I pointed on ahead. To my eyes, who had designed her, every line of
that long, graceful, white hull was familiar. The jaunty rake of her
air-shafts, like stacks of a liner, the sweep of her clean freeboard
up to her shining rail, the ease of her bows, the graceful boldness of
her overhang--all were familiar enough to me. She was my boat, and
once I was wont to enjoy her. And on board her now was the woman who
had taken away from me all desire to keep a yacht in commission, to
keep open a house in town, or an office, or to frequent my clubs, or
to meet my friends. Was she there, this woman; and was she still?--but
I dared not ask that question.
"Full speed ahead, Jean!" I called. "That's the Belle Helène! Yonder
lies the enemy!"
And then the inevitable happened. Perhaps it was too much gas,
perhaps too much lubricant, perhaps a spark plug was carrying too much
carbon. At any rate, the engine of the Sea Rover chose that time to
chug and cease to revolve!
It was more than a mile to the foot of that vast curve; and even as I
leaped at the grimy oily motor, I saw a white dingey with blue trim
make out from the wharf and leisurely pull alongside the landing stair
of the yacht. It held two figures only, that of the deck-hand who
rowed, and that of the large white-flanneled man who now disembarked
from the dingey and went aboard the yacht. He was waving a paper over
his head, so that I inferred the Giants must have won that day. And
then, as we tugged and hurried with our arbitrary motor, I saw the
Belle Helène, with a slight smiling salute to friends ashore, swing
daintily about and head out and down the river! The faint and
infallible rhythm of her perfect enginery came throbbing to us across
the water ... I stood up. I hailed, I waved, I shouted, and I fear
even cursed. Perhaps they thought some drunken fisherman was
disporting himself; but certainly, a few moments later, we were
rocking on the roll of the river, and the yacht was out of sight and
sound around the next great bend.
"It shall go hard but we overhaul yon varlet yet," said L'Olonnois
grimly.
"Aye," assented Lafitte; "we've busted a plug, an' he has showed us a
clean pair of heels, but it's a long chase if the Sea Rover does not
overhaul him. We'll have to overhaul our engine first, though," he
added thoughtfully.
But the overhauling of our engine meant a voyage under sweeps to a
precarious landing among divers packets, house-boats and launches, on
Vicksburg waterside, and a later visit to a specialist in diseases of
the carburetor; so that, when at last the Sea Rover was ready for
the sea again, her chase might have been a hundred miles ahead an she
liked.