CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THAT night the wreck was found. Seated in the cabin, close beside the telephone that led over the side down to the divers toiling beneath the darkening water, Caruth received the thrilling news.
Instantly hoarse orders rang through the ship, and the crew sprang to their stations. The furnace doors were flung open and brawny stokers hurled coal upon the banked fires until the hiss of steam told that theSea Spumewas ready to race for the open sea the moment the gold was on board.
Below, the divers were picking their way over the sunken hull, seeking the storage place of the treasure.
Above, at the telephones, stood Caruth and Marie Fitzhugh, cheeks flushed and eyes a-sparkle.
“At last! At last!” breathed the girl; and “At last! At last!” echoed Caruth.
His tones penetrated to the girl’s consciousness, and she blushed brightly. In the triumph of her cause, she had forgotten that Caruth’s object and hers were not the same.
She blushed, but she did not draw away. After all, if she were fated to give herself for Russia, to sell herself to Caruth in return for his help in thecause of freedom, the sacrifice would not be so very hard. Indeed, it might not be hard at all. If policy were to govern her mating, this clean-limbed, clean-thinking young American would be a better mate than many a one who had sought her in the past. The Brotherhood must decide; she had sworn herself body and soul to its orders; but she found herself suddenly hoping that the Brotherhood might find Caruth’s claims worthy.
Smilingly she looked into the young man’s eyes. “Not yet,” she murmured. “Not yet. We are not out of the woods yet, and until we are you must remember your promise.”
“My promise?”
“To give all your thoughts to the business in hand. Not to make love to me. Not to——”
“Great Cæsar’s Ghost! You don’t call this making love, do you? With you half a mile away across the cabin, and me with this telephone harness on my head. Just you wait and——” Excitedly he devoured her with his eyes.
Brightly she blushed, and restlessly she moved. Then she pressed a button on the wall. “I am going to send for Mr. Wilkins and Miss Shishkin to come and hear the news with us,” she explained. “We owe Mr. Wilkins an apology for distrusting him.”
When the steward entered, she sent him to find the two and ask them to come to the cabin.
When the man had gone, Caruth looked at herand laughed. “Yes,” he agreed, “I guess I owe Wilkins an apology, but I could make it later just as well as now. I’m inclined to think that Miss Shishkin has had more to do with his good faith than anything else, anyhow. Queer girl, isn’t she, to be the Professor’s daughter. Not the sort I should have expected at all.”
“Nor I. However—— Well, Barnes, what is it?”
The steward had entered, hastily. “Mr. Wilkins and Miss Shishkin don’t seem to be aboard, ma’am!” he exclaimed.
“Not aboard? Nonsense! They must be!”
“I’ve hunted everywhere, ma’am. I’ve looked in Miss Shishkin’s cabin, ma’am, and she ain’t there. There weren’t nothing there but a red light burning in the port-hole, ma’am.”
Caruth sprang to his feet, tearing the telephone-receiver from his head. “A red light? Man, you’re crazy!”
“No, sir; I ain’t, sir. There was a lantern wrapped round with a red cloth burning in her port-hole. And she’s gone, sir. She ain’t on board, sir; and Mr. Wilkins ain’t on board either.”
For an instant Marie and Caruth stared at the man in dumb silence. Then the girl realized the situation. “Treachery!” she cried. “Treachery! Wilkins has betrayed us! I never trusted him. He’s betrayed us, and he’s carried the girl off.”
“Carried her off? It’s impossible!”
“Impossible or not, it’s been done. Maybe shewent with him willingly—I don’t know and I don’t care. She’s gone, and he’s gone, and there’s danger in it! Danger! It means we are watched. It means we’ll be attacked——”
“Attacked?”
“Yes, attacked! Do you think Russia will try to arrest us? She couldn’t! We are within our rights. We are only seeking salvage. She won’t dare to arrest us. She’ll send ruffians to attack us and kill or imprison us all. TheSea Spumewill disappear as theOrkneydid. No one will ever hear of it again. Quick! For God’s sake, give me that telephone! I’ll stay here. Go and find Captain Wilson! Serve out arms. Prepare to fight; for, as God is my judge, we will have to fight or perish. Don’t I know Russia and its police? Quick! The murderers may be creeping on us now.”
In three steps Caruth was on deck, and in three more on the bridge at Captain Wilson’s side. Eagerly he poured out his story.
“If the police come for us openly, we must yield,” he finished. “But Miss Fitzhugh says they will not come openly. She says they will come as pirates, thieves, murderers. If they do, we must fight for our lives. We’re armed and——”
“We’ll do it! I’ll give orders.” The captain was gone with the words trailing over his shoulders.
