Lady Hartley(néeMiss Persis Van Ness) gave a little gasp. In her excitement the paper rustled noisily to her knee.
"O-h! Have you seen this?" She shot theMorning Postacross the breakfast table to Mrs. Rufus P. Urmy, with her finger marking a paragraph.
Mrs. Urmy glanced at it. "I guess it ought to corral him right away," she said, with the merest suspicion of embarrassment. "You see, it's Jeannette's last chance. Two seasons in England and never a catch, so I——"
"Youdid it?" Lady Hartley looked at her friend in round-eyed wonder.
"I—I had to do something," allowed Mrs. Urmy, with a dawning suspicion that perhaps she had, after all, run afoul of British conventions, which she found as difficult of comprehension as her regular morning study of Debrett.
"But Jeannette!"
"That's so. Jeannette'll raise Cain." Mrs. Urmy got up from the table. "It's this a-way, Persis. I reckon I fixed your little affair up with Lord Hartley to home, and you've got to thank me for it. Now, I'm trying to do the same for my girl. She can't, or she won't, play her own hand. Every chance she's had she's let slide, and I allow she's got to marry a title before I go back to the States. Some one's got to hustle when Providence isn't attending to business, and as there's nobody else to do it, I've taken on the contract." She pointed to the paragraph. "I own up I don't see just how, but there wasn't much time, and it was the best I could do."
Lady Hartley slowly reread the incriminating paragraph:
"A marriage has been arranged, and will shortly take place between the Earl of Chilminster, of Sapworth Hall, Wilts, and Miss Jeannette L. Urmy, of Boston, Massachusetts."
"It knocks me out!" she murmured, lapsing into the Western idiom which a whole week spent in the society of her bosom friend was bound to call up. "But why Lord Chilminster?" She pronounced the name Chilster.
"Why won't he do? Isn't he the real thing? I picked him out in my sample book of the aristocracy, and when I fitted the name on to Jeannette—the Countess of Chilminster—it sounded quite elegant."
"Then it wasn't because you knew I knew him?" demanded Mrs. Urmy's hostess with growing amazement.
Mrs. Urmy's face took on a blank expression.
"You've heard me mention the name. That's how it's pronounced," explained Lady Hartley. "His place isn't far from here."
"You don't say! The way these British titles are pronounced is enough to make you doubt your own eyesight. I didn't know. But if he's a friend of yours that'll likely make it all the easier."
"Lord Chilminster!" Lady Hartley spoke in an awed tone.
She felt it would be useless to make Mrs. Urmy understand the enormity of her offence against good taste, and presently her astonishment gave way to amusement.
"Lavinia," she rippled, "as a matchmaker you take the cake! I don't believe——" She paused, listening. "Hush! Here's Jeannette!"
Miss Jeannette Urmy came in through the open French window. She was dressed in a natty little cotton frock, looked fresh and chic, and only pleasantly American. Perhaps she inherited her good looks and refined tastes from "popper" Urmy, deceased, in which case that gentleman must have committed one serious error of taste and judgment when he selected Jeannette's mother for his better half.
"My! You're late, Jeannette!" observed Mrs. Urmy, shooting a quick glance at Lady Hartley.
At the same moment, both ladies, by common consent, sauntered toward the door. They knew Jeannette's temperament. A crisis, such as the announcement in theMorning Postwas sure to evoke, was one at which they were not anxious to assist.
"Oh, I'm ahead of time," answered Jeannette. "I've been up since six looking for eggs."
"Eggs?" echoed Lady Hartley.
"Yes; I collect birds' eggs." She picked up the newspaper and let her eye wander along the items in the Court Circular. "But getting up early makes me homesick. The best time of my life was when I was a kid, when I hadn't an idea beyond the woods on the old Massachusetts farm, when popper kept his store, and—Oh!"
She had reached the fatal announcement, and sat with parted lips, rigid as stone, while the world seemed toppling about her ears. There was a long pause. Jeannette's lips gradually tightened, and her firm hand crumpled up the paper.
"Mommer!" she exclaimed. "Here, Mommer!" But Mrs. Urmy and Lady Hartley had beaten a diplomatic retreat. Jeannette jumped to her feet, the color flaming in her face, her eyes snapping with indignation. "Oh!" she cried, impotently. "I'll—I'll—oh! what can I do? It must come out! He must apologize. Who did it? Oh, I don't even know him, the—wretch!"
The "chuff-chuff" of a motor-car coming up the drive interrupted her outburst, and she looked up to see it being driven up and halted before the entrance. Lady Hartley had a perfect fleet of cars. Jeannette at once jumped to the conclusion that this was one of them. She had a sudden inspiration. It was running free—ready to start. There was temptation in the soft purr of its engine. The driver, quietly dressed, but not in livery, she appraised as one of Lady Hartley's motor-men.
"Shall I?" she whispered. "Dare I? I can set things straight at once if I do. Persis will be wild with me for going off without a word, but I'll—I'll chance it!"
She ran into the hall, slipped into her motoring coat, and, throwing discretion to the winds, walked out to the front of the house and quickly up to the car.
"How soon can you drive me to Sapworth Hall?" she asked, getting in and pulling the rug around her.
The barefaced appropriation of his car by an unknown young woman almost took Lord Chilminster's breath away. He had, at much inconvenience to himself, motored all the way to Lady Hartley's to contradict and sift an amazing and annoying report that he had discovered in theMorning Post. He had heard Lady Hartley mention the name of Urmy as that of a friend of hers, and naturally decided that she was the proper person to consult. But before he had time to get out of his car and ring the bell here was a young person, springing from goodness knows where, mistaking him for a motor-man, and ordering him about. For a moment he was speechless. Then, as the humor of the situation began to appeal to him, so did the good looks of the girl.
"Really," he began. "You see I——"
"Don't talk, get under way!" commanded Jeannette. "Quick! Her ladyship has altered her mind about going out. You've got to take me to Sapworth Hall. It's thirty miles. I want to be there by lunch-time. Do you know the way?"
"I—I think so," stammered Chilminster.
Her bewildering eagerness to be off was infectious. The noble owner of the car felt it. But apart from that, he was quite ready for an adventure in such pleasant company. He forgot all about the object of his visit. Without another word he let in the clutch and started.
Jeannette sank back with a sigh of relief. She credited herself with having secured Persis's car very neatly. The man might, perhaps, get into trouble, but she could make that up to him by a generous tip. Her one idea was to contradict and confute the disgraceful announcement at its fountain-head. It was providential that the unknown Lord Chilminster's place was so near; but had it been ten times as far off, Jeannette, boiling with justifiable indignation, and with her mind made up to exact reparation, would have gone there.
"It's awful! It's unheard of! I—I won't have it! Who can have done it?" she kept repeating through white teeth set viciously. "I'll have it contradicted in large print by this time to-morrow, or the American Ambassador shall——"
She was not quite sure what ambassadors did under similar circumstances, and she left the mental threat unfinished. Anyhow, it was a disgrace to herself, and her sex, if not a slight on her country, and it redoubled her determination to "get even" with the perpetrator of it. She leaned forward to make herself heard.
"Set a killing pace," she called. "I'll make it up to you."
