"She accepted with every mark of pleasure. Great men like Stanhope, it seems, require no introduction: it beats me. The point now is to find the other Hunston friends."
"Hare and his sister, Mrs. Marne—the very thing!—chaperon and all! I'll invite them to-night. Then the whole thing's done!" Peter sat silent a moment, looking at Varney. "I've been awfully rushed to-day," he resumed, "because if I was going to help Hare at all, I didn't dare lose this one big opportunity. But remember, anything that has to be done from now on—I'm your man."
"There'll be nothing more now until Thursday. The thing's practically done."
Peter was still looking at him steadily. "It's going to be dirt easy, provided we don't weaken. You can't do things to your friends, but you can emphatically do them to your enemies. We have got to remember always that this girl, who has been so heartless to her old fool of a father, is our enemy."
"Yes, that is what we have got to remember."
"Good Lord!" cried Peter, looking at his watch. "Twenty minutes past four, and I must be at the hall at four-thirty sharp. I'll have to sneak right away. You're going to sit tight on the yacht, of course?"
"Never! I like to have a little of the fun myself. I must certainly take in this meeting to-night, and watch you put your heel on their necks and all that."
"Don't! With what you've got to do, you can't afford to expose yourself. What's the use of running risks, even little ones, when there is nothing to gain?"
"Satan reproving sin! Fudge! Free yourself once for all, my dear sir, that I'm starring in The Prisoner on the Yacht for the next three days, or anything of that sort."
"Well, if you will go," said Peter, reluctantly, "here's a reserved seat ticket—a peacherine, right up at the front."
"Great! Count on me to lead the applause."
Peter rose. His engrossed brow advertised the fact that his thought had already flown back to his own private maelstrom of new concerns.
"If Hare gets his chance to-night," he meditated out loud, "you can rely on him to make the most of it. He'll make good; he's a man, sound in wind and limb, head and heart. I do wish, though, he wasn't so—somehow innocent—so easy—so confoundedly affable and handshaking with everybody that comes along. There's a sneaky-looking stranger at the hotel—rubber-heeled fellow named Higginson, with one of these black felt hats pulled down over his eyes like a stage villain—that Hare never laid eyes on till to-day. For all he knows the man may be an agent of Ryan's, a hired spy imported to—By Jove! That's just what he is, I'll bet!" he cried suddenly; and after a frowning pause, hurried warmly on: "Don't you remember last night, just after we hit the town, I said there was a man following us—sneaked up the alley when he saw me looking at him?"
"I believe I do, Peter. But the fact is that I met so many exciting people last night—"
"It's the same man—it was Higginson!" said Peter positively. "I'm sure of it! I didn't get a look at his face last night, but it's the same hat, same figure—everything. I'll bet anything he's on Ryan's payroll; and there's little Hare hobnobbing with him as friendly as though they'd been classmates at college! That kind of free-for-all geniality doesn't go, you know! A reformer in a rotten town like this," said Peter vehemently "would do well to cultivate a profound distrust of strangers."
Varney burst out laughing.
"You yourself have known Hare from the cradle, I believe?"
"I'm different," said Peter without a smile. "Well! I must move. Now let's see—that lunch. What time shall I ask Hare and Mrs. Marne for?"
"Two o'clock, Thursday. I didn't have the nerve," Varney explained, "to ask Miss Carstairs for to-day—rather lucky I didn't—and she was engaged for Thursday."
"Right. I'll arrange it all. Well, for the Lord's sake take care of yourself to-night, Larry, and trust me to keep out of trouble. So long."
Varney looked after Peter's disappearing back, and envied him all the fun he was having. His own lot was certainly far less entertaining. However, it was his own; and here he resembled his friend in one respect at least. His thoughts, like Peter's, had a way just now of reverting at short notice to the matters in which he himself was most closely concerned.
He lay back idly among the cushions, and let his mind once more run over the unexpected problems of his situation.
The new graveness of what he was pledged to do had, of course, been strongly present in his mind from the first moment of revelation. Kidnapping a nineteen-year-old girl was certainly, as Peter had pointed out, a pretty serious business. He perceived that it would not look well in the papers in the least. Also if she cared to raise a row afterwards, there might be an aftermath which would not be wholly a laughing matter.
Nevertheless, this side of the question seemed remote and of minor interest to him just now. The problem appeared to be a personal one, not a question of statutes and judges. In his talk with Miss Carstairs before he knew her by name, he had failed to notice anything that suggested the spoiled and wilful child he had come to find. He could remember nothing she had said or done that helped him at all to think of her as his enemy. The fact was that it was all quite the other way. And this helped him to understand now, as he had not understood before, why Uncle Elbert had begged a solemn oath from him with such a piteous look on his handsome, haggard old face.
Peter's pronounced views as to Mr. Stanhope were not, it appeared, purely of the stuff that dreams are made of. Testimony to the author's lack of popularity in his native town came to Varney with unexpected promptness.
In the corner of the square, as he swung along toward the Academy Theatre that evening, he found himself suddenly confronted by a man who, lounging against the fence of a shabby dwelling, straightened dramatically at his approach and bent a sharp gaze upon him. He was a tall, shambling fellow with a white cloth swathed about the top of his head; and Varney, in the act of passing, suddenly recognized him as the dog man, whom Peter had knocked out the night before. His gaze was a wanton challenge for the young man to stop, and Varney cheerfully accepted it.
"Why, it's—Mr.—er—Hackley, isn't it?"
The man's bandage left only one eye free to operate, and he kept this upon Varney with a curious unwinking stare.
"Yes," said he slowly, "I'm Hackley."
"How'd the dog come out?" asked Varney.
"Dead," said Hackley, as quiet in mien as the Hackley of last night was bellicose. "Deadan'buried."
"I'm sorry," said Varney, his glance on the head-cloth. "The man who did the kicking was a friend of mine, and he wouldn't want you to lose your dog without some compensation. Er—please accept this with his compliments and regrets."
Hackley, his single washed-out eye starting with pleasure, accepted the proffered note with a gesture resembling a clutch, investigated its size in the dim light with hardly concealed delight, and pinned it into his waistcoat pocket with a large brass safety-pin. Then he raised his head slowly and looked at Varney.
"Why n't you leave town to-night, Stanhope?" he inquired casually.
Varney started. Almost to the very language this was exactly what EditorSmith had suggested to him the night before.
"Why do you call me Stanhope, Hackley? My name happens to be LaurenceVarney."
