CHAPTER XXIII

“MOTORBOAT AHOY!”

Glad as they all were that the storm was abating, there was a little feeling of gloom when the engineer made his announcement about the second accident.

“Oh, daddy! Isn’t it too bad!” exclaimed Grace. “Now we may not be able to catch those men!”

“Oh, I think we will,” replied her father. “That is, if we can see them. If we can once get within sight of them I believe we can run them down, even if we’re only working one motor. All right,” he nodded to the engineer. “Do the best you can. Is there no way you make new gaskets?”

“Well, sir, we might be able to cut them out of some washer stuff we have on board, but I’m afraid they wouldn’t hold under pressure. They’d blow out again, and they might do more serious damage than they did this time.”

“Damage!” exclaimed Mr. Potter. “Was any one hurt?”

“Oh, one of the men had his hand slightly bruised, when the gasket blew out, but it doesn’t amount to much. I wanted him to lay off, but he wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Well, sir, he says he’s got a boy of his own, and he knows how he’d feel if he was kidnapped. You see, sir, the crew all know what sort of a chase we’re on.”

“Well,” and Mr. Potter nodded understandingly.

“Well, this man--he’s Jenks, one of the oilers, sir--he said he wouldn’t lay off, and make the crew short-handed, as long as he could stick it out. So that’s how it is, sir. The men want to capture the boat the worst way, sir, and save the boy.”

“I see,” murmured the millionaire. “I won’t forget Jenks.”

“And I won’t, either,” decided Larry, making a note of the occurrence, to work into the story of the chase which he intended writing for his paper.

So the _Elizabeth_ was run at half speed, while the lookout was still kept up for the suspicious craft of which they were in pursuit.

The day wore on. It was about three o’clock, when one of the men stationed in the bow raised a cry:

“Motorboat ahoy!”

“Where?” demanded Mr. Potter, running forward with Larry.

“Dead ahead, sir!”

They looked to where he pointed, and saw a craft, of about half the size of the _Elizabeth_, plowing through the waves. Larry brought a glass to bear.

“Well?” asked the millionaire impatiently.

“It’s a shabby enough looking boat,” replied the young reporter, “and I can’t make any name out on her. It might be the one we want, and it might not.”

“We’ll have a try at her, at any rate,” decided Mr. Potter. “Captain Reardon, put us right for her. We’ll get as close as we can, and----”

He hesitated.

“Well?” asked the commander, waiting for orders.

“We can hail them, and ask them for the loan of a gasket. That will be a good excuse, and we really need some. They may not get suspicious then, or, at least, until we get so close that they can’t get away from us, crippled as we are. Eh, Larry?”

“I think that’s a good plan.”

Orders were sent to the engine-room to get all the speed possible out of the one motor in commission, and then the _Elizabeth_ forged ahead on what all hoped would be the final spurt in the chase after the kidnappers.

“They don’t seem to be moving very fast,” remarked Grace, as she looked at the craft toward which they were making their way. “They are hardly moving at all.”

“Oh, if we can only catch up to them--and get my boy!” murmured the singer.

“I don’t see a soul on board,” said Larry, as once more he looked through the glass. “Maybe the boat has been abandoned.”

“No, sir, she is under way,” said the lookout. “You can see the foam at her stem, and the exhaust from the motor.”

“That’s right,” admitted the young reporter, when his attention had been called to these points by a trained seaman.

Nearer and nearer together the two craft came. But, just as the lookout was about to give a hail, and make the request for the loan of the gasket packing, there was a sudden increase in the foam under the bow of the suspicious-looking craft.

“She’s off!” cried Larry. “They’ve taken the alarm!”

“That’s so!” agreed Mr. Potter. “Oh, if only both our motors were working!”

Dingy looking though she was, smaller in size and evidently inferior in every way, the other craft showed a surprising burst of speed. Rapidly she drew away from the _Elizabeth_.

“Oh, my boy! My boy!” cried Madame Androletti. “I will never see him!”

“Yes, you shall!” cried Larry. “We’ll get him yet!”

“Give us all the speed you can!” Mr. Potter called down the tube to the engineer of the motor craft.

“Aye, aye, sir,” came back the answer.

The chase was on.