Chilminster nodded, hid a smile, and let the car out to the top of its speed. It ate up mile after mile; and as it came to Jeannette that each one brought her nearer and nearer to the hateful person whose name had been so scandalously bracketed with her own, she experienced a feeling of nervousness. The boldness of her escapade began to alarm her. What should she say? How express in words her view of an intolerable situation which no self-respecting girl could even calmly think about?
Lord Chilminster's mind was almost similarly engaged. He was wondering who Miss Jeannette L. Urmy could be, and whether she was aware of the obnoxious paragraph in the paper. He did not do her the injustice to suppose that she had inspired it (he had an open mind on that point), but as he was not responsible for it himself, he had a suspicion that she might be. Chilminster had met very few unmarried American girls, but like most Englishmen, he was aware of their capacity for resolution in most matters. Then, again, it was leap year. Suppose—— For a little while he did a lot of hard thinking.
"I say," he called suddenly, looking over his shoulder. "Isn't there a Miss Urmy staying at the White House?"
Jeannette drew herself up and fixed him with a stony stare.
"I am Miss Urmy," she answered frigidly.
The start that Chilminster gave unconsciously affected the steering-wheel, and the car swerved sharply.
"What are you doing? You're driving disgracefully!" exclaimed Jeannette.
"I—I beg your pardon," faltered Chilminster. "I thought you were her lady's maid."
He felt he owed her that one. A girl who could announce her approaching marriage with a stranger (Chilminster no longer gave her the benefit of the doubt) and follow up that glaring indiscretion by a visit to her victim, was—— The imminence of such a thing alarmed him. Was she coming to propose—to molest him? He got hot thinking of it.
The situation had undergone a complete change since he had started out in a rage, and some trepidation, to confront Miss Urmy herself, if need be. Now trepidation over-balanced all his other emotions. Miss Urmy was behind him, in his own automobile, and he was meekly driving her at a cracking speed to his own house! It was too late to turn back now. The thing had to be seen through. Besides, he could not help feeling a curiosity to know what was in his passenger's mind, and to discover her bewildering plan of action.
Neither spoke for the rest of the journey, and at length the car passed through the lodge gates, swept up the drive, and stopped at the entrance to Sapworth Hall. Jeannette got out.
"You had better go round to the stables and ask for something to eat. I may be some time," was all she volunteered as she rang the bell.
Rather staggered by the order, but foreseeing a bad quarter of an hour ahead of him, Chilminster was glad of the respite. He opened the throttle and slid out of sight as Jeannette was admitted.
His lordship was out, the butler informed her. Then she would wait—wait all day, if necessary, she said decisively, following the man into the library. No, she was in no need of refreshment, but herchauffeur, who had gone round to the stables, might be glad of something in the servants' hall.
With a foot impatiently tapping the polished floor, she sat summoning up all her determination whilst awaiting the ordeal before her. For, by this time had come the inevitable reaction, and the sudden impulse that had made her act as she had seemed, somehow, out of relation to the motive that had inspired it. Not that she regretted having come: her self-respect demanded that sacrifice; but she wished the unpleasant affair over.
An intolerable ten minutes passed. The beautiful seventeenth century room, like a reflection on the spirit of democracy, was getting on Jeannette's nerves. The strain of listening, watching the big mahogany door for the expected entrance of Lord Chilminster, at last reduced her to a state of apathy, and when he did come quietly in she was taken by surprise.
"I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting," he said.
Jeannette stared. Bareheaded, gaiterless, minus his driving coat, very self-contained and eminently aristocratic, the supposed motor-man advanced into the room.
"You see, you told me to take the car round to the stables," he proceeded, with a touch of apology in his tone.
"You—you are the Earl of Chilminster?" she gasped.
"Of Sapworth Hall, Wilts," he augmented, like one who quotes. "And you are Miss Jeannette L. Urmy, of Boston, Massachusetts, I believe."
There was quite a long silence.
"You knew all along," she flushed angrily.
Chilminster raised a hand in protest. "Not until you told me."
"Then why didn't you stop? You ought to have taken me back immediately you knew who I was."
"So I would have if——"
"You mean you didn't believe me. You thought I was a lady's maid!" Jeannette interrupted indignantly.
"That was an error of judgment for which I humbly apologize. We are all liable to make mistakes sometimes. You, Miss Urmy, for instance, took me for a motor-man. You also appropriated my car, and commanded me to bring you here at a murderous—no, a killing pace. And I think you added that you would make it up to me."
Jeannette's face tingled. She had come to accuse, and, instead, found herself patiently listening to a recital of her indiscretions. But if Lord Chilminster was a strategist, Jeannette was a tactician. She appreciated the danger of a passive defense, and conversely, of the value of a vigorous aggression. Without a moment's hesitation she began a counter attack.
"In to-day'sMorning Post——" she commenced.
"Ah, theMorning Post!" echoed Chilminster, also changing front.
"There was a disgraceful announcement."
"Half of it certainly was—irksome."
"Which half?" asked Jeannette suspiciously.
"I have no conscientious scruples about matrimony in the abstract," parried Chilminster.
"But I have. I object altogether to the paragraph. I resent it."
"Then you did not insert it?"
"I insert it?I?" flamed Jeannette. She drew herself up as haughtily as a pretty woman can under the disadvantage of being seated in a yielding easy chair. "Do you mean to assert, Lord Chilminster, that I——?"
She was interrupted by the entrance of the butler.
"Luncheon is served, my lord," he announced.
"You will take off your coat?"
Lord Chilminster turned to Miss Urmy, and advanced a step in anticipation. The butler—with a well-trained butler's promptness—was behind her, and before she could frame a word of objection, the fur-lined garment had slipped from her shoulders.
Thus must martyrs have marched to the stake, was one of Jeannette's bewildered reflections as she preceded her host out of the room, and, as in a dream, found herself a few minutes later facing him across the luncheon table. Outwardly, the meal proceeded in well-ordered calm. Lord Chilminster made no further reference to the debatable topic; only talked lightly and pleasantly on a variety of non-committal subjects.
As the lady's host that, of course, was the only attitude he could adopt; but the fact remains that he did sode bonne volonté. Perhaps because, so far, he had scored more points than his opponent in the morning's encounter; perhaps, also, because of her undeniable good looks, his irritation, due to the circumstances that had prompted that encounter, began to lessen withtruites en papilotte, was almost forgotten in face of amousse de volaille, and entirely vanished amongasperges vertes mousseline.
Miss Jeannette L. Urmy, with her veil lifted, and relieved of her voluminous coat, was, he had to admit, distractingly pretty; not at all the type he had pictured as the original of the name. Young, pretty, and charming women (he was convinced thatau fondshe was charming) ought to have no obstinate prejudices against marriage. He even ventured to think that Miss Urmy's mind had become obscured on that point by those—well, indiscreet lines in theMorning Post. They had upset him; then why not her? They were so—premature.
As for Jeannette, in spite of Lord Chilminster's effortless ease, her powers of conversation were frozen. She was reduced to monosyllables, and she ate in proportion. It was a humiliating experience to be accepting the hospitality of the enemy; one, moreover, that made it awkward for her to prolong hostilities. Having broken bread in his tents (a Puritan strain was responsible for the illustration) she felt disarmed. Besides, she was rather ashamed of her maladroitness in mistaking Lord Chilminster for a common motor-man. It arguedgaucherie. Perhaps he thought her unconventional call a violation of good taste—considered her forward! He had plainly shown his annoyance about that obnox—that embarrassing paragraph, and that fact spiked most of her batteries. He might, after all, prove to be quite——
"Do you mind if I smoke?"