Mr. Hackley's gaze never relaxed. "Chuck it," he said without emotion. "A sensible and eddicated man," he added impersonally, "never lies when a lie couldn't do him no good. If I was you, Stanhope, I wouldn't lose a minute in cuttin' loose from this town."
"If I were Stanhope, I daresay I wouldn't either. But suppose I were," he added, "why shouldn't I stay here if I wanted to?"
"For one reason," said Mr. Hackley deliberately, "there's me. When I'm a-feelin' myself, there ain't a cammer, a more genteel nor lor-abidin' citizen in Hunston. As for fussin' and fightin', I'd no more think of it than a dyin' inverlid in the orspitle. But only throw a few drinks under my belt like last night, and I'm a altogether different creetur. And I'm mighty afraid that the next time I over-drink myself and don't rightly know what I'm doin', I'll go out after you with a club. And then there'll be trouble."
"But why should you want to go after Stanhope with a club? What did he ever do to you?"
"Don't you know? I married Mamie Orrick's little sister!"
"Most interesting," said Varney, "as a bit of genealogy, but what's it got to do with Stanhope and the club?"
But Mr. Hackley said again, cryptically: "Chuck it." Then, softened by the young man's pleasant ways, and by the windfall of a fortune pinned into his vest: "Be sensible, Stanhope," he added amiably. "I ain't the only one. Old Orrick's heard that you've hit the town and is totin' a gun and talk-in' wild. And, of course, there's others. Don't jump off no tall buildin's, I say, expectin' Providence to land you soft. There's a train to Noo York at eight-ten. Cut while you can!"
"Why, thanks," said Varney, laughing and starting on. "If I should seeMr. Stanhope at any time, I won't fail to pass him the friendly tip."
"And if you should see that friend o' yourn," called Hackley after him, "him that gimme the paste in the jor—you c'n just tell him that Jim Hackley is goin' to fix you both,good!"
"At your convenience, Hackley."
The young man passed on, undisturbed by the dog man's quaint menaces. He did not exactly see himself and Peter getting into trouble at the hands of a crack-brained village humorist.
Streams of people, converging from all directions, guided him easily to the theatre. Pushing his way in, he found the stage empty and the proceedings not yet begun; and he stood for a minute at the inner door, glancing over the house. It was crowded. Oratory is a real inducement in societies seldom blessed with that attraction. Even lemonade is a magnet if you get it seldom and never to surfeit. Already men were sitting in the long low windows which ran down either side of the building; and a score of ushers, singularly alert-looking men, were hurriedly distributing camp-chairs to accommodate the overflow. Certainly, Peter could have desired no better setting for his daring adventure for reform.
Thanks to the reserved seat which his friend's reluctant liberality had furnished him, Varney was in no hurry to join the throng inside. Presently, to get clear of the rush at the doors, he strolled into the lobby and idly stood at one side, watching the people streaming by.
Thus, by sheer luck, he became witness to the crucial episode of the evening. An oily Teutonic voice spoke just at his elbow:
"Id's eight o'clock, I zee. We'd better go back und gif Taylor his speech, I guess."
The young man turned. He happened to be standing just in front of the little cubby of a box-office. In it stood two men, one large and fat and blonde, the other short and stocky and dark. This latter, looking up from a typewritten manuscript, spoke briefly:
"No hurry. Find Smith if you can and send him here."
The fat oily person departed obediently. Immediately there stepped through the door of the box-office a rough-looking man in a slouch hat, with three days' stubble stippling a grimy chin. He shut the door carefully and came near. Varney, from where he stood, could see and hear everything.
"Mr. Ryan?"
The stocky, dark man nodded.Aha!thought Varney.
"Then step outside a minute, will yer? There's a genaman wants to speak to you right away on a matter as concerns you close."
Ryan coldly looked the man over: "Then tell him to come in here. No! I ain't got no time to fool with him now. Tell him to go to the devil."
The stranger never moved a muscle. "There's a reason w'y he can't come in here—you'll see when you come outside, all right." Then bringing his dark face sharply a foot nearer, he went on in a hasty undertone: "Hey, you! Ever hear of a man named Maginnis?"
Ryan had: Peter's fame had traveled far in Hunston that day.
"Well, listen! There's a game on to bust this meetin' to-night and put the hook into you good and hard. Maginnis has spent a thousand to do it. D'yer savvy? Now will yer step lively?"
The boss considered a moment and then stepped lively. Varney, falling in behind, stepped lively too, his curiosity strongly stirred. But outside, before the theatre, there was no sign of a gentleman awaiting an audience: only the people pouring on into the Academy.
"Around the corner," whispered the dark man hoarsely. "He dassen't wait here. Quick!"
Around the corner the pair hurried, Varney close in their wake. In the silent alley, half-hidden in the shadows of the building, stood a large carriage with a pair of strapping bays tugging at their traces. They halted before it, and the stranger, who had considerately taken Ryan's arm, flung open the door.
"Here he is, Jim—Mr. Ryan. Now you c'n tell him—"
The sentence died unended. At the same moment the sound of a violent scuffle smote the nocturnal air. It appeared that Jim, presumably laboring under an unfortunate misapprehension, had not received his visitor with that refined hospitality due from one gentleman to another. Even more inexplicable, it looked in the deceitful darkness, remarkably as though the boss's guide, suddenly dropping that gentleman's arm, had laid forcible hold upon his outraged and madly protesting legs.
It was all over in a minute. There was a faint yell, quickly and violently muffled. Then the carriage door banged, leaving nobody on the sidewalk, and the horses, responding to an acutely painful lash from the strong arm on the box, sprang forward at the gallop.
Varney stood in the dark alley, looking after the vanishing carriage with mingled admiration and amazement. Swift footsteps sounded near him; and the next moment a strong hand seized him and pulled him back into the shadow of the wall.
"Sh-h! It's me! Anybody see it?"
"Hello!Not a soul but me."
Peter leaned against the wall and drew a deep breath.
"He can never prove it on me—not to save his soul!—and I hold his meeting in the hollow of my hand. Do you see that lighted window at the back there? That's my last bridge. Waiting in there are the chairman of the meeting and the mayor, who's the orator of the evening. I'm going in and make 'em take me on as one of the platform speakers. I'll pass out a few remarks and call on Hare—"
"But how will you make them—"
"They daren't refuse me anything," said Peter swiftly, and tapped his breast-pocket. "I've papers here that mean stripes for them both. Mind your eye, Larry, and be good!"
He disappeared through the little gate toward the dressing-room, where the officials of the meeting waited vainly for last instructions from their lord. Varney looked after him with a sigh. In Hunston only twenty-four hours and already to be running the town!
