"There they are!" The whisper shot through the _Tampico_ like a draft of cold air. Virginia was quivering with excitement. She could see the leading boat as it passed not three hundred yards away, and the next, both spouting flames from their funnels, throwing up water, which fell in silvery, phosphorescent spray--racketing, clawing the restless sea, chugging, hissing with shouts of vengeance hurtling from their decks, First ploughed the flag-ship _El Toro_, next _El Teuera_, and last the "battleship" _El Manuel_, sitting almost on her stern, plugging along doggedly in a Herculean effort to be first in at the death of the presumptuous kidnappers.
It was alarming, too, and the young people, trembling behind their shelter, gave a great sigh of relief as the last avenger passed, and the head of the _Tampico_ swung slowly around in the direction of the harbor. Virginia again turned her eyes to the bridge. The young Captain was standing like a statue, with his hands on the engine-room indicator, jumping the _Tampico_ across the waves under full headway. He was looking back over his shoulder, and the girl, following his gaze, saw to her great trepidation that the flag-ship, _El Toro_, had ceased headway and was lying motionless, as if those aboard her had divined the trick and were pausing a moment for fresh bearings.
Suddenly came a crash of heavy glass; a girl screamed. One of the saloon dead-lights had crashed out, the thick glass rattling down the steel hull to the sea. There was another crash and a yellow glow flared into a bright blaze, illuminating the hull of the shrouded vessel.
"Now they've done it!" cried Oddington. "They have soaked a table-cloth with kerosene; it's all off now! So much for Captain Merrithew's scheme. I--" A voice rang from the bridge.
"Everybody down, quick!" The warning was none too soon, for a second later a rain of lead from the _El Toro_ swept through the top of the funnel. Then with straining engines the gunboat made a swinging detour, with the intention, plain to every one, of heading off the freighter.
The firing was incessant now, and every one of the Howland party, as well as the crew, grovelled flat on the deck and heard lead whistling above. Virginia, glancing at the bridge in an agony of terror, saw the Captain crouching just a trifle, but still at his post. One man, a quarter-master, knelt at the wheel. But she missed her father, and a great dread filled her mind. It was but momentary, however, for Mr. Howland joined the party behind the deck-house.