trying to get the earliest steamer
possible for it, that it was heard of in a good many more ports than
one!

"Well, this steamer with all the gold on board sailed just as soon as it
could; and the very next day our London bankers got a telegram from
Paris from the head of a detective bureau there to tell them that no
less than three vessels were fitting out in the biggest kind of hurry to
go after that slow merchant steamer with the millions on board!"

Mrs. Cliff and Willy uttered a simultaneous cry of horror. "Do you mean
they're pirates, and are going to steal the gold?" cried Mrs. Cliff.

"Of course they are!" continued Burke. "And I don't wonder at it! Why, I
don't believe such a cargo of gold ever left a port since the beginning
of the world! For such a thing as that is enough to tempt anybody with
the smallest streak of rascal blood in him and who could get hold of a
ship!

"Well, these three vessels were fitting out hard as they could,--two in
France, at Toulon and Marseilles, and one in Genoa; and although the
detectives were almost positive what their business was, they were not
sure that they could get proof enough to stop them. If the _Dunkery
Beacon_ had been going on a straight voyage, even to Rio Janeiro, she
might have got away from them, but, you see, she was goin' to touch at
Jamaica!

"And now, now,--this very minute,--that slow old steamer and those three
pirates are on the Atlantic Ocean together! Why, it makes your blood
creep to think of it!"

"Indeed it does! It's awful!" cried Mrs. Cliff. "And what are the London
people going to do?"

"They're not going to do anything so far as I know!" said Burke. "If
they could get through with the red-tape business necessary to send any
sort of a cruiser or war-vessel after the _Dunkery Beacon_ to protect
her,--and I'm not sure that they could do it at all,--it would be a
precious long time before such a vessel would leave the English Channel!
But I don't think that they'll try anything of the sort; all I know is,
that the London people sent a cable message to Captain Horn. I suppose
that they thought he ought to know what was likely to happen,
considerin' that he was the head man in the whole business!"

"And what did the Captain do?" cried Mrs. Cliff. "What could he do?"

"I don't know," answered Burke. "I expect he did everything that could
be done in the way of sending messages; and among other things, he sent
that telegram, about a thousand w