He emerged from the alley feeling rather gloomy, and halted on the sidewalk in front of the theatre, idly watching the people as they poured in. The spectacle of this steady stream made a fitting background for his meditations; for he was thinking, absently, of the extreme boldness of Peter's course. Certainly, there was little here to suggest the quiet onlooker. But all at once something happened which checked the current of his thought as effectually as a slap upon the cheek.
In that shifting, waste of strange faces, his vagrant eye suddenly fell upon a familiar one—two, three familiar ones—and his flagging interest sprang to life. There approached, side by side, J. Pinkney Hare, who, though few knew it, might prove the brilliant hero of the night's proceedings; the child, little Jenny Something, who had spent yesterday at the Carstairs house, leading strangers to think that she was somebody else; and Miss Carstairs herself, a fair flower in that moving tangle of weeds.
Hare saw Varney and bowed in his stiff affected way. But Varney's eyes had already gone on to Miss Carstairs, and he did not return that greeting. Seeing the little candidate lift his hat, her look followed his, and so her eye met Varney's.
When this happened her expression did not change, except that, so he thought, she faintly colored. Varney awaited her bow; he half bowed himself: a stiff smile was ready on his lips. But he never gave it. Her eyes rested full upon him for a second, with no sign of recognition, and then moved away; and the next moment she swept past him into the theatre.
There was no shadow of doubt about it. She who only last night had treated him with such marked kindness, had unmistakably cut him. It hardly seemed possible. Why, they had parted like friends!
But he understood instantly what had happened. To her, he was Ferris Stanhope; he himself had given her the right to think that. Since they had parted, some of that unpleasant gossip about Stanhope—of which she had known nothing last night—had made its way to her; and she had believed it as to him, Laurence Varney. Yes, she had believed it as to him. Peter was right, after all. A self-respecting girl owed it to herself, it seemed, not to recognize him. Curiously, so strong was his sense of the personal meaning of the insult that its more practical aspects for the moment altogether escaped him.
But that was only for the moment. In the next breath, it rushed over him that with that cool glance the luncheon engagement upon which his whole mission depended stood canceled; and with that thought he felt his will hardening into iron. What she thought of him, personally, was of course nothing; but no power should keep him from carrying through his plans precisely as he had arranged them. He elbowed his way into the lobby to find Uncle Elbert's daughter and make her retract that look.
But it gradually became evident that Uncle Elbert's daughter was not in the lobby: the most systematic exploration failed to reveal any trace of her. In fact, it was certain that she had passed straight on to her seat within the hall; whence a loud roar presently gave warning to stragglers that the oratory had begun.
* * * * *
Two hours later Varney rose from his seat, at once marveling over the splendor of Peter'scoupand bewildered by the blaze of publicity which it had turned upon his comrade and co-schemer. The well-laid plans had carried through to brilliant success, and Ryan's meeting had been converted into a triumph for Ryan's deadly enemy, J. Pinkney Hare.
The candidate had sat unobtrusively down in the audience with his friend Miss Carstairs and the child Jenny,—spectators all: that was the way they had arranged it. Peter, on the contrary, sat in the great white light of a front seat on the stage, where he had masterfully intruded himself in the galaxy of "other prominent citizens." And sure enough, when the set speeches were over, it was the honorable chairman who presented "a Mr. Maginnis of New York" to the meeting, doubtless having been satisfactorily convinced beforehand that it was to his advantage to do so. But, doubtless also convinced that there would be an accounting to his master for this night's work, he rose to his duty only after Mr. Maginnis had glared at him through a noticeable stage-wait, and then made the introduction as prejudicial as he dared.
Mr. Maginnis did not appear disconcerted in the least. He began speaking with a pertinence and ease which rather surprised his friend Varney down in the audience, and with words which instantly let the dullest know that something unusual was taking place. However, he had not proceeded far when, the house having become very still, he was suddenly interrupted by a sharp hiss from the rear of the hall, and a raucous voice which shouted:
"Sit down, you! Nobody wants yer!"
Laughter followed and various murmurs, some approving, a few protesting.Ryan's good and faithful servants were evidently settling down to work.
Peter's eye roved over the audience, seemed to catch something and lit up with a faint signal.
"The gentleman who made that remark," he said in tones of great gentleness, "will kindly leave the hall at once."
A ripple of merriment ran through the crowd, breaking in many places into ostentatious guffaws. To those who knew the underside of those meetings, the mild request appeared so ineffectual as to be merely ridiculous. The honorable chairman, on the stage, hid a sinister smile behind his hand.
Then a strange thing happened. Four "ushers" moved silently down the side-aisle, halted at the end of the sixth row from the rear, laid hands upon an angry and wriggling little man who screamed to high heaven that he hadn't done nothing, and dropped him out of the open window, which was just five feet above the ground.
It was rather a clean-cut piece of work, the moral effect of which was in no wise weakened by the strong probability that they had ejected the wrong man. It proved the turning-point in the evening's proceedings. Ryanism seemed paralyzed by the mysterious absence of its chief, and a few further essays by the faithful, more and more half-hearted in their nature, made it plain that the control of that meeting had passed into other hands. Peter, apologizing for the little interruption, told simply but vividly how, coming to Hunston a stranger, he had instantly seen that something was badly wrong with the town: how he had looked about at the dirty streets, the dead business, the empty stores, the good men idling, the good wives suffering for the money that streamed into the big red saloon—
"That's right!" called a shrill, scared woman's voice. "That's right,Mister!"
"No!" Peter answered steadily. "It's thewrongestthing that ever was—God help you poor women!"
Then a burst of hand-clapping, unforced by the faithful hirelings fromNew York, ran unexpectedly through the house.
Peter told how easy it had been to find out what was choking the life out of Hunston. His open countenance, democratic manners, and pungent speech produced a most favorable impression, and it was undeniable that, for the moment at least, he had the house with him when he swung into his peroration.
"You know we are told," he said, "that it is the truth that makes us free. Well, you are going to hear the truth to-night, at last. There is a man listening to me at this moment who knows everything there is to be known. Like me, he has no axe to grind, no special interest to promote, no ambition but the manly wish to loose this town from the bonds with which a dishonest boss has shackled it. He has sacrificed much to the hope that he might help you, and for months he has been fighting against big odds, just to get a chance to tell you the facts. To-night he has got his chance, and you may be very sure that he will make the most of it.
"Relieving your honorable chairman of the trouble of rising for the purpose, I take pleasure in introducing to you Mr. J. Pinkney Hare, who is, with your consent, the next mayor of Hunston."
