ound for Liverpool.

In either case it was most undesirable that the yacht should be
overhauled again. Any mishap to her, even a lengthy delay, might have
the most serious consequences. A single unlucky shell exploding in
her engine-room would disable her, and perhaps change the future
history of the world.

Tremayne therefore altered her course a little more to the northward,
thus increasing the distance between her and the stranger, and at the
same time ordered the engineer to keep up the utmost head of steam,
and get the last possible yard out of her.

The alteration in her course appeared to be instantly detected by the
warship, for she at once swerved off more to the westward, and
brought herself dead astern of the _Lurline_. She was now near enough
for Tremayne to see that she was a large cruiser, and attended by a
brace of torpedo-boats, which were running along one under each of
her quarters, like a couple of dogs following a hunter.

There was now no doubt but that, whatever her nationality, she was
bent on overhauling the yacht, if possible, and the dense volumes of
smoke that were pouring out of her funnels told Tremayne that she was
stoking up vigorously for the chase.

By this time she was about seven miles away, and the _Lurline_, her
twin screws beating the water at their utmost speed, and every plate
in her trembling under the vibration of her engines, rushed through
the water faster than she had ever done since the day she was
launched. As far as could be seen, she was holding her own well in
what had now become a dead-on stern chase.

Still the stranger showed no flag, and though Tremayne could hardly
believe that a hostile cruiser and a couple of torpedo-boats would
venture so near to the ground occupied by the British battle-ships,
the fact that she showed no colours looked at the best suspicious.
Determined to settle the question, if possible, one way or the other,
he ran up the ensign of the Royal Yacht Squadron.

This brought no reply from the cruiser, but a column of bluish-white
smoke shot up a moment later from the funnels of one of the
torpedo-boats, telling that she had put on the forced draught, and,
like a greyhound slipped from the leash, she began to draw away from
the big ship, plunging through the long rollers, and half-burying
herself in the foam that she threw up from her bows.

Tremayne knew that there were some of these viperish little craft in
the French navy that could b