Black clouds of smoke pour out of her two funnels.
She is a warship, for a narrow pennant floats from her main-mast, and though she is not flying any flag I take her to be an American cruiser.
I wonder whether the _Ebba_ will render her the customary salute as she passes.
No; for the schooner suddenly changes her course with the evident intention of avoiding her.
This proceeding on the part of such a suspicious yacht does not astonish me greatly.

But what does cause me extreme surprise is Captain Spade's way of manoeuvring.
He runs forward to a signalling apparatus in the bows, similar to that by which orders are transmitted to the engine room of a steamer.

As soon as he presses one of the buttons of this apparatus the _Ebba_ veers off a point to the south-west.
Evidently an order of "some kind" has been transmitted to the driver of the machine of "some kind" which causes this inexplicable movement of the schooner by the action of a motor of "some kind" the principle of which I cannot guess at.
The result of this manoeuvre is that the _Ebba_ slants away from the cruiser, whose course does not vary.

Why should this warship cause a pleasure-yacht to turn out of its way?
I have no idea.
But the _Ebba_ behaves in a very different manner when about six o'clock in the evening a second ship comes in sight on the port bow.
This time, instead of seeking to avoid her, Captain Spade signals an order by means of the apparatus above referred to, and resumes his course to the east--which will bring him close to the said ship.
An hour later, the two vessels are only about four miles from each other.
The wind has dropped completely.

The strange ship, which is a three-masted merchantman, is taking in her top-gallant sails.