Back in the center of the house, a foot scraped upon the floor, and there was J. Pinkney Hare standing out in the aisle, his little black bag stuffed with documents swinging in his hand. And then there arose, to the surprise of everybody (barring those good fellows who had been well paid for their work and were earnestly determined to earn it) a deafening roar of applause, starting in the rear of the house, taken up at certain definite points all through it, and gradually spreading almost everywhere, many people joining in because they liked Peter greatly and others without having any idea why. The roar subsided a little as Hare drew near to the stage, mounted it, and deposited his little bag upon the table. Then it broke again, more loudly, as he came forward a step, looking out upon the crowded house—he who could not hire a hall for himself—a little pale, a little awed by the bigness of his chance, but with neither tremor nor uncertainty on his small, cool face….
Hare spoke for an hour and a half, and not a soul left the hall. It was impossible to call him off or cry him down: the plain sentiment of the house was, "Give the little man his show." Afterwards, Chairman Bates had made a desperate effort to overcome the damning effect of that address, calling on various Ryanites of aggressive manners, and making a second speech himself, but with little avail. Even the free fight which broke out during the distribution of the ice-cream of the Neapolitans (the announcement of which addition to the regularmenuevoked the loudest spontaneous applause of the evening) resulted, until the police checked it, decidedly in favor of the strangers from New York.
This part of the evening's pleasures Varney did not see. He rose with many others when the published tidings of refreshment gave notice that the speechmaking was over, and turned his face toward the door against a stream of ushers entering with alluring trays. Already all sense of the daring brilliance of Peter's stroke had faded and dropped from his mind. His own concerns crowded instantly upon his attention, and all his thought was of finding Mary Carstairs immediately and compelling her to recognize him for the man he was.
She, too, had risen to leave the hall. While he listened to the fierce philippic of J. Pinkney Hare, Varney's eye had carefully marked her seat: it was empty now. Once, as he pushed his way slowly toward the door, he caught a brief glimpse of her over in the other aisle, some distance ahead of him; but he hardly saw her before she was lost to him again, swallowed up in the jostling throng. The theatre was in an uproar: all was noise and bustle and movement. And the wide lobby, when at length he reached it, was no better; it looked scarcely more promising to his quest than the traditional haystack to the searcher of needles.
Here were set the ice-cream freezers and the other paraphernalia of delight, and about them was a struggling mob. Varney circled the throng with a roving eye. Of the lady he saw no sign anywhere. But presently, on the outer fringe of the cohorts which stormed the freezers, he came upon the child Jenny, and knew that he had found a guide according to his heart's desire.
He touched her on the elbow. "Do you want to get some ice-cream?"
She turned her homely little face up towards him, and said shyly:
"Yes, sir. But they won't let me get near. And they say the chocolate is going fast."
"They'll let me get near," said Varney heartily. "Chocolate is it, then?Lemonade, of course. And a thought of the cake with icing, shall we say?Good! But you're not here alone, are you?"
"No, sir. I'm here with Miss Mary—over there in that corner."
"Well, you just run over there with her and wait. Trust everything here to me."
He emerged from the ruck a few moments later, disheveled but triumphant. Hat under his arm and both hands heavily laden, he made a gingerly progress to the place of his tryst, a comparatively unpopulated corner near the door. And there she stood, her comely youth brought into sharp relief by her surroundings, side by side with the living hunger and thirst of Jenny, whose yearning eyes summoned the young man like a beacon.
Miss Carstairs happened to be looking in another direction. Varney, standing before her, calmly took up their acquaintance where he had left it last night at her mother's gate.
"Good evening, Miss Carstairs. I bear refreshment for your little friend. What a magnificent evening for Hare and Reform, isn't it?"
She turned, startled at the sound of his voice, looked at him, and looked at once away.
"Oh … yes, indeed. I—am waiting for Mr. Hare now. Jenny, are you sure you haven't seen him come out?"
"Yessum," said Jenny, her eyes all for the tall stranger.
Unable to resist their imploring appeal, he turned at once and delivered his burden.
"Ice-cream—lemonade—" he made inventory—"cake with icing—tin spoon—paper napkin in my pocket. Is there anything else?"
"I think," said Jenny, conscientiously, "there's figs."
"You do not wish any figs to-night, Jenny," declared Miss Carstairs, rather more severely than mere figs seemed to warrant.
"No'm!I thought maybe he might want some."
"I doubt if I'll take any figs to-night, either," laughed Varney. "But mayn't I get something for you, Miss Carstairs? I'm happy to say that the chocolate is holding out better than we feared."
"Thank you," she said, apparently addressing the child, "I don't believeI wish anything."
Jenny here produced and handed around a small, rather dangerous-looking paper-bag, which proved, upon investigation, to contain marshmallows. Miss Carstairs declined. Varney, to show how unimpeachable he considered his standing with the party, gratefully accepted.
"I'm afraid," he said, looking at Miss Carstairs, "that Mr. Hare's admirers are likely to detain him some time. If you don't care to wait so long, perhaps you would again give me the pleasure of supplanting him and taking you home—you and Miss—Miss Jenny?"
"No, thank you—I am sure he will be out soon … You look awfully trampled on and—mashed, Jenny," she continued, twitching the child's hat on straight. "Andmy dear! Don'teat so fast."
Despite himself, Varney felt his blood rising a little. "Miss Carstairs," he said slowly, "I must tell you that I came with Miss Jenny on purpose to see you. There is something that I wanted to say."
She raised her eyes then, and though their look was very young and embarrassed, he felt himself lose something of his composure under it.
"You wanted to say something—to me?"
"A good deal. I have an explanation to make—"
"I'm afraid that I have not time to—listen—Mr. Hare—"
"You must listen—to be fair," he said slowly. "I have to blame myself for it, but you are doing me an injustice at this moment. I am not—that man."
She made no answer. Beside them, Miss Jenny ate ice-cream succulently. All around them were people jostling this way and that, laughing, shouting: but they might have been alone on a mountain-top for all either was aware of them.
"Since I have been in Hunston—just a day," Varney said easily, "I seem to have done nothing but explain over and over that I am not Mr. Stanhope. I got awfully tired of it, Miss Carstairs; it seemed so horribly useless. Like the others, you insisted that I was he. You candidly didn't believe me—"
"No," she said, "that is true."
"I shall make you believe me now," said Varney.
A great hullabaloo suddenly arose around them. Four or five men broke pellmell, and for the most part backwards, out of the swing-doors, evidently ejected from within. A lonely-looking policeman, on guard at the entrance, charged them. The lobby was already thronged; now people retreating before that violent infusion of arms and legs crowded them close.
