THE CRIMSON ROCKET.

Joan Fordibras is Discovered on the Diamond Ship.

You are to imagine a still sea and a great four-masted sailing ship drifting upon it at the hazard of a summer breeze. The night is intensely dark, and the sky gives veins of mackerel cloud upon a field of slaty blue. Far away, a ring of silver iridescence, low down upon an open horizon, suggests that great inverted bowl within which all ships are ever prisoned from the first day of their sailing to the last. The monster vessel herself is brilliantly lighted from stem to stern. Faintly over the water there comes to us a sound of bibulous song and hilarity. My quick ear catches the note of a piccolo, and upon that of a man’s voice singing not untunefully. I say that there is no discipline whatever upon such a deck; no thought of danger, no fear of discovery. The pillar of light has become a halting mockery. Much is to be dared, much to be won upon such a night.

“Consider”—and this I put to Captain Larry—“they have guns, but who has trained their gunners? Let them fall to artillery practice, and it is two to one they blow up the ship. Even one of Percy Scott’s miracles would make no certainty of such a yacht as this on such a night. We ought to risk it, Captain—we ought to risk it for a woman’s sake.”

Larry was a brave enough man, but, like all his race, a very prudent one.

“If you wish it, sir. But there are the men to think of. Don’t forget the wives and children at home, sir.”

“Did the men so put it, Larry?”

“Bless you, no, sir, they’d swim aboard there if I gave the word.”

I reflected upon it a little while, and it seemed to me that Larry must be right. Accustomed to work alone and to be the arbiter of all risks, I had for the instant forgotten my responsibilities toward those who served me so well. By no necessity to be named, by no duty to humanity or to myself, could I ask these honest fellows to go further with me. Even where we lay, a lucky shot might destroy us. Half a dozen times in as many minutes my heart was in my mouth as the great beam of light marked another point in the heavens or momentarily disappeared. Let them cast its effulgent beams again upon the waste of waters, and assuredly were we discovered. Not alone in the reflection, I could read it also upon the set faces of my friends. A telepathic sense of danger held us mutually entranced. The villains over yonder had made an end of their music. Instinct said that they would search the seas again, and so unmask us.

It is futile, in my opinion, for any writer to attempt to describe the particular sensations, either of exhilaration or of terror, which come to him in moments of great peril. Should he set down the truth, he is named either a boaster or a liar; if he would evade the truth, his story can be but commonplace. To a close friend I would say that when the looked-for event happened, when the rogues at last turned their searchlight upon the waves again, I had no thought at all of the consequences of discovery, but only a fascinating curiosity of the eyes which followed the beam wonderingly, and stood amazed when it passed over us. Vast, monstrous, blazing, the fearful eye of light focussed itself upon us for a terrible instant, and then swept the whole circle of the seas with its blinding beams. Twice, thrice, it went thus, hearts standing still almost as it approached us, leaping again as it passed onward. Then, as surprisingly, it remained fixed upon the further side of the Diamond Ship, and in the same instant, far away to north-west, a crimson rocket cleaved the black darkness of the night, and a shower of gold-red balls burst hoveringly above the desert waters.

“What do you make of that, Larry?”

“Not a signal from any common ship, sir. We don’t use that kind of rocket.”

“’Tis the fourth of July, bedad, or the Crystal Palace that’s flying!” cried Timothy.

“Larry,” said I, “that’s one of their patrols. I rather fancy a man of the name of Colin Ross is aboard her. If so, the Jew is to receive some shocks.”

“I wish to heaven they came by way of a seaman’s arm, sir. Yes, it’s as you say. Yon is a steamer, and here goes the answering rocket.”

He pointed to the sky above the Diamond Ship, ablaze with a spray of vivid green radiance, the answering signal to the distant ship. The nature of our own escape now became quite clear to me. The look-outs over yonder had espied the lights of the relief steamer and had used the searchlight to signal her. The great arcs, the circling beams, were but those preliminary movements with which every operator tries the lantern he is about to use. No eye had followed their aureole, I made sure. We had escaped observation simply because every man aboard yonder vessel had been looking at the incoming steamer, bearing from Europe news which might be of such moment.

“Larry,” I said, jumping at the idea of it; “it’s now or never. Let her go while they are at the parley. I’ll stake my life on it there is no look-out to starboard. Let’s have a look at them when they least expect us.”

“Do you mean to say, sir, that you’ll risk it?”

“There is no risk, Larry—if you don’t delay.”

“I do believe you are right, sir. Here’s for it, anyway, and luck go with us.”

He rang down the order to the engine-room, and we raced straight ahead, not a man uttering a sound, not a light............