Lord Chilminster's voice startled her out of her reverie. The servants had noiselessly retired, and they were alone.
"I—I feel ready to sink through the floor," she rejoined inconsequently.
He returned his cigarette case to his pocket, looking quite concerned. "I'm so sorry. I ought not to have——"
"No, no. Please smoke. It isn't that," stammered Jeannette.
"It's theMorning Post?"
Jeannette evaded his eye.
"Yes; it does put us in rather a tight place," mediated Chilminster.
Nothing was said for a moment.
"Engaged!" he murmured.
Jeannette raised her eyes and noted his reflective attitude.
"Who can have put it in?" he went on.
"I can't imagine."
"And why?"
"It does seem strange," admitted Jeannette in a detached tone.
"It's not as if we were——"
"No," she interposed hurriedly.
"Well, what ought we to do about it? Of course, we can contradict it, but——"
"But what?" she asked, filling his pause.
"I hate advertisement—that is,unnecessaryadvertisement," Chilminster corrected himself. "It would make us—I mean me—look so—so vacillating."
He looked up rather suddenly, and just missed Jeannette's eyes by the thousandth of a second.
What could he mean? she asked herself, while her heart pumped boisterously. Was he magnanimous enough to be thinking of accepting a compromising situation to save her? What he had said sounded very unselfish. Of course, she couldn't allow him to. What a pity he was not an American—or something quite ordinary. Then she might——
"There's nothing for it but to write to the paper, I suppose?" he said ruefully.
"I—I suppose not." The comment was dragged from Jeannette in a tone as unconsciously reluctant as his was rueful.
Chilminster sighed. "It's so rough on you."
Jeannette felt a consuming anxiety to know whether his sympathy was occasioned by the announcement or the suggested denial of it.
"And on you, too," she admitted. "What were you thinking—how did you propose to phrase it?"
"I?" he asked apprehensively. "To be quite frank. I haven't got as far as that. Never wrote to the papers in my life," he added pusillanimously.
"ButIcan't," argued Jeannette. Her determination of two hours ago had vanished into the Ewigkeit.
Chilminster had an inspiration. "What do you say if we do it together?"
While she digested this expedient he fetched paper and pencil, and then sat gazing at the ceiling for inspiration.
"Well?" she queried at the end of a minute.
"How ought one to begin these things?" asked the desperate man.
Jeannette cogitated deeply. "It's so difficult to say what one wants to a stranger in a letter, isn't it?" she hesitated. "Wouldn't a telegram do?"
"By Jove! Yes; and simply say: 'Miss Urmy wishes to deny——'"
"Inmyname!" exclaimed Jeannette.
"Well—you are the person aggrieved."
"I really don't think it's fair to put the whole of the responsibility on my shoulders," she demurred.
"No, I suppose not," Chilminster admitted grudgingly. "How would this do: 'Miss Urmy and Lord Chilminster wish to contradict their engagement——'"
"But that implies that therewasan engagement!"
Chilminster pondered the deduction. "So it does. I see. People would jump to the conclusion that we were in a desperate hurry to alter our minds!"
"And, of course, we haven't."
"Y-es. I don't know how you feel about it, but if there's one thing I dislike it's tittle-tattle about my private affairs."
"Horrid!" shivered Jeannette. "Whatarewe to do?"
Her tone was so hopeless, so full of tears, that it melted Chilminster. Susceptibilities that had been simmering within him for an hour past came unexpectedly to the boil; and as they did so the difficulty vanished.
"Why need we bother at all about it?" he asked impulsively.
For a world of moments, Jeannette stared at him, revolving the question. Then a faint radiance came into her face, and grew and grew until it burned. Jeannette bit her lip. Jeannette looked down.
"What do you mean?" she asked in confusion.
"Don't—don't you think we had better—take the consequences?" said Chilminster, as he reached across the table and let his hand fall on hers.
Mrs. Urmy stood at the window looking with lack-lustre eyes across the park. She had had six solid hours in which to reflect on that risky communication of hers to theMorning Post, and Jeannette's disappearance since breakfast time provided a gloomy commentary on it. She fidgeted uneasily as she recalled her daughter's scared look when reading the paper, and maternal forebodings discounted her interest in an automobile that showed at intervals between the trees of the drive as it approached the White House.
But two moments later it occurred to her that it was Jeannette who sat on its front seat beside the driver; and, as the car drew up, her experienced eye detected something in the demeanor of the pair that startled but elated her.
"Here's Jeannette!" she called over her shoulder to Lady Hartley. "In an auto with a young man. Say, Persis, who is he?"
Lady Hartley hurried to the window, gave one look, and doubted the evidence of her eyes.
"Lavinia, it's Lord Chilminster!" she cried, with a catch in her voice.
The two women flashed a glance brimful of significance at one another. Lady Hartley's expressed uncertainty; Mrs. Urmy's triumph—sheer, complete, perfect triumph.
"Didn't I say it was a sure thing?" she shrilled excitedly. "It's fixed them up! Come right ahead and introduce me to my future son-in-law!"
As she raced to the door she added half to herself: "I don't want to boast, but, thank the Lord, I've got Jeannette off this season!"
It wasthe second month of the strike, and not a pound of freight had been moved. Things did look smoky on the West End. The General Superintendent happened to be with us when the news came. "You can't handle it, boys," said he nervously. "What you'd better do is to turn it over to the Columbian Pacific."
Our contracting freight agent on the Coast at that time was a fellow so erratic that he was nicknamed "Crazy-horse." Right in the midst of the strike Crazy-horse wired that he had secured a big silk shipment for New York. We were paralyzed. We had no engineers, no firemen, and no motive power to speak of. The strikers were pounding our men, wrecking our trains, and giving us the worst of it generally; that is, when we couldn't give it to them. Why the fellow displayed his activity at that particular juncture still remains a mystery. Perhaps he had a grudge against the road; if so, he took an artful revenge. Everybody on the system with ordinary railroad sense knew that our struggle was to keep clear of freight business until we got rid of our strike. Anything valuable or perishable was especially unwelcome. But the stuff was docked, and loaded, and consigned in our care before we knew it. After that, a refusal to carry it would be like hoisting the white flag; and that is something which never yet flew over the West End.
"Turn it over to the Columbian," said the General Superintendent; but the General Superintendent was not looked up to on our division. He hadn't enough sand. Our head was a fighter, and he gave tone to every man under him. "No," he thundered, bringing down his fist. "Not in a thousand years. We'll move it ourselves. Wire Montgomery (the General Manager) that we will take care of it. And wire him to fire Crazy-horse—and to do it right off." And before the silk was turned over to us Crazy-horse was looking for another job. It is the only case on record where a freight hustler was discharged for getting business.
There were twelve carloads; it was insured for $85,000 a car; you can figure how far the title is wrong, but you never can estimate the worry the stuff gave us. It looked as big as twelve million dollars' worth. In fact, one scrub car-link, with the glory of the West End at heart, had a fight over the amount with a skeptical hostler. He maintained that the actual money value was a hundred and twenty millions; but I give you the figures just as they went over the wire, and they are right.
