armed, Phil; you have only to cause her to stop her
engines, and you will see what will happen."

"Then," said Milsom, as he laid his hand upon the bridge telegraph and
signalled "Full speed ahead", "we will entice her a bit farther out to
sea before we do anything more. If she runs out of sight of the
anchorage before breaking down we shall get a nice little start, and
shall probably not be interfered with for the rest of the trip. Ah,
there is the edge of the bank ahead of us!" as a line of demarcation
between the pale, greenish-blue water over the reef and the deep-blue
water beyond it became visible. "Let her go off to due south," to the
quartermaster at the wheel; "we'll try to persuade them that we are
bound for Havana!"

"A stern chase is a long chase", especially when one craft has five or
six miles start of the other, and the pursuing craft has only a single
knot's--or perhaps not quite so much as that--advantage in speed; it was
consequently not until the brief dusk was deepening into darkness, and
the great mellow stars were leaping into view in the rapidly deepening
azure of the sky, that, the _Thetis_ being by that time about midway
between Key West and Havana, Milsom rang down to the engine-room for
half speed, and allowed the torpedo boat to range up abreast of the
yacht. This she did at a distance of about a quarter of a mile, without
making any attempt to speak to or interfere with the English vessel,
merely slowing down to regulate her pace to that of the yacht. Then
Milsom spoke down through the voice tube, ordering the engines to be
first stopped, and then to go slowly, but at a gradually increasing
speed, astern, by which means he quite expected to induce the commander
of the torpedo boat to stop. The result was everything that could have
been desired, for as soon as the Spaniard realised that he was running
ahead of the yacht in the most unaccountable way, he stopped his engines
and waited patiently for the other vessel to overtake him, his propeller
doubtless slipping off the tail-shaft and going to the bottom at the
instant of the stopping of the engines. But while the torpedo boat,
deprived of the drag of her propeller, continued to forge strongly ahead
under the impetus of her own momentum, the _Thetis_ was even more
rapidly widening the distance between herself and the torpedo boat by
going full speed astern, until, when the two craft were separated by
some three miles of heaving water