Varney, standing in front of Miss Carstairs, shielded her from the press, her capable buffer. Soon he noticed that that part of the wall upon which she leaned was not a wall, but a door. He reached past her, turned the knob, revealed a brilliantly-lit little room.
"Ah!… A haven, Miss Carstairs."
She stepped backward, into the tiny box-office where Ryan had stood two hours before and cynically waited for his sport to begin. It was empty now, offering a perfect refuge. Varney followed and stood with his hand on the knob just inside the door.
"Thank you," said Miss Carstairs, breathing a little rapidly. "The meetings have never been as bad as this before. But—I must not lose sight of Jenny."
"I'm here, Miss Mary," gurgled an ice-creamy voice at the door.
"I think I had better wait outside after all," said Mary. "Mr. Hare will hardly know where to look for me."
"Miss Jenny will be his clew: he couldn't miss her," said Varney. "Let me go on, while I have time. Miss Carstairs, it is not fair to either of us to let matters stay like this. In the cottage last night, you forced me to let you think I was—another man—"
"That is absurd," she said. "How could I possibly force you to say what was not—the fact?"
"Did I really say anything that was not—the fact? I tried particularly not to. But I did let you deceive yourself about it: that is quite true and I'm sorry. I did it because—well, because if I hadn't done it, you were not going to let me walk home with you."
She leaned against the little desk at which the Academy man sat to sell tickets, and hesitated, almost imperceptibly. "Then why," she asked, "should you wish toundeceiveme now?"
"You know why," he answered. "If I don't, something tells me that you are not going to speak to me any more."
Her silence conceded the truth of this. It began to be evident how difficult he had made matters for himself.
Varney laughed. "I am determined to make you believe me, yet just how am I to go about it? It's rather an absurd position, when you come to think of it—this arguing with somebody as to who one is. Suppose I were that fellow, Miss Carstairs. How could I possibly hope to come back to my old hometown and persuade people to believe that I am somebody else?"
Her eyes had wandered out through the little grated window, and she made no reply.
"You see how preposterous that would be. A mere resemblance is not enough to condemn a man upon, Miss Carstairs."
She turned her head with a sudden gesture of annoyance. "What difference can it possibly make whether I speak to you or not, Mr. St—"
"Don't!" he interrupted swiftly. "You know my name. You shall not call me by that one."
Hare's neat pink face appeared at the ticket-window, for all the world like a belated theatre-goer, anxious for several in the orchestra.
"Ah, Mary! There you are! Whenever you are ready—"
"I have been waiting for you a long time," said Miss Carstairs. "It was so splendid, Mr. Hare! Is Jenny there? We'll go at once."
She turned to Varney, cool as a dewy rose, and came forward a short step. "I—I must say this before I go: has no one told you that you are in danger here?"
Under her tone and her look, his plan of being the easy master of the situation grew increasingly difficult. "Everybody has told me," he said rather shortly. "It's gotten to be a bore."
"Then—won't you—won't you please go away before—anything happens?"
"I am going on Thursday afternoon," he answered, stung by her beauty, which was so remote, and by the sudden compassion in her voice. "My engagements will keep me here till that day, you remember? I promise you, since you are so good as to interest yourself in the matter, that I shall leave Hunston directly after that—"
"Your engagements on Thursday?" she repeated, looking away. "Are—you speaking of—"
"The luncheon on my yacht. We are inviting Mr. Hare and his sister to meet you."
"I am sorry," began Miss Carstairs, not looking at him, "but—I—I find that I shall n—"
"Er—Mary?" said the candidate's voice through the window.
She turned toward the door at once, as though welcoming a summons which so opportunely relieved her from embarrassing explanations: but Varney, who happened to have duties to her father to discharge, stood before her, not moving.
"Just now in the theatre," he said pleasantly, "you cut me. That was for him. I understood. But is there any valid reason why you should not stay on speaking terms with—Laurence Varney?"
To his surprise, a vivid red swept up her face from throat to hair and her eyes fluttered and fell.
"Please," she said, "don't ask me to discuss this any more."
Varney stood aside, bowing, to let her pass out.
"I shall bring you proofs of my identity to-morrow, since that seems necessary," he said with a laugh. "You won't refuse to see me, if you care anything about being fair. But shall I tell you something, Miss Carstairs? In your heartyou believe me now!"
At the outer door, Varney all but collided with a man listlessly entering, and, glancing up, saw that it was the pale young editor, Coligny Smith.
"I hope you enjoyed the meeting," flung out Varney in passing.
"Why, greetings—greetings!" said Mr. Smith, a mocking smile on his thin lips. "I've just been out to buy your picture, Beany."
With which singular rejoinder, he slipped by into the lobby.
* * * * *
J. Pinkney Hare lingered some time in the theatre after Miss Carstairs joined him, enveloped in a heartening whirl of new popularity. To the candidate it seemed that his star had changed with stunning swiftness. His advance to the door had been a Roman progress; and when he finally reached the lobby he was still the focus of a coterie of enthusiasts who would not be shaken off. Here a new halt was made: new people surrounded him; more hand-shakings and back-slappings took place; and everything seemed merry as a marriage-bell.
But Peter, coming out of the hall a moment after Varney had left, saw hovering about this intimate circle an elderly man of a faded exterior and shabby clothes, who wore a black felt hat pulled down over wary-looking eyes. Even at that moment of splendid triumph, Peter was annoyed to recognize in him the man Higginson, of whose too friendly interest in the candidate's doings he had complained to Varney a few hours earlier. Whether he was, in truth, the man who had followed them on the street the night before, he was not ready to make affidavit. But undoubtedly there was something furtive in the man's appearance and manner; and Peter, watching him from the door, was highly irritated to see Hare present the fellow to Miss Carstairs, who smiled on him as upon one of her friend's good friends.
"The sneak!" thought Peter. "I'll just drop him a quiet hint to butt out before he gets hurt."
But his "head-usher" due to vanish back to New York by the ten-forty-five claimed him just then for a business talk, and when Peter had time to think of Mr. Higginson again, he found that the man had disappeared.
Varney slept badly. The night was long, like art and the lanes that have no turning; and interludes punctuated it, now and again, when he lay wide-eyed in his bunk, staring into the darkness. At these times without exception, he thought how, early in the morning, he would climb the hill to the white house, blandly proffering letters to show that he was no cad, no cur, but Laurence Varney, whom ladies need not flee from as from the plague; suavely putting Uncle Elbert's daughter so utterly in the wrong that he himself would grow merciful towards her abashment, and sorry.
