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"Which is it," he asked, "us or them?" The Young Doctor was staring up at the masthead of the Flagship. A tangle of flags appeared above the bridge-screen. "I can't read 'em," he said. "Which is it? Translate, someone, for pity's sake." The crew of the Flagship's boat, lying abreast of them a few yards away, answered the question. They turned towards their late adversaries and began clapping.
On they rushed through space, their speed ever mounting. Suddenly there seemed to leap out of nowhere another mass of shining machines that flew swiftly beside them. Like some strange, shining ghosts, these ships seemed to materialize instantly beside and behind their fleet. They fell in quickly in their allotted position behind the Flagship's squadron.
The side was then piped, and Riveros came on board, to the accompaniment of the flagship's band and a crashing salute from the other vessels in the harbour. Upon his arrival on board he immediately went below to his cabin and sent for his captain, with whom he was in close conference for about an hour.
In a few minutes she would be beyond the circle of light thrown by the flagship's brazier of fire, and would be in safety; but she was not to escape so easily. The Blanco Encalada's gunners carefully laid their machine- guns on the craft, and opened a furious fire upon her.
Amid the commiseration of his friends, among whom was, of course, Terence O'Meara, Jim, together with other sick men from the flagship's crew, was put into a steam-launch and conveyed to the gunboat, from the deck of which he watched, half an hour later, while comfortably seated in a deck-chair, the departure of the Chilian squadron, consisting of the Blanco Encalada, Almirante Cochrane, O'Higgins, Chacabuco, Magellanes, and Abtao, the last-named being filled with combustibles so that she might serve, if necessary, as a fire-ship.
The Flagship's boat had increased her lead to half a length ahead of her two consorts: the Young Doctor's crew held her neck and neck. Then the Young Doctor cleared his dry throat and spoke with the tongues of men and fallen angels. He coaxed and encouraged, he adjured and abused them stroke by stroke towards their goal.
Of course, we did not know all this till afterwards; but we could see the poor little temporary flagship's battered state, as she swung all abroad across the sullen, dark-flowing river, now seemingly red with blood from the flashes of the guns, whose murderous roar rent the air each moment, sweeping down our comrades and laying them mangled and bleeding on the deck, every time we heard the sound.
The spare oar shipped, however, she maintained her position, and her crew continued pulling against hopeless odds with pretty gallantry. Half-way down the mile course there were only four boats in it. The Flagship's boat led by perhaps a yard, with a rival on either side of her pulling stroke for stroke.
The last answering pendant from the Fleet shot up above the bridge rails, and the impatient semaphore on the Flagship's bridge commenced waving its arms. The Yeoman of the Watch in the second ship of the line steadied his glass against an angle of the chart house. "'Ere y'are! Write down, one 'and." A Signal-boy stepped to his elbow with a pad and pencil in readiness.
From one of the cabin ports in the flagship's stern, situated just below the gallery and in the position where the captain's quarters would almost certainly be placed, there came another quick flash of brilliant light, lasting but an instant, but extraordinarily dazzling in its intensity; and the Englishman at once recognised what was happening.
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