Cruisers, scouts, and destroyers were despatched, and, spreading fanwise, scoured the Atlantic from Rockall to the Azores; but somehow or other the filibustered ship escaped detection. Then came the news of the holding up of _L'Égalité_, which, according to the French captain's report, had taken place within twenty miles of the British cruiser _Khartoum_.
The immediate result of this affair was that a squadron of fast cruisers and a flotilla of destroyers left Brest to join in the hounding-down of the _Independencia_. The Spanish Government, eager to lay hands upon the notorious anarchist, also despatched two cruisers and four destroyers; so that there was the keenest rivalry between the various nations engaged in the enterprise as to who should have the honour of laying the running and desperate Juan Cervillo by the heels.
All concerned realised that the business must of necessity be a peculiar one, for Drake had reported how the hostages from the _Yosen Maru_, as well as his own officers who had been trapped, were utilised as screens to prevent the _Independencia_ from being sunk by gun fire. There were three alternatives: either to overhaul and board the pirate vessel, a feat that could only be accomplished on a calm day, and with the _Independencia_ compelled to heave-to; or to sink the offender by torpedoes, trusting that the pirates would cut their hostages adrift ere the ship sunk; or else to dog her so tenaciously that, unable to capture any more liners or tramps, she would be compelled to haul down the red flag through sheer starvation.
The British Admiralty decided to adopt the last alternative, and orders were given that once the _Independencia_ was sighted, all cruisers and destroyers within a certain radius were to be summoned by wireless, and form a close cordon around the modern buccaneer.
All merchant ships fitted with wireless were informed of this new terror of the seas, and requested to "speak" with other vessels not so equipped, as well as to transmit news of the appearance of any suspicious craft answering to the _Independencia's_ description, so that aid could be quickly forthcoming from the nearest warships. Yet in spite of these precautions the officers of the trans-atlantic liners and tramps had an anxious time. Never had the deck officers kept such a keen look-out, especially at night, when the pirate, steaming without navigation lights, might at any moment loom through the darkness and peremptorily order her prey to heave-to.