TheSea Spumehad been bought and fitted out as a dispatch boat by the United States Government at the breaking out of the Spanish war. At its close,she had been sold, guns and all, to the highest bidder; since then she had changed hands once or twice, but none of her owners had dismantled her. Finally Caruth, who had served on her during the war with other boy members of the Naval Militia, had bought her and had brought her up almost to a man-of-war pitch. When he had started for Russia, he had needed to add only a little ammunition to put the yacht in condition to cope with anything of her tonnage.
This armament was now to stand the adventurers in good stead. Caruth, watching from the bridge, saw the wave of excitement ripple along the vessel at the captain’s low-spoken commands; saw the tarpaulins jerked from the guns, revealing the long black muzzles of the six-pound rapid-firers; heard the splutter of the search-light as the men tested its connection, and the rattle of the hoists as the fixed ammunition, cartridge-like in ease of handling, was brought upon the deck.
Suddenly all lights went out, and theSea Spumebecame only a darker spot in the opaque blackness of the night. Simultaneously fell silence, profound and tomblike!
Ghost-like, Captain Wilson mounted the bridge. “Everything’s ready,” he reported in scarcely audible tones. “If anybody comes for us now, they’ll get a warm reception. The men are crazy for a scrap.”
“Good! This means double pay all round,Captain. You might pass the word. I’m going to the cabin now to find out what news there is from the divers. Miss Fitzhugh is at the telephone.”
But Caruth was not to go to the telephone then. As his foot poised above the first step of the companionway, from the bows a shrill challenge came.
“Boat ahoy! Boat ahoy! What boat is that?”
No answer came. But out in the darkness a voice uplifted itself in short but swift command, intelligible by its tone if not by its syllables. Unseen men responded with an eager cheer, followed by a splash of oars in the water.
“The search-light! Quick!” shouted Captain Wilson, and at the word the electric sword glimmered through the darkness, illuminating the black water, and illuminating too, a score of boats, loaded with men, dashing upon the yacht.
Small time was there for parley. “Aim! Fire!” yelled the captain; and the flames of the guns split the darkness, while their thunders echoed back from the cliffs that towered close beside.
“Fire at will!” yelled Wilson, again; and again the guns roared, not all together as before, but in a pitter-patter of rattling sound. Swiftly the search-light circled, picking out the boats for an instant as vivid bull’s-eyes for the concentration of the yacht’s fire; dancing away again to some fresh point.
The yachtsmen were poor gunners, but at that range they could not miss. The revolving search-light soon showed an inextricable tangle of boats,drifting or turning unbalanced athwart the course of their companions, with oars dropping from dead fingers and men plunging limply after them into the embrace of the tide. Other boats showed for an instant in the glare, then sank beneath the shimmering water. But past and through all these, others kept their way, intent only on coming to hand-grips with the men of the yacht. In the gaps of sound, the same ringing voice still sounded, as the unseen commander incited his men to fresh efforts.
For a moment fate hung in the balance. Then, as Caruth, pistol in hand, leaped down from the ladder to join in repelling the boarders who seemed about to swarm over the taffrail, the tide turned. The Russians, overtaxed, bewildered, hesitated and fled, some by boat, some by swimming; those who had gained the yacht’s shrouds leaped back in panic, careless whether planks or the Baltic lay beneath them.
Captain Wilson’s deep voice rang out. “Cease firing!” he shouted. “Cease firing!”
Silence followed storm. Then out of the night came a flash and a roar. A jet of ruddy flame shot from the cliff side toward theSea Spumeand the skylight above the saloon vanished in a rain of splinters and flying glass. The search-light, flung to port, showed, high up on the cliffs, two heavy guns, armed and manned.
Stupefied, the yachtsmen stared at them, unmoving, till again came a flash and a report and a rendingroar as the yacht quivered to the impact of a shell.
Captain Wilson woke to life. “Fire on that battery!” he yelled. “Mr. Caruth, get those divers up. We can’t stay here.”
Blood flecked Caruth’s lip where he had bitten it through. “What!” he cried. “Run away and leave the gold to them? I won’t do it.”
“You must!”
“I won’t. I’ll——”
A hand fell on the young man’s arm. Marie Fitzhugh stood beside him.
“The gold is gone,” she moaned.
“Gone!”
“Yes! The strong room on theOrkneyhas been broken open. The boxes are there, but they are empty. Some one has been before us. The gold is gone.”
“Impossible.”
“It’s true. I ordered the divers on board. They are coming over the side now. We must flee. Quick, Captain! Full speed ahead.”
The engine bells clanged, and the yacht shook to the throb of the screws. Rapidly she gathered way. Another shot from the battery on the cliff hissed over her, and still another went wide. Then a turn in the channel shielded her from farther danger.
It was not until half an hour later that it was learned that Professor Shishkin had disappeared.