till blazing away gamely
with all her available guns, but it was obvious at a glance that she
was now no match for her antagonist, who had taken full advantage of
the help rendered by her unknown ally, and was pouring a perfect hail
of shot and shell point-blank into her half-disabled adversary,
battering her deck-works into ruins, and piercing her hull again and
again.

At length, when the splendid fabric had been reduced to little better
than a floating wreck by the terrible cannonade, the fire from the
British cruiser stopped, and the signal "Will you surrender?" flew
from her masthead.

A few moments later the tricolor, for the first time in the war,
dipped to the White Ensign, and the naval duel was over.

"Now we will leave them to talk it over," said Tremayne, shutting the
glasses. "I should like to hear what they have to say about us, I
must confess, but there is something more important to be done, and
the sooner we are on the other side of the Atlantic the better. The
_Aurania_ started from New York this morning. How soon can you get
across?"

"In about sixteen hours if we had to go all the way," replied Arnold.
"It is, say, three thousand miles from here to New York, and the
_Ithuriel_ can fly two hundred miles an hour if necessary. But the
_Aurania_, if she starts in good time, will make between four and
five hundred miles during the day, and so we ought to meet her soon
after sundown this evening if we are lucky."

As Arnold ceased speaking, the report of a single gun came up from
the water, and a string of signal flags floated out from the masthead
of the British cruiser.

"Hullo!" said Tremayne, once more turning the glasses on the two
vessels, "that was a blank cartridge, and as far as I can make out
that signal reads, 'We want to speak you.' And look: there goes a
white flag to the fore. His intentions are evidently peaceful. What
do you say, shall we go down?"

"I see no objection to it. It will only make a difference of half an
hour or so, and perhaps we may learn something worth knowing from the
captain about the naval force afloat in the Atlantic. I think it
would be worth while. We have no need for concealment now; and
besides, all Europe is talking about us, so there can be no harm in
showing ourselves a bit more closely."

"Very well, then, we will go down and hear what he has to say,"
replied Tremayne. "But I don't think it would be well for me to show
myself just now, and so I will