What bothered us most was that the strikers had the tip almost as soon as we had it. Having friends on every road in the country, they knew as much about our business as we ourselves. The minute it was announced that we should move the silk, they were after us. It was a defiance; a last one. If we could move freight—for we were already moving passengers after a fashion—the strike might be well accounted beaten.
Stewart, the leader of the local contingent, together with his followers, got after me at once. "You don't show much sense, Reed," said he. "You fellows here are breaking your necks to get things moving, and when this strike's over, if our boys ask for your discharge, they'll get it. This road can't run without our engineers. We're going to beat you. If you dare try to move this silk, we'll have your scalp when it's over. You'll never get your silk to Zanesville, I'll promise you that. And if you ditch it and make a million-dollar loss, you'll get let out anyway, my buck."
"I'm here to obey orders, Stewart," said I. What was the use of more? I felt uncomfortable; but we had determined to move the silk; there was no more to be said.
When I went over to the round-house and told Neighbor the decision, he said never a word; but he looked a great deal. Neighbor's task was to supply the motive power. All that we had, uncrippled, was in the passenger service, because passengers should be taken care of first of all. In order to win a strike, you must have public opinion on your side.
"Nevertheless, Neighbor," said I, after we had talked awhile, "we must move the silk also."
Neighbor studied; then he roared at his foreman. "Send Bartholomew Mullen here." He spoke with a decision that made me think the business was done. I had never happened, it is true, to hear of Bartholomew Mullen in the department of motive power; but the impression the name gave me was of a monstrous fellow, big as Neighbor, or old man Sankey, or Dad Hamilton. "I'll put Bartholomew ahead of it," said Neighbor tightly.
I saw a boy walk into the office. "Mr. Garten said you wanted me, sir," said he, addressing the Master Mechanic.
"I do, Bartholomew," responded Neighbor.
The figure in my mind's eye shrunk in a twinkling. Then it occurred to me that it must be this boy's father who was wanted.
"You have been begging for a chance to take out an engine, Bartholomew," began Neighbor coldly; and I knew it was on.
"Yes, sir."
"You want to get killed, Bartholomew."
Bartholomew smiled as if the idea was not altogether displeasing.
"How would you like to go pilot to-morrow for McCurdy? You to take the 44 and run as first Seventy-eight. McCurdy will run as second Seventy-eight."
"I know I could run an engine all right," ventured Bartholomew, as if Neighbor were the only one taking the chances in giving him an engine. "I know the track from here to Zanesville. I helped McNeff fire one week."
"Then go home, and go to bed; and be over here at six o'clock to-morrow morning. And sleep sound, for it may be your last chance."
It was plain that the Master Mechanic hated to do it; it was simply sheer necessity. "He's a wiper," mused Neighbor, as Bartholomew walked springily away. "I took him in here sweeping two years ago. He ought to be firing now, but the union held him back; that's why he don't like them. He knows more about an engine now than half the lodge. They'd better have let him in," said the Master Mechanic grimly. "He may be the means of breaking their backs yet. If I give him an engine and he runs it, I'll never take him off, union or no union, strike or no strike."
"How old is that boy?" I asked.
"Eighteen; and never a kith or a kin that I know of. Bartholomew Mullen," mused Neighbor, as the slight figure moved across the flat, "big name—small boy. Well, Bartholomew, you'll know something more by to-morrow night about running an engine, or a whole lot less: that's as it happens. If he gets killed, it's your fault, Reed."
He meant that I was calling on him for men when he couldn't supply them.
"I heard once," he went on, "about a fellow named Bartholomew being mixed up in a massacre. But I take it he must have been an older man than our Bartholomew—nor his other name wasn't Mullen, neither. I disremember just what it was; but it wasn't Mullen."
"Well, don't say I want to get the boy killed, Neighbor," I protested. "I've got plenty to answer for. I'm here to run trains—when there are any to run; that's murder enough for me. You needn't send Bartholomew out on my account."
"Give him a slow schedule, and I'll give him orders to jump early; that's all we can do. If the strikers don't ditch him, he'll get through somehow."
It stuck in my crop—the idea of putting that boy on a pilot engine to take all the dangers ahead of that particular train; but I had a good deal else to think of besides. From the minute the silk got into the McCloud yards, we posted double guards around. About twelve o'clock that night we held a council of war, which ended in our running the train into the out freight-house. The result was that by morning we had a new train made up. It consisted of fourteen refrigerator cars loaded with oranges which had come in mysteriously the night before. It was announced that the silk would be held for the present and the oranges rushed through at once. Bright and early the refrigerator train was run down to the icehouses, and twenty men were put to work icing the oranges. At seven o'clock, McCurdy pulled in the local passenger with engine 105. Our plan was to cancel the load and run him right out with the oranges. When he got in, he reported that the 105 had sprung a tire; this threw us out entirely. There was a hurried conference in the round-house.
"What can you do?" asked the Superintendent in desperation.
"There's only one thing I can do. Put Bartholomew Mullen on it with the 44, and put McCurdy to bed for Number Two to-night," responded Neighbor.
It was eight o'clock. I looked into the locomotive stalls. The first—the only—man in sight was Bartholomew Mullen. He was very busy polishing the 44. He had good steam on her, and the old tub was wheezing away as if she had the asthma. The 44 was old; she was homely; she was rickety; but Bartholomew Mullen wiped her battered nose as deferentially as if she had been a spick-span, spider-driver, tail-truck mail-racer. She wasn't much—the 44. But in those days Bartholomew wasn't much: and the 44 was Bartholomew's.
"How is she steaming, Bartholomew?" I sang out; he was right in the middle of her. Looking up, he fingered his waste modestly and blushed through a dab of crude-petroleum over his eye. "Hundred and thirty pounds, sir. She's a terrible free steamer, the old 44. I'm all ready to run her out."
"Who's marked up to fire for you, Bartholomew?"
Bartholomew Mullen looked at me fraternally. "Neighbor couldn't give me anybody but a wiper, sir," said Bartholomew, in a sort of a wouldn't-that-kill-you tone.
The unconscious arrogance of the boy quite knocked me: so soon had honors changed his point of view. Last night a despised wiper; at daybreak, an engineer; and his nose in the air at the idea of taking on a wiper for fireman. And all so innocent.
"Would you object, Bartholomew," I suggested gently, "to a train-master for fireman?"
"I don't—think so, sir."
"Thank you; because I am going down to Zanesville this morning myself, and I thought I'd ride with you. Is it all right?"
"Oh, yes, sir—if Neighbor doesn't care."
I smiled: he didn't know whom Neighbor took orders from; but he thought, evidently, not from me.
"Then run her down to the oranges, Bartholomew, and couple on, and we'll order ourselves out. See?"
The 44 looked like a baby-carriage when we got her in front of the refrigerators. However, after the necessary preliminaries, we gave a very sporty toot, and pulled out. In a few minutes we were sailing down the valley.
For fifty miles we bobbed along with our cargo of iced silk as easy as old shoes; for I need hardly explain that we had packed the silk into the refrigerators to confuse the strikers. The great risk was that they would try to ditch us.