He fell asleep, woke again, rehearsed once more what he would say to her. At last he saw the dawn break along the horizon and the gray of a new day meet and mingle with the receding darkness. It was Wednesday. To-morrow would be Thursday, and he could go away, his business done. The prospect was rich recompense for everything. It came to him, suddenly and for the first time, that he hated his mission in Hunston with a disheartening and sickening hatred. And formulating this thought, polishing it to aphorism and sharpening it to epigram, he slumbered and slept for the last time that night.
But on the heels of the morning came Peter, bursting in half-dressed, a newspaper flaunting in his hand, an unfastened suspender flapping behind him like a pennant on a clubhouse.
"Oh, you're awake, are you?" said he, looking very keen and wide-awake himself. "Good! You'd hardly want to be dead to the world while this kind of thing is going on."
Varney, on an elbow, sleepily surprised at this vehemence, said: "What's up?"
"The jig!" cried Peter succinctly. "At least it looks that way. It's that rascal Smith."
He sat down on the edge of Varney's bunk, the folded newspaper in his hand, and continued: "I ran out before I was dressed to look at this contemptibleGazette, because I wanted to see how they handled the meeting last night. But the minute I picked it up, I saw this, and—well, by George! Look at it!"
He whipped open theGazettewith a movement which all but shredded it and thrust it into Varney's hand. Varney sat up in bed and smoothed it out upon the coverlet.
Coligny Smith was clever and his eye ranged wide. He saw all the chances that there were, and what he saw he made the most of. For his front-page "picture feature" that morning, he had selected a two-column half-tone of a good-looking, though not altogether pleasant-faced young man; and beneath it had indited in bold capitals which the most casual eye could not miss: "Mr. Ferris Stanhope, Author and Former Hunstonian, Who Has Just Arrived in Town."
"I see," said Varney, slowly. "Meaning me." Beside the portrait ran a "story," which said in part:
"It leaked out yesterday that the 'mysterious stranger' who suddenly appeared off Hunston in an elegant private yacht on Monday night, is none other than Ferris Stanhope, well-known author of novels of the pink-tea type….
"Mr. Stanhope is a native of Hunston, and is well remembered here. As the result of certain escapades which need not be detailed in a home paper like theGazette, he left town, somewhat hurriedly, one night twelve years ago. Until Monday he has never been back since. The news of his arrival has not been received with general expressions of pleasure. Predictions were freely made about the streets yesterday that if certain old and respected citizens of Hunston should chance to meet the author, trouble is sure to arise.
"Why Mr. Stanhope should have elected to come back to Hunston has not yet been ascertained. Some say that it is the result of a bet, friends having wagered that he would not venture to return for a month's stay here. These declare that he is using the yacht as base of operations to reconnoiter and determine whether it is safe to land. Color is lent to this theory by the pains which the distinguished author is taking to conceal his identity. The name of the yacht has been carefully erased, and he is using, it is said, an assumed name.
"The secret of Mr. Stanhope's identity came out too late last night for theGazetteto obtain an interview. With him on the yacht is a 'Mr. Maginnis,' representing himself as a wealthy New Yorker and a 'student of government.' Both gentlemen, it is said, are claimed as allies by Hunston's new 'Reform party.'"
Peter broke out the moment Varney laid down the paper, but Varney, staring absently out of the porthole, did not listen. This, then, was the meaning of the pale young editor's enigmatical remark last night. Here was no idle malice. Diabolically resourceful and without shame, young Mr. Smith had circulated this lie to discredit reform and drive off its new champion. And this was the way that he, Varney, had kept the coming of theCyprianiquiet in Hunston!
"And think of the cursed bull luck of it!" cried Peter. "The most the rascal hoped to do was to ruin my plans for helping Hare by these dirty hints about both of us—at the best to scare us away from Hunston. He never dreamed that he was knocking the bottom out of any private plans ofyours!"
Varney stretched and yawned. "Well, he isn't."
"Doubtless I am a stupid ass and all that," said Peter, staring, "but with theGazettepublishing it about the countryside that you are a yellow dog of the worst nature, I don't grasp how you expect Miss Carstairs to come on this yacht and lunch with you."
A knock sounded on the stateroom door, and McTosh entered, announcing two telegrams for Mr. Varney.
Varney, wondering a little who had known his whereabouts, took the yellow envelopes, nodded to the steward not to wait, broke them open, read the typewritten words within, read them again.
Then he looked up and found Peter gazing at him more or less expectantly.
Varney laughed. "Do you remember that night at the club my saying to you, as a great inducement: 'Suppose the New York papers get on to this'?"
Peter nodded.
Varney handed him the yellow slips; then he arose and pushed the service button.
"McTosh," he said, "send to town at once and get me copies of theSun, theTimes, theDailyand theHerald—all the New York papers. No, go yourself, and don't stay longer than is absolutely necessary."
Peter, meantime, with a heart beating as it had not beat the night before when he had overthrown Ryan and stolen his meeting, was reading the following:
Dailystory has got us all guessing. If it's reallyyou, what the devil are you up to, anyway?R. E. TOWNES.
The other was in a similar vein:
Alarming story inDailyto-day. Absolute secrecy aprerequisite as explained. Reporters tried to reach meto-night. Trust you fully, but implore you to proceedwith utmost caution.ELBERT CARSTAIRS.
"The plot thickens," said Peter when Varney turned back, "till I, for one, can't see the drift. However—you've sent for theDaily?"
Varney nodded. "I told him to get three or four others, too, for a blind."
"Politics," said Peter, in his calmest fighting manner, "is all off. I'm not the least interested in it. We'll give the morning to studying yellow journalism. But about Miss Carstairs. How can you possibly—"
"By heaven," said Varney, with a sudden burst of anger, "I'll make her know who I am, if I have to drag in her own mother to introduce me."
He went off to his bath, dressed hurriedly, dawdled a moment at the breakfast-table, where he found Peter discussing a cereal not without a certain solemn pleasure, and went above grappling with the thought that all this would mean a postponement of his call at the Carstairs house, and maybe something more serious still. The morning was sunny and crisp. He walked to the bow, briskly, by way of a constitutional, turned and started down again. As he did this, his eye fell upon a strange figure which had at first escaped him. Toward the stern of theCypriani, near the wheel, a little runt of a boy hung over the rail, and made the air noxious with the relicts of a low-born cigar. He was an aged, cynical boy, with a phlegmatic mien and a face of the complexion and general appearance of a hickory-nut.
A little surprised by the sudden apparition, Varney came down the deck and dropped into a chair near him.
