Our American captain was a tough-looking fellow, of bull-dog type, and full of humorous remarks concerning the fugitives.
I recollected what Lola had told me in regard to her uncle's wireless experiments with a friend of his in Genoa. Yes. Finding themselves pressed by us they, no doubt, intended to land at that port. How devoutly we all wished that their engines would break down entirely. But that was not likely in a boat of her powerful description. Yet something was, undoubtedly, interfering with her speed.
The second day passed much as the first. We were already within sight of the rocky coast near Toulon, and in the track of the liners passing up and down between Port Said and Gib'. We passed two P. and O. mail steamers, and a yellow-funnelled North German Lloyd homeward bound from China. Still we kept at our enemies' heels like a terrier, though the seas were heavy off the coast, and a strong wind was blowing.
Fournier suffered from sea-sickness, so did Mr. Veale's second daughter, but we kept doggedly on, snatching hasty meals and performing the monotonous, soul-killing work of stoking. The run was as hard a strain as ever had been put upon the engines of the _Viking_, and I knew that the engineer was in hourly dread of their breaking down under it.
If she did, then all our efforts would be in vain.
So he alternately nursed them, and urged them along through the long, angry waves which had now arisen.
Another long and weary night passed, and again we both steamed along with all lights out, a dangerous proceeding now that we were right in the track of the shipping. Then, when morning broke, we found we were off the yellow Ligurian coast, close to Savona, and heading, as our captain had predicted, for Genoa. The race became fiercely contested. We stood on deck full of excitement. Even Fournier shook off his sea-sickness.
Soon the high, square lighthouse came into view through the haze, and we then put on all the speed of which we were capable in a vain endeavour to get closer to the fugitives. But again the black smoke trailed out upon the horizon, and suddenly rounding the lighthouse, they were lost to view.
At last we, too, rounded the end of the Mole, and entered the harbour where the _Carlo Alberta_ had moored three-quarters of an hour earlier. Fournier instantly invoked the aid of the dock police and, with them, we boarded the vessel, only, alas! to find that its owner and his English guest had landed and left, leaving orders to the captain to proceed to Southampton.
