.

"A big crew," Jake remarked. "Guess they've been putting them through a
boat or fire drill."

Dick did not answer, but when the vessel faded into a hazy mass ahead he
started the engine and steered into her eddying wake, which ran far back
into the dark. Then after a glance at the compass, he beckoned Jake.
"Look how she's heading."

Jake told him and he nodded. "I made it half a point more to port, but
this compass swivels rather wildly. Where do you think she's bound?"

"To Santa Brigida; but, as you can see, not direct. I expect her skipper
wants to take a bearing from the Adexe lights. You are going there and
her course is the same as ours."

"No," said Dick; "I'm edging in towards the land rather short of Adexe.
As we have the current on our bow, I want to get hold of the beach as
soon as I can, for the sake of slacker water. Anyway, a big boat would
keep well clear of the shore until she passed the Tajada reef."

"Then she may be going into Adexe for coal."

"That vessel wouldn't float alongside the wharf, and her skipper would
sooner fill his bunkers where he'd get passengers and freight."

"Well, I expect we'll find her at Santa Brigida when we arrive."

They looked round, but the sea was now dar