"Well, my lad! I'm happy to see you and your cigar again. But to what do we owe the pleasure of this call from you two old friends?"
The boy turned his back to the rail and faced him impassively. In the brilliant sunshine, he looked singularly worn and wise.
"I brung dem wires," he said courageously plying the cigar. "Any answer?"
"I'll see, after a while," said Varney, hastily lighting a pipe as counter-irritant. "So you're the telegraph boy, are you?"
"Nawser. Odjobbin' I do. Anythink as comes handy. They don't deliver no wires down here. I handles 'em sometimes for wut dere is in it."
"Oh! Well, I won't fail to see that there is something in it for you this time. And do you make much money odd-jobbing?"
"I git along awright. Summertimes I do. Wintertimes there ain't no odjobbin' much."
"How old are you, my boy?"
"Twelve year old."
"Twelve! I thought you were sixteen, at least."
A faint look of gratification crossed the boy's face, but he only said stoically: "Twelve year's my age."
"What do you do in the wintertime when there isn't much odd-jobbing? How do you get along then?"
"I git along awright. Sometimes I git help. Off a lady here, a frien' o' mine."
"What lady? What's her name?"
"Name o' Miss Mary. Miss Carstair, some calls her. I git money and clo's off her. I'd 'a' had some bum winters, hadn't ben for her."
There was a pause, and then Varney said: "What's your name, my boy?"
Again the boy hesitated. "Tommy," he said presently.
"Tommy what?"
"Tommy—Orrick."
Varney started. Of all the sordid Hunston of the natives, that was the one name which meant anything to him. It was rather a curious coincidence.
"Then I suppose old Sam Orrick," he said kindly, "is your father's father."
"Nawser," he answered slowly. And he added presently, "He wuz me mudder's father."
After that, the silence lengthened. Varney looked off down the river. Tommy Orrick, whose father was named something else, clapped his hand suddenly to his lip, because his cigar just then scorched it unbearably.
"What is your father's name, Tommy?" asked Varney, in a low voice.
His back toward Varney, his fragment of a cigar poised, reluctantly ready to drop, the boy shook his head. "I don't rightly know," he said in his husky little voice.
But Varney knew that name: and he said it now slowly over to himself in a dull and futile anger.
From the shore a boat put out hurriedly and the faithful steward came flying over the water with meritorious speed. With him he was bringing the papers that might settle theCypriani'smission, but Varney, for the moment, hardly gave him a thought. His own affairs were blotted from his mind just then by the tragedy of the little waif before him, luckless victim of another's sin, small flotsam which barely weathered the winters when odd-jobbing was scarce, and only one lady cared.
"Where do you live, Tommy?"
"Kerrigan's loft mostly—w'en Kerrigan ain't dere."
"This morning," said Varney rapidly, "I'm just as busy as a bee. But this afternoon, or to-morrow morning anyway, I want to come down to Kerrigan's and call on you."
"Wut about?" the boy demanded with an instant suspiciousness which was rather pathetic.
"About you, Tommy. I have got a little plan in my head, and there isn't any time to talk about it now. What would you say to having a home with some nice people I know in another city—in New York?"
A sudden dumbness seized Tommy. His head slowly lowered and he did not answer. Around the deck-house from the port-side hurried McTosh, his arm embracing a bundle of papers, his brow beady with the honest toil of speed wrung out of country paths.
"Ah, steward! You made good time. Ask Mr. Maginnis if he won't come on deck when he is at leisure. Thomas, you're for the shore, aren't you? Forward, there!"
He got up and stood by the side of grave little Tommy Orrick, who was staring silently down at the white deck.
"Down in New York, Tommy, I know a nice woman who has a home and no boys at all to put in it. A long time ago she used to be the nurse of a boy I knew, but he grew up; and now her husband's dead and she's all alone. And here in Hunston is a boy with no home to put himself in. That's you, Tommy, and I—but here's your boat. I'll come to see you to-morrow at Kerrigan's—sure, and we'll talk it all over. Good-bye. And remember that you and I are just the best friends going."
He held out his hand, to shake, but Tommy, in an excess of stage-fright at the unwonted ceremonial, nimbly turned his back; and the next instant he slipped over the rail like an acrobat and dropped into the waiting dinghy. Safely there, he glanced tentatively upward; but seeing that the tall man above was still standing at the rail and was smiling down upon him, looked tactfully away again. And Varney heard him say to the oarsman in a snappy, impatient voice: "Pull for all you know, dere! I got bizness dat won't keep."
Varney sat down with the bundle of papers. Within the minute, Peter appeared, replete but characteristically alert.
"Read it yet?"
"No, but I've found it. It wasn't hard."
He handed Peter the paper, his thumb crooked to indicate the place, which was superfluous; for near the middle of the front page, top of column and in the strong type of captions, the words leaped out to Peter's eye as though hand-illumined in many colors:
Mystery Surrounding Young Man On Yacht Near Hunston.
He Says He's Varney—Natives say He's Stanhopeand Trouble Feared—Yacht is Elbert Carstairs's, withHer Name Painted Out—Mr. Varney's MovementsUnknown to Friends Here.
Peter read the story aloud in a guarded undertone. In general, it closely followed the story in theGazette; so closely indeed as to show at a glance that both productions came from one brain and pen. But toward the end, the new story took a different turn. It said:
"The above is a sample of the gossip which is agitating this usually quiet little town. Late to-night there are two distinct factions. One holds that the young 'stranger' is Ferris Stanhope, reconnoitring under analias. The other contends that he is really Laurence Varney, or somebody else, up here on some secret mission. Unless the stranger leaves town before, the facts will doubtless be brought out to-morrow. The gossips promise that a sensation of no mean order is forthcoming."
Below this, some one in theDailyoffice had added:
"A certain air of mystery surrounds Laurence Varney's recent movements. At his bachelor apartments, in the Arvonia, it was learned last night that Mr. Varney was out of the city, but the man-servant there had no idea of his master's whereabouts. From other sources, however, it was learned that Mr. Varney left New York several days ago on theCypriani, a handsome steam yacht belonging to Elbert Carstairs of No. 00 Fifth Avenue. An attempt was made to reach Mr. Carstairs at his home, but the hour was late, and he could not be interviewed. A telegram sent to Ferris Stanhope's last known address, Camp Skagway in the Adirondacks, was unanswered up to the hour of going to press."
Peter let the paper drop upon his knees, and whistled father shamefacedly. Here was a pretty kettle of fish indeed, and it was all of his brewing. If he had kept his fingers out of the affairs of Hunston, as both his enemy and his friend had warned him to do, the unscrupulous editor would have had no interest in attacking him, over his captain's shoulders, and this damaging story would never have been concocted and spread broadcast as a feast for gossips. He had been brought to Hunston to help Varney—and here was the front-page result.
