Through the scuttle Fielding and his companions watched with mingled feelings the boarding and subsequent repulse of the pirates, and as the liner forged ahead the two British officers gave vent to a cheer. But their exultation was nipped in the bud, for Juan Cervillo, wild with fury, ordered the quick-firers to hull the _Duke of Negropont_ between wind and water.
Three shots were sufficient. With an ever-growing list to port the liner sank lower and lower by the stern, her speed grew less and less, till a column of steam issuing amidships showed that the water had entered her engine-room.
Suddenly Cervillo's attention was directed towards a large vessel nearly hull down on the horizon. The look-out aloft reported that it was a four-funnelled craft, with white hull and yellow superstructure. Then the Spaniard realised that he was in a tight corner, for the oncoming vessel was a United States cruiser.
Without waiting to pick up the survivors of the boarding party, he ordered the _Independencia_ to be driven at full speed ahead, and was soon in full flight in a southerly direction.
The cruiser flying the stars and stripes was the _West Virginia_, whose captain had been warned to keep a look-out for a possible encounter with the pirate cruiser _Independencia_, of a supposed speed of twenty-two knots, but in reality doing a bare twenty. Pelting along as hard as her 23,000 horse-power engines could drive her, she was just in time to rescue the survivors of the _Duke of Negropont's_ passengers and crew who had taken to the boats. Ten men of the pirate cruiser were also picked up.
The delay in performing the work of rescue saved the _Independencia_ from capture, and although the _West Virginia_ hung on doggedly in pursuit, and sent off wireless calls for assistance, daylight found the American cruiser alone in a waste of waters, with never so much as a trail of oil from the fugitive ship to indicate her position.
It was a near shave for Juan Cervillo. Not for one instant did he expect to fall in with a cruiser so far from the shores of Florida, and had it not been for a seaman giving a casual glance round, the _West Virginia_ might have approached within range of her 8 in. guns before being discovered. The last venture had failed disastrously. The prize had slipped through his fingers without so much as one ounce of bullion being taken from her. Forty of his men were lost--a serious item--although, as their comrades remarked with callous indifference, there were fewer left to share the booty. Worst of all the United States cruiser would proclaim it far and wide that the pirate ship was on the fringe of West India waters.
