if he got a chance."

"I would sink him before he got the chance, rather than after he had
picked you up," persisted the captain.

"I doubt if that would be a prudent measure," replied Louis, shaking his
head.

"The pirate has changed her course to the southward," said Felix, coming
to the window of the pilot-house again.

"What does that mean?" demanded the captain.

"It means that she is going to make a port at Rosetta."

"She is about off the Rosetta mouth of the Nile; but she is doing that
only to shake off the Guardian-Mother. What is the ship doing, Flix?"

"She continues on her course, and takes no notice of the pirate;" and
the lookout returned to his station.

Captain Scott rang the gong in the engine-room, and the screw of the
Maud immediately ceased to revolve. The sea was comparatively smooth,
and the little steamer rolled on the waves but slightly. As soon as the
screw stopped, and the little craft began to roll on the long swell,
Morris Woolridge put aside the "Chambers's" in which he had been reading
up Assyria and Babylon, and went out of the cabin into the
standing-room. He looked about him to ascertain the cause of the
stoppage; but he could make nothing of it.

He was a good skipper himself, and he did not like to ask Captain Scott
to explain the situation; for since he had gone into the cabin the
relative positions of the three steamers had decidedly changed. His idea
was that the Maud should follow the ship as usual; but she had dropped
at least a couple of miles astern of her, and the Fatime was headed to
the southward. He could not understand the matter at all, and he
continued to study upon it.

Louis had come out of the pilot-house, and, looking aft, he discovered
Morris, and saw that he was perplexed by the situation, and that Assyria
was no longer the subject of his meditations.

"Morris is in the standing-room, and I have no doubt he is wondering why
we are wasting our steam just here, when the ship is going ahead at full
speed," said he to the captain. "Don't you think the time has come?"

"No doubt of it," answered the captain.

These last remarks may seem a little mysterious; but the present
situation had been foreseen by Captain Ringgold. Morris was the first
officer, and if the momentous secret was to be kept from him any longer,
it would require an amount of lying and deception which was utterly
repugnant to the principles of both the commander and Louis. The
representa