, the perplexed and astounded Spanish
lieutenant, still ignorant of what had happened, made up his mind to go
back to see what the English ship was about, and, ordering his helm to
be put hard over, rang down to his engine-room for "full speed ahead".
Then the furious racing of his engines, as steam was admitted into the
cylinders, revealed the ghastly truth that he had lost his propeller and
was absolutely helpless, with the nearest land fully forty miles away.
He rushed from the bridge down into the tiny engine-room, to consult
with and explosively reprimand the engineers for permitting such a
mishap to occur; and at length, when his vexation had worked itself off,
returned to the deck and gave orders for signals of distress to be made,
by means of rockets, to the English yacht. But by that time the
_Thetis_ had vanished in the darkness; nor did she re-appear, although
the unfortunate lieutenant expended his entire stock of rockets in a
vain attempt to attract her attention.

CHAPTER FIVE.

HIS SPANISH MAJESTY'S GUNBOAT TIBURON.

Meanwhile the saloon party on board the _Thetis_, having comfortably
bestowed themselves in capacious basket chairs under the awning on the
top of the deck-house when the yacht got under way, watched with mingled
interest and amusement the strenuous pursuit of their own vessel by the
Spanish torpedo boat; and when at length Milsom gave the order for the
yacht's engines to be first stopped and then sent astern, they with one
accord rose to their feet and brought their glasses to bear upon the
torpedo boat, intent upon seeing what would next happen. For although
darkness had by this time fallen, the night was beautifully fine and
clear, and the mellow lustre of the innumerable stars shed a soft light
upon the scene that enabled the watchers, with the aid of their powerful
night glasses, to perceive with very tolerable distinctness whatever
might happen within so short a distance as a quarter of a mile, or even
twice as far. Presently Jack spoke.

"She has stopped, I think," he said; "at all events I can no longer
distinguish the phosphorescent wake made by her propeller; and if that
is the case we shall have no more trouble from her. Of course it would
have been easy enough for us to have made this pursuit impossible, by
removing her propeller when we were working at it yesterday; but the
thought occurred to me that, had we done so, the removal might have been
discovered, and in tha