I was watching the track as a mouse would a cat, looking every minute for trouble. We cleared the gumbo cut west of the Beaver at a pretty good clip, in order to make the grade on the other side. The bridge there is hidden in summer by a grove of hackberries. I had just pulled open to cool her a bit when I noticed how high the back-water was on each side of the track. Suddenly I felt the fill going soft under the drivers; felt the 44 wobble and slew. Bartholomew shut off hard, and threw the air as I sprang to the window. The peaceful little creek ahead looked as angry as the Platte in April water, and the bottoms were a lake.
Somewhere up the valley there had been a cloudburst, for overhead the sun was bright. The Beaver was roaring over its banks, and the bridge was out. Bartholomew screamed for brakes: it looked as if we were against it—and hard. A soft track to stop on; a torrent of storm-water ahead, and ten hundred thousand dollars' worth of silk behind, not to mention equipment.
I yelled at Bartholomew, and motioned for him to jump; my conscience is clear on that point. The 44 was stumbling along, trying like a drunken man to hang to the rotten track.
"Bartholomew!" I yelled; but he was head out and looking back at his train while he jerked frantically at the air-lever. I understood: the air wouldn't work; it never will on those old tubs when you need it. The sweat pushed out on me. I was thinking of how much the silk would bring us after the bath in the Beaver. Bartholomew stuck to his levers like a man in a signal-tower, but every second brought us closer to open water. Watching him intent only on saving his first train—heedless of his life—I was actually ashamed to jump. While I hesitated he somehow got the brakes to set; the old 44 bucked like a bronco.
It wasn't too soon. She checked her train nobly at the last, but I saw nothing could keep her from the drink. I gave Bartholomew a terrific slap, and again I yelled; then turning to the gangway, I dropped into the soft mud on my side: the 44 hung low, and it was easy lighting.
Bartholomew sprang from his seat a second later; but his blouse caught in the teeth of the quadrant. He stooped quick as thought, and peeled the thing over his head. Then he was caught fast by the wristbands, and the ponies of the 44 tipped over the broken abutment. Pull as he would he couldn't get free. The pilot dipped into the torrent slowly. But losing her balance, the 44 kicked her heels into the air like lightning, and shot with a frightened wheeze plump into the creek, dragging her engineer with her.
The head car stopped on the brink. Running across the track, I looked for Bartholomew. He wasn't there; I knew he must have gone down with his engine. Throwing off my gloves, I dived, just as I stood, close to the tender, which hung half submerged. I am a good bit of a fish under water, but no self-respecting fish would be caught in that yellow mud. I realized, too, the instant I struck the water, that I should have dived on the upstream side. The current took me away whirling; when I came up for air, I was fifty feet below the pier. I scrambled out, feeling it was all up with Bartholomew; but to my amazement, as I shook my eyes open the train crew were running forward, and there stood Bartholomew on the track above me, looking at the refrigerator. When I got to him, he explained how he was dragged under and had to tear the sleeve out of his blouse under water to get free.
The surprise is how little fuss men make about such things when they are busy. It took only five minutes for the conductor to hunt up a coil of wire and a sounder for me, and by the time he got forward with it, Bartholomew was half-way up a telegraph pole to help me cut in on a live wire. Fast as I could, I rigged a pony, and began calling the McCloud despatcher. It was rocky sending, but after no end of pounding, I got him and gave orders for the wrecking gang, and for one more of Neighbor's rapidly decreasing supply of locomotives.
Bartholomew, sitting on a strip of fence which still rose above water, looked forlorn. To lose in the Beaver the first engine he ever handled was tough, and he was evidently speculating on his chances of ever getting another. If there weren't tears in his eyes, there was storm-water certainly. But after the relief engine had pulled what was left of us back six miles to a siding, I made it my first business to explain to Neighbor, who was nearly beside himself, that Bartholomew not only was not at fault, but that by his nerve he had actually saved the train.
"I'll tell you, Neighbor," I suggested, when we got straightened around. "Give us the 109 to go ahead as pilot, and run her around the river division with Foley and the 216."
"What'll you do with Number Six?" growled Neighbor. Six was the local passenger west.
"Annul it west of McCloud," said I instantly. "We've got this silk on our hands now, and I'd move it if it tied up every passenger train on the division. If we can get the stuff through, it will practically beat the strike. If we fail, it will beat the company."
By the time we had backed to Newhall Junction, Neighbor had made up his mind my way. Mullen and I climbed into the 109, and Foley, with the 216, and none too good a grace, coupled on to the silk, and flying red signals, we started again for Zanesville over the river division.
Foley was always full of mischief. He had a better engine than ours, and he took great satisfaction the rest of the afternoon in crowding us. Every mile of the way he was on our heels. I was throwing the coal, and have reason to remember. It was after dark when we reached the Beverly Hill, and we took it at a lively pace. The strikers were not on our minds then; it was Foley who bothered.
When the long parallel steel lines of the upper yards spread before us, flashing under the arc lights, we were away above yard speed. Running a locomotive into one of those big yards is like shooting a rapid in a canoe. There is a bewildering maze of tracks, lighted by red and green lamps, which must be watched the closest to keep out of trouble. The hazards are multiplied the minute you pass the throat, and a yard wreck is a dreadful tangle; it makes everybody from road-master to flagman furious, and not even Bartholomew wanted to face an inquiry on a yard wreck. On the other hand, he couldn't afford to be caught by Foley, who was chasing him out of pure caprice.
I saw the boy holding the throttle at a half and fingering the air anxiously as we jumped over the frogs; but the roughest riding on track so far beats the ties as a cushion, that when the 109 suddenly stuck her paws through an open switch we bounced against the roof of the cab like footballs. I grabbed a brace with one hand, and with the other reached instinctively across to Bartholomew's side to seize the throttle. But as I tried to shut him off, he jerked it wide open in spite of me, and turned with lightning in his eye. "No!" he cried, and his voice rang hard. The 109 took the tremendous shove at her back, and leaped like a frightened horse. Away we went across the yard, through the cinders, and over the ties; my teeth have never been the same since. I don't belong on an engine, anyway, and since then I have kept off. At the moment, I was convinced that the strain had been too much, that Bartholomew was stark crazy. He sat clinging like a lobster to his levers and bouncing clear to the roof.
But his strategy was dawning on me; in fact, he was pounding it into me. Even the shock and scare of leaving the track and tearing up the yard had not driven from Bartholomew's noddle the most important feature of our situation, which was, above everything, tokeep out of the way of the silk train.
I felt every moment more mortified at my attempt to shut him off. I had done the trick of the woman who grabs the reins. It was even better to tear up the yard than to stop for Foley to smash into and scatter the silk over the coal chutes. Bartholomew's decision was one of the traits which make the runner: instant perception coupled to instant resolve. The ordinary dub thinks what he should have done to avoid disaster after it is all over; Bartholomew thought before.
On we bumped, across frogs, through switches, over splits, and into target rods, when—and this is the miracle of it all—the 109 got her forefeet on a split switch, made a contact, and after a slew or two, like a bogged horse, she swung up sweet on the rails again, tender and all. Bartholomew shut off with an under cut that brought us up stuttering, and nailed her feet with the air right where she stood. We had left the track and plowed a hundred feet across the yards and jumped on to another track. It is the only time I ever heard of its happening anywhere, but I was on the engine with Bartholomew Mullen when it was done.
