Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/387

their own, to which we did justice, as we sat long that afternoon, and I told of the days in Ice-haven. It was a long story, as you know, and I could but give them the outline of it, or, in turn, hear but a tenth part of their own anxieties and ceaseless efforts in my behalf. It appeared that when I had failed to return to the hotel on that night when I followed Paolo to the den in the Bowery, Roderick had gone at once to the yacht, and there had learnt from Dan of my intention. He did not lose an instant in seeking the aid of the police, but I was even then astern of the Labrador, and the keen search which the New York detectives had made was fruitless even in gleaning any tidings of me. Paolo was followed night and day for twenty-four hours; but he was shot in a drinking-den before the detectives laid hands on him, and only lived long enough to send Mary a message, telling her that her pretty eyes had saved the Celsis from disaster in the Atlantic. On the next day both the skipper and Roderick made public all they knew of Black and his crew, and a greater sensation was never made in any city. The news was cabled to Europe over half-a-dozen wires, was hurried to the Pacific, to Japanese seas—it shook the navies of the world with an excitement rarely known, and for some weeks it paralysed all traffic on the Atlantic. Cruisers of many nations were sent in the course of the great