longer." "Is she in motion?" asked the captain with interest. "She appears to be at rest, though it is possible 150 that she is moving very slowly; but if she has not stopped her screw, she is not going more than four knots." 150 "You say that she is built like the Bronx, Mr. Flint?" asked Christy anxiously. "Just like her; I should say that both hulls came out of the same mould." "That very nearly settles the question in my mind. Probably she was designed by the same naval architect, and constructed by the same builders, as the Bronx," replied Christy, gazing intently at the dim outlines of the steamer in the fog. "When a designer has made a great reputation for fast ships, men with piles of money, like the former owners of the Bronx, the Scotian, and the Arran, employ him to furnish the plans for their steam yachts. From what we have learned so far, though it is very little indeed, I feel reasonably sure that this steamer ahead of us is the Scotian or the Arran, and I don't care much which it is. But why has she stopped her screw, or reduced her speed to four knots?" "That is a question that can only be answered an hour or two hence, if ever," replied the first lieutenant. 151 "But it is a very important question all the same," added Christy. 151 "I doubt if the Bronx is making four knots at the present moment," said Flint, as he went to the end of the bridge, and looked down into the water. "In changing the fires in the furnaces, Mr. Sampson had been obliged to clear them out in part, and that has reduced the pressure of steam; but we shall soon have the usual head," said Christy, as he went to the speaking tube and communicated with the chief engineer. He was informed that his explanation was correct in regard to the coal, and that in a very short time the boilers would have a full head of steam. Christy spent the next few minutes in an earnest study of the scarcely perceptible outline of the steamer in the fog. He was hardly wiser when he had finished his examination than before. The hull and lower masts of the vessel could be
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