Foley choked his train the instant he saw our hind lights bobbing. We climbed down, and ran back. He had stopped just where we should have stood if I had shut off.
Bartholomew ran to the switch to examine it. The contact light (green) still burned like a false beacon; and lucky it did, for it showed that the switch had been tampered with and exonerated Bartholomew Mullen completely. The attempt of the strikers to spill the silk in the yards had only made the reputation of a new engineer. Thirty minutes later, the million-dollar train was turned over to the East End to wrestle with, and we breathed, all of us, a good bit easier.
Bartholomew Mullen, now a passenger runner who ranks with Kennedy and Jack Moore and Foley and George Sinclair himself, got a personal letter from the General Manager complimenting him on his pretty wit; and he was good enough to say nothing whatever about mine.
We registered that night and went to supper together: Foley, Jackson, Bartholomew, and I. Afterward we dropped into the despatcher's office. Something was coming from McCloud, but the operator to save his life couldn't catch it. I listened a minute; it was Neighbor. Now, Neighbor isn't great on despatching trains. He can make himself understood over the poles, but his sending is like a boy's sawing wood—sort of uneven. However, though I am not much on running yards, I claim to be able to take the wildest ball that ever was thrown along the wire, and the chair was tendered me at once to catch Neighbor's extraordinary passes at the McCloud key. They came something like this:
"To Opr. Tell Massacree"—that was the word that stuck them all, and I could perceive that Neighbor was talking emphatically. He had apparently forgotten Bartholomew's last name, and was trying to connect with the one he had "disremembered" the night before. "Tell Massacree," repeated Neighbor, "that he is al-l-l right. Tell hi-m I give him double mileage for to-day all the way through. And to-morrow he gets the 109 to keep.—Neighb-b-or."
"Whatdo you make of her, Maclean?" asked Captain Brandon anxiously.
First mate Hugh Maclean did not reply at once. Embracing a stanchion of the S.S.Saigon'sbridge in order to steady himself against the vessel's pitching, he was peering with strained eyes through the captain's binoculars at two small brown needle-points, set very close together, that stabbed the northeastern horizon.
At length, however, he lowered the glass, and resumed the perpendicular.
"You were right, sir," he declared. "She has altered her course, and our paths now converge."
"Which proves that she is one of those d——d Russian volunteer pirates."
"Or else a Japanese cruiser, sir."
"Nonsense! The Jap cruisers have only one mast."
"So they have, sir. I was forgetting that."
"What to do!" growled the captain, and he fell to frowning and cracking his long fingers—his habit when perplexed. He was a short, thick-set man, with a round, red face, keen blue eyes, and strong, square jaws: a typical specimen of the old-time British sailor. Hugh Maclean, on the other hand, was a lean and lank Australian, of evident Scottish ancestry. His long, aquiline nose and high cheek-bones were tightly covered with a parchment-like skin, bronzed almost to the hue of leather. He wore a close-cropped, pointed beard, and the deep-set gray eyes that looked out from under the peak of his seaman's cap twinkled with good health and humor.
"We might alter our course, too, sir," he suggested.
"Ay!" snapped the other, "and get pushed for our pains on to the Teraghlind Reef. We are skirting those rocks more closely than I like already."
"You know best, sir, of course. But I meant that we might slip back toward Manila, and try the other channel after we have given that fellow the go-by."
"What!" snorted the captain, his blue eyes flashing fire, "run from the Russian! I'll be —— first. We haven't a stitch of contraband aboard," he added more calmly a moment later. "He daren't do more than stop and search us."
But Maclean shook his head. "One of them took and sunk theAcandagalast month, sir, and she carried no contraband either."
"Russia will have to foot the bill for that."
"May be, sir. But Captain Tollis—as fine a chap as ever breathed, sir—has lost his ship, and the Lord knows if he'll ever get another."
"Are you trying to frighten me, Maclean?" asked Captain Brandon, stormily.
The mate shrugged his shoulders. "No, sir; but I am interested in this venture, and if theSaigongets back all right to Liverpool I'm due to splice Mr. Keppel's niece, and the old gentleman, as you know, has promised me a ship."
"And hasn't it entered your thick skull that to return as you suggest would cost fifty pounds' worth of coal? How do you suppose old Kep would like that?"
"Better burn a few tons of coal than risk losing theSaigon, sir, and mark time till God knows when in a Russian prison."
Captain Brandon shut his mouth with a snap, and muttered something about Scottish caution that was distinctly uncomplimentary to the Caledonian race. Then, to signify the end of the argument, he strode to the ladder, and prepared to descend. Maclean, however, was of an equally stubborn character. "About the course, sir?" he demanded, touching his cap with ironical deference.
"Carry on!" snarled the captain, and he forthwith disappeared.
Two hours afterward Hugh Maclean knocked at the door of the captain's cabin, and was hoarsely bidden enter. Captain Brandon was seated before a bottle of whisky, which was scarce half full.
"Have a nip?" he hospitably inquired.
Maclean nodded, and half filled a glass.
"Thank you, sir. Queer thing's happened," he observed, as he wiped his lips. "The Russian——"
"I know," interrupted the captain. "I've been watching her through the port. She's theSaigon'stwin-sister ship, that was theSaragossawhich old Kep sold to Baron Dabchowski six months ago. Much good it would have done us to run. She has the heels of us. Old Kep had just put new triple-expansion engines into her before she changed hands. But they've killed the look of her, converting her into a cruiser. She's nothing but a floating scrap-heap now."
"But she has six guns," observed Maclean. "Don't you think you'd better come up, sir? She is almost near enough to signal."
"Well, well," said the captain, and putting away the whisky bottle, he led the way to the bridge.
Some half-dozen miles away, steaming at an angle to meet theSaigonat a destined point, there plowed through the sea a large iron steamer of about three thousand tons' burden. She exactly resembled theSaigonin all main points of build, and except for the fact that two guns were mounted fore and aft on her main deck above the line of steel bulwarks, and that her masts were fitted with small fighting tops, she might very well have passed for an ordinary merchantman.
For twenty minutes or thereabouts the two officers watched her in silence, taking turn about with the binoculars; then, quite suddenly, the vessel, now less than two miles distant, luffed and fell slightly away from her course.
"She is going to speak," said Captain Brandon, who held the glasses. "Look out!"
Maclean smiled at the caution; but next instant a bright flash quivered from the other vessel's side, and involuntarily he ducked his head, for something flew dipping and shrieking over theSaigon. In the following second there was heard the clap of the distant cannon and the splash of a shell striking the sea close at hand. Invisible hands unfolded and shook out three balls of bunting at the truck of the war-ship's signal boom. They fluttered for awhile, and then spread out to the breeze. The arms of Russia surmounted two lines of symbolic letters.
"Quartermaster!" shouted Captain Brandon.
"Ay, ay, sir!" rang out a sailor's voice, and theSaigon'snumber raced a Union Jack to the mast-head.
"Well, Mac?" cried the captain, with his hand on the engine-room signal-bell.
Maclean looked up from the book. "His Imperial Majesty of Russia, by the commander of the converted cruiserNevski, orders us to stop."
