h his brain, but he realized that
to attempt a long explanation by signals was not only out of the
question, but could not fail to attract the attention of passengers on
board the _Ganges_. This he did not desire to do. Quick as lightning, he
decided that by some inexplicable means the Scotland Yard detective had
reached Marseilles full of the knowledge that Dubois and the diamonds
were _en route_ to Sicily, and had also learnt that he, Brett, and the
others were on board the _Blue-Bell_.

He had evidently taken the speediest means of reaching the island, and
found himself on board the same ship as Gros Jean and the Turks. Hence
he had approached the captain with the request that the _Blue-Bell_
should be signalled.

"What shall we answer?" said Daubeney, breaking in upon the barrister's
train of thought.

"Oh, say that the signal is fully understood."

Whilst the answering flags were being displayed Daubeney asked--

"What does it all mean?"

"It means," said Brett, "that if the _Blue-Bell_ has another yard of
speed in her engines we shall need it all. It perhaps will make no
material difference in the long run, but as a mere matter of pride I
should like to reach Palermo before Gros Jean. If I remember rightly,
Palermo is six hours from Messina by rail. Can we do it?"

"Mac" was again consulted. Of course he would not commit himself.

"We will try damned ha-r-rd," he said.

And with this emphatic resolve the _Blue-Bell_ sped onwards through the
sunlit sea until, late in the evening, the _Ganges_ was hull down on her
quarter.

Macpherson came on deck to take a last look at the P. and O.

"It will be a gr-reat race," he announced, "and I may have to kill a
stoker. But----"

Then he dived below again.

So rapidly did the _Blue-Bell_ speed over the inland sea that as night
fell over the face of the waters on the second day out from Marseilles
the look-out forrard announced "a light on the starboard bow," and
Daubeney, after scrutinizing it through his binoculars and consulting a
chart, announced it to be the occulting light on Cape San Vito.

This discovery occasioned a slight alteration in the course. The
_Blue-Bell_ ran merrily on until the small hours of the morning, when
everybody on board was suddenly awakened by the stoppage of the screw.

This is always a disturbing incident at sea when people are asleep.
Travellers not inured to the incidents of ocean voyaging cannot help
conjuring up vivid pict