If a similar thought flashed across Varney's mind in this disturbing moment, he instantly forgot it for others more practical. He sat curled up in a folding deck-chair, swiftly weighing what this new issue might mean, and a moment of rather heavy silence ensued.
The cat was all but out of the bag: this fatal hint at "some secret mission" made that plain. A little carelessness, some more shrewd probing into his affairs, and the jig would be up, indeed. This was the one way that their enemies in Hunston could interfere with him—insisting on knowing why he had come there; and Coligny Smith had had the bull luck, as Peter put it, to stumble on it.
Thus it fell out that he, Varney, who had needed to seek the dark and unobtrusive ways, found himself thrust suddenly into the full glare of the calcium. He who was guarding an errand which nobody should know about was now to be asked by everybody who read newspapers just what that errand was.
It was so absurd that all at once he laughed aloud. However, it was becoming quite serious, and he saw that, too.
"Damn him!" broke out Peter, compactly, and he added presently: "Think of his throwing a bomb in the air like that, and smoking out poor old Carstairs!"
Varney looked up, knocked out his pipe against his heel, and restored it thoughtfully to his pocket. "Yes. Did you notice the difference between those two stories? He doesn't want Hunston even to suspect that I may be myself. His game here is toknowI'm Stanhope, whom the whole town is sore on. In New York, he tries both stories, not knowing which will hurt the most. However, theories will keep. The facts are plain. They've started out to run us down—that's all. The point is now to decide what we are going to do about it."
He stood up, tall and cool, his jaw shut tightly, his brow puckered into a long frown, thinking rapidly.
"As I see it," he said slowly, "it works about like this. Probably theGazetteis the local news bureau for this town. At any rate, it is evident that somebody on it is the correspondent of theDaily. TheGazette, we know, wants to run you out of town in order to have a free hand in slaughtering Hare. Last night they supposed that my looking like Stanhope was the best card they had. This morning they will guess that there may be a still better one lying around somewhere. TheDailytells them that I'm Varney, and, what is much more interesting, that I'm using Elbert Carstairs's yacht. Mrs. Elbert Carstairs lives in Hunston. Putting two and two together, and adding the painted-out name and a dash of seeming furtiveness on my part, you have all the materials for a nice, yellow mystery. I haven't the slightest doubt that when that telegraph editor in New York gets down to his office about one o'clock to-day, the very first thing he does, after hanging his coat on the nail, is to wire his correspondent to begin operating on me."
Peter nailed the alternative. "If he doesn't, theGazettewill attend to the job, anyway."
"Yes, the press is on our trail, in any case. The fact that this is the Carstairs yacht will mean more to theGazettethan it could to theDaily. It will be a kind of connecting link for them. Of course, they'll jump at it like wildfire. If they can make anything at all out of it, they'll play it up to-morrow so that nobody in this town can possibly miss seeing it."
"Pray heaven," said Peter, referring to Mary Carstairs, "that she won't see theDailythis morning!"
"Yes. Her father's name would naturally start her to thinking, which would make things awkward."
"Larry, theGazetteis going to print his name to-morrow morning as sure as Smith is a lying sneak."
"We've still got to-day, haven't we? By Jove, it's nearly eleven already. A reporter may be down on us at almost any minute. We can't stand being cross-examined. No searchlight of journalism playing about on theCyprianijust now, thank you. My own idea is—"
"To grab him, to batter the face off him—"
"No, to elude him. Not to be here. In short, to run away."
"What?You can't mean that you are going to let that dog drive you back to New York?"
"Well, hardly. But I do mean to make him think he has! I mean to run down the river a few miles and anchor where they can't find us, simply to get out of the way. Then we'll run back to-morrow in time for the luncheon. What do you think of that?"
Peter, his forehead rumpled like a corduroy road, stared at him fixedly and thought it over. "I think it's the best thing in sight," he said judicially. "An exceedingly neat little idea."
"If we're being watched, it may persuade them that we've gone. Anyway, it will give us time to decide what next," said Varney. And he hurried off to confer with the sailing-master.
Presently the engine-room bell rang out a signal. Orders were given and repeated above and below. Men began moving about swiftly. The noise of coal scraped hurriedly out of bunkers smote the air. TheCypriani'shold throbbed with sudden life.
Varney, running hastily through the two newspaper stories again to make sure that they had missed nothing that might be important to them, was presently joined by Peter, who was looking at his watch every third minute and swearing softly every time he looked. Something had been discovered amiss with the machinery, it seemed. The captain was sure he would have the plaguy thing all right in another half-hour, but you never could tell. For his part he'd swear that a yacht was worse than an old-style motor car: you could absolutely count on her to be out of order at any moment when you positively had to have her.
To be delayed until somebody appeared to challenge their going was to lose half the battle. Varney went off to the sailing-master and spoke with him again, concisely. The sailing-master, a sensitive man to criticism, once more apologized, very technically, and redoubled his energies. He went below himself to superintend the repairs and to prod the laggards to their utmost endeavors. In less than three quarters of an hour, by Peter's watch, he was up again, in a shower of falling perspiration, to announce that all was ready.
However, valuable moments had been lost. It was now nearly half-past twelve, or, in Peter's indignant summary, "just an hour and a half too late."
Varney glanced toward the bridge.
"All ready there?" he called.
"All ready, sir," said the sailing-master, and sprang for the indicator.
"Hold on," said Peter suddenly. "We're getting visitors. There's some one signaling us from the shore."
Varney's heart bounded. He turned with an exclamation; but in the next breath, he ordered: "Let her go, Ferguson."
Upon the shore, at the spot where theCypriani'sboat ordinarily landed, stood a tallish, stocky young man, looking at them cheerfully and swabbing his brow with a large blue handkerchief. Catching Varney's eye, he waved his hand with the handkerchief in it, and said, for the second time:
"Hello, aboard theCypriani!"
Varney stepped to the rail, a faint smile on his lip. "Hello, there!What can we do for you?"
"Hot as merry hell, isn't it?" said the young man pleasantly. "Send a boat over for me, will you? I'm Hammerton, of theGazetteand the New YorkDaily, and I want to come aboard for a little talk."
"Never in this world!" breathed Peter,sotto voce.
Varney smiled, grimly. "Sorry, Mr. Hammerton. You're just too late. We are starting away from Hunston this very minute."
TheCyprianishuddered like a live thing and slid slowly forward.