Captain Brandon pressed the lever, and before ten might be counted the shuddering of theSaigon'sscrew had ceased.
"What next?" he muttered.
As if in answer, another flag fluttered up theNevski'shalliards.
"He will send a boat," interpreted Maclean.
A short period of fret and fume ensued, then a small steam launch rounded theNevski'sbows, and sped like a gray-hound across the intervening space. TheNevskinow presented her broadside to theSaigon, and all of her six guns were trained upon the English steamer's decks. The launch was crammed with men. Captain Brandon ordered a gangway to be lowered, and although the tars sprang to the task with great alacrity, it was hardly completed before the launch touched theSaigon'sside. An officer, bedizened with gold lace, and accompanied by two glittering subordinates, climbed aboard, and Captain Brandon met him on the main deck. Hugh Maclean, from the bridge, watched them file into the captain's cabin. Ten minutes later they emerged, and without waiting a moment the Russians hurried back into the launch. Captain Brandon's face was purple. He hurriedly mounted to the bridge, and leaning over the rail cursed the departing launch at the top of his voice in five different languages.
"What's the trouble, sir?" asked Maclean when his superior appeared at last to be exhausted.
"They want our coal. C——t them to —— for all eternity," gasped the frenzied captain. "And they'll blow us out of the water if we don't follow them to Tramoieu."
"Where is that?"
"It's a little island off the Cochin coast, a hundred miles from anywhere, with a harbor. By —— they'll smart for this!"
"Not they," said Maclean. "That is, if you obey. They'll gut and scuttle theSaigon, and then kill every mother's son of us. Dead men tell no tales. We'll be posted at Lloyds as a storm loss."
"But what can we do?"
"Full speed ahead, and ram her while she's picking up the launch! Chance the guns!"
"By ——! I'll do it!" shrieked the captain, and he sprang to the signal-bell. But even as he grasped the lever with his hand, he paused.
"What now?" demanded the mate, his face tense with passion. "Hurry's the word, sir. Hurry!"
The captain, however, turned and looked him in the eye. "You've counseled me to murder—wholesale murder, Maclean. Avast there, man! Keep your mouth shut. This is my bridge, and I'll not hear another word from you."
The mate bit his lips and shrugged his shoulders. His eyes were blazing with contempt and rage, but he kept his self-control, and was rewarded by a dozen sympathetic glances from those of the crew grouped upon the deck who had heard the controversy. From that moment he was their idol. The second mate, too, who was standing by the wheel, turned and nodded to him as he passed.
The captain, who missed nothing of this by-play, felt himself to have been absolutely isolated. But he was a strong man, and he knew that he acted rightly. Five minutes later four thunderous reports rang out, and shells splashed the sea on all sides of theSaigon. Then the machine-guns began to speak, and a perfect storm of bullets tore through the vessel's rigging, some directed so low that they pierced the top rim of the funnel smoke-stack. The display lasted sixty seconds. When it was over, a very sheepish looking lot of men arose from the recumbent attitudes they had assumed. Of the whole ship's company on deck, Captain Brandon, Hugh Maclean, and the chief engineer had alone remained standing.
There was a new flag at theNevski'struck. "Follow at full speed!" it commanded. TheSaigoninstantly obeyed. Before night fell, the moon rose, three-quarters full. It lighted the procession into dawn. Sunrise brought them to a rock-bound coast, and so nicely had theNevski'snavigator steered, that the first headland circumvented made room for the revelation of a little bay. It was enclosed on three sides with gray hills, and across the mouth was stretched a broken line of hungry-looking surf-crowned reefs. TheNevskisteamed boldly through the first opening, and dropped her anchor in smooth water three-quarters of a mile beyond. TheSaigon, currishly obedient to the Russian's signals, followed suit, bringing up within a biscuit cast of her consort and captor. An hour later Hugh Maclean, the engineer, and the lesser officers and thirty-two men of theSaigon'scompany and some two score of Russian sailors were working like slaves transferring, under the supervision of a strong guard, theSaigon'scoal and cargo into theNevski'sboats.
Captain Brandon was not among the toilers. He would have been, perhaps, but for the circumstance that he had permitted himself the liberty of striking a Russian officer in the face. A marine having retorted with the butt end of a carbine, the Englishmen had helplessly watched their captain being carried off, bleeding and insensible, and dumped with a sickening thud into the Russian launch. The incident encouraged them so much that they worked without complaint throughout the day, and they did not even grumble at the rations which their taskmasters served out to them. Shortly before dusk the breeze that had been blowing died away, and the Russians took advantage of the calm to warp the vessels together. After that the business in hand proceeded at such a pace that by dawn theSaigonwas completely gutted, and she rode the water like a swan, the greater part of her bulk in air. The weary Englishmen were thereupon driven like sheep upon theNevski'sdeck, and forced to descend the small after-hold, which was almost empty. The hatches were then fastened over them for their greater security, and they were left in darkness. But they were too worn out to care. Within five minutes every man of them was sleeping dreamlessly, lying listlessly stretched out upon the ship's false bottom, excepting only Hugh Maclean. He was too tired to sleep. He was, therefore, the only one who heard an hour later the muffled boom of a distant explosion and a faint cheer on deck.
"They have sunk the poor oldSaigon," muttered Maclean. "There goes the last hope of my captaincy and Nellie Lane." He uttered a low groan, and covered his face with his grimy paws. Maclean was very much in love, but he was too young and of too strenuous a temperament to rest for long the victim of despair. Moreover, contempt for foreigners, particularly Russians, served him instead of a religion, when not ashore, and he soon fell to wondering just where was the weak spot in his captor's armor, and how he could find and put his finger on it. That there was a weak spot he did not doubt at all. He searched his pockets and found half a plug of tobacco, but not his meerschaum. A Russian sailor had confiscated that some hours before. Maclean consigned the thief to perdition, and with some trouble bit off a plug. Then he lay back to chew and think. "There's only one thing to do," was the result of his reflections. "We'll have to take this boat from the Russians somehow."
But exhausted nature would not be denied, and before he knew it Maclean was in the land of dreams. He was awakened by the noisy removal of a portion of the hatch. He looked up and saw the moon, also a couple of bearded faces looking down at him.
"Good Lord!" he groaned, "I've slept the day out."
"You hingry—men—like—eat?" observed a hoarse voice. And Maclean saw an immense steaming pan descending toward him on a line. He caught it deftly. A can of water and a tin of biscuits followed. He was instantly surrounded by theSaigon'scompany, who attacked the contents of the pan like wolves. He seized a lump of fat meat from the mess, also a couple of biscuits, and retired apart. The darkness renewed itself a second later, and for some time the hold buzzed with the noise of crunching jaws and guttural exclamations.
Of a sudden someone near him struck a match, and Maclean looked over the flame into the eyes of Robert Sievers, theSaigon'schief engineer.
"Hello, Mac," said Sievers.
"Good evening, Sievers," replied Maclean politely. "We're still at anchor."
"I've remarked it. What do you suppose they intend to do with us?"
"Maroon us, likely, if we let them, on the island yonder."
"How can we prevent them? But I think not. It's my belief this meat is poisoned!"
"Tastes vile enough," agreed Maclean, but he went on eating, and Robert Sievers, after a momentary hesitation, followed suit.
"We're in the devil of a hole!" he muttered, his mouth full of biscuit. Then he swore horribly, for the match had burned his fingers.
Maclean stood up. "Any of you men happen to have a bit of candle in your pockets?" he demanded.
Silence for a minute, then a Norwegian fireman spoke up. "Bout dree inches," he said.
"He eats 'em," cried another voice, and a roar of laughter greeted the announcement.
"Pass it here," commanded Maclean.
Sievers struck another match, and presently the steady flame of a candle stump showed Maclean a picture such as Gustave Doré would have loved to paint. He glanced at the begrimed faces of theSaigon'swild and ghastly looking company, and beyond them for a moment, then stumbled over the coal, followed by Sievers, until he was brought up by the iron partition of the hold. He made, however, straight for the bulkhead, and stooping down, held the candle close to the line of bolts covering the propeller's tunnel.
"By Jingo!" cried Sievers. "I see your game. Let me look, Maclean! This is my trade."
He bent forward, wrenched at a shoot-bolt, and with a cry of satisfaction threw back a plate. TheSaigon'scompany crowded round the man-hole thus revealed, muttering with excitement.
"One moment, Sievers!" cried Maclean, for the engineer had one leg already in the tunnel. Then he turned to the men. "My lads," he said, "it's a case of our lives or the Russians', for I firmly believe the accursed pirates mean to kill us. We must take this ship by hook or by crook, and I think I see the way to do it!" He concluded with some precise instructions, and a few savage sentences, in which he promised an unmentionable fate to the unfortunate who made a sound or failed to follow to the letter his instructions.
A second later, in a silence that could be felt, he blew out the light, and followed Sievers into the tunnel. A few cave-black yards, crawled painfully on hands and knees, slipping and slithering along the propeller shaft, brought the leaders to the edge of a wider space. Sievers struck a match, and a well-like, vertical opening was revealed. High overhead towered and threatened an enormous steel crank. Before their feet lay a deep pool of slime. The heat was horrible.
"It should be hereabouts," whispered Sievers, and his fingers searched the wall. For a moment nothing could be heard but the deep breathing of theSaigon'scompany. Then came a slight but terrifying clang.
"I've got it!" whispered Sievers. "Are you ready?"
"Right!"
Maclean's eyes were dazzled of a sudden with a hot flare of light, and the deafening thud of the condensers smote in his ears. He never quite coherently remembered that which immediately ensued, for something struck him on the head.
When he came to his full senses again he was lying on a grating beside the body of the Russian cleaner he had strangled. TheSaigon'smen were all around him. He arose, gasping for breath. Sievers thrust a bar into his hand and pointed to a line of ladders. Maclean nodded, crossed the grating, and began to climb. Sievers, armed with a hammer, followed at his heels.
There were three men in the engine-room, an engineer and two cleaners. They took the climbers for stokers, and went on with their occupations. Maclean sidled to the door across the grating and closed it in the twinkling of an eye. The engineer, who was reading a newspaper, heard the noise and looked up. Sievers struck him with the hammer and flew at one of the cleaners. Maclean rushed at the other with his spade. It was all over in a moment, and without any noise that the thudding of the donkey-engine did not drown. Maclean changed coats and caps with the insensible Russian engineer, while Sievers called theSaigon'smen from below. He then strapped on the man's dirk, and put his revolver in his pocket.
"What next?" asked Sievers.
Maclean glanced at the engine-room clock. The hands pointed to seven-fifteen. "Captain and officers are just about half through their dinner," he reflected.
"Wait here," he said aloud: "I'm going to reconnoitre. Just keep the door ajar when I leave. Let anyone come in that wants to, but crack him over the skull once he gets inside."
"Ay, ay, sir!"
Maclean opened the door and stepped out leisurely upon the deck. Before him rose the captain's cabin, the officers' quarters, and the bridge above. Beyond that stretched the main deck, with the forecastle far forward. An officer paced the bridge; some two score sailors were grouped about the forecastle door drinking tea, and the rattle of knives and forks, the clink of glasses, and sounds of talk and laughter proceeding from the saloon astern sufficiently located the leaders of his enemies. Maclean thought hard for a moment, then pulling his cap over his eyes walked underneath the bridge and looked up. As he had expected, and ardently hoped, he perceived the muzzle of a machine-gun protruding from the very centre of the iron rampart. Thanking Providence for two years spent in the service of the New South Wales Naval Brigade in his younger days, he returned to the engine-room door, and after a cautious whisper stepped inside.
"Sievers," said he, "the officers are all at dinner astern. Take this revolver, and when you hear me knock three times on the railing of the bridge, sneak out with all the men and rush the cabin. Most of the crew are forward. I'll look after them; there's a Nordenfeldt on the bridge."
"Ay, ay, sir!"
"Give me your hammer!"
"Good luck to you, sir!"
Maclean took the hammer, slipped it under his jacket, and once more sought the deck. A steward passed him at a run, and two stokers proceeding toward the engine-house saluted his uniform. He pulled his cap over his eyes, and began to climb the ladder. TheNevskiwas swinging softly at her anchor, her nose pointing to the land. On the distant beach a small fire was burning, and at this the officer of the watch was gazing through his telescope. He was quite alone, and standing in a shaded corner of the bridge. "What sort of a watch can one man keep?" muttered Maclean who had served on an Australian gunboat. He stepped to the officer's side, seized the telescope in his left hand, and as the startled man turned, he dealt him a terrible blow on the nape of his neck with the hammer. The officer fell into his arms sighing out his breath. Maclean laid him gently on the floor, and relieved him of his revolver. Then he slid softly to the machine-gun, and uttered a low, irrepressible cry of joy to find that it was stored with cartridges and prepared for action. A moment later its muzzle commanded the deck before the forecastle. One of the sailors had just commenced a song. He had a fine tenor voice, and the others listened entranced. Maclean, however, rapped three times very loudly on the railing with his hammer, and the song ceased.
Someone called to him in Russian, but he would not have answered even if he understood. His every sense was strained to listen. He counted twenty, the song commenced again. Thirty, forty. Then a wild scream resounded through the vessel.
"Sievers is dealing with the watch on the after-hold," muttered Maclean. "Hurry!" he whispered. "Hurry! Sievers, hurry!"
The sailors forward were now afoot, exclaiming aloud and glancing questioningly at one another. A great many more, too, poured out every second from the forecastle, made curious by the noise. Maclean grasped the crank firmly and gave them every scrap of his attention. There woke an increasing buzz of shouts and cries astern. It culminated presently in the crack of a revolver, a shriek of pain, and a wild British cheer. Then all over the din a loud, insistent whistle shrilled. The sailors forward rushed for their stacked arms, and formed in ranks with the speed of magic. A petty officer shouted a command, and down the deck they started at the double.
"Halt!" Maclean shouted, and he turned the crank of the Nordenfeldt. The effect was horrible. A dozen fell at the first discharge. The rest halted, and after one dazed instant's wavering, threw down their arms, broke and fled for the cover of the forecastle. The air was filled with the sound of groans. The deck was like a shambles. Maclean watched three or four poor wounded creatures crawl off on their hands and knees for shelter and he shuddered violently.