CHAPTER TWELVE
THESea Spume, with its curiously assorted passengers, sailed from New York on Saturday.
Besides Caruth, it carried Marie Fitzhugh, Professor Shishkin, his pretended daughter, Thomas Wilkins, and several bewhiskered individuals whose names ended inskiorvitch. They were the divers whom Miss Fitzhugh had selected and Professor Shishkin had brought along ostensibly to explore the bottom of the Baltic for proofs of his theory of rising sea-floors. Caruth felt sure that they were nihilists and suspected them of having bombs on their persons, but it was too late to balk at that.
The yacht was swift and the weather fine, and the miles fell behind with gratifying regularity. The sun shone bright by day, and the moon cast silvery gleams by night. In short, the astronomy of the trip was all that could be desired.
As soon as the yacht was out of sight of land, the Professor, who was a born sailor, took occasion to explain matters a little more fully to Miss Lee, who likewise seemed not to feel the motion of the vessel. He explained them not because he wanted to do so, but because he could not help himself. The girl was altogether too clever not to suspect that somethingwas being kept back. In any event, she must very soon find out that the yacht was going to dredge for something besides sea creatures. Unless told enough to satisfy her, she would surely ask questions that might show her ignorance of matters concerning which Olga could scarcely be supposed to be ignorant. It was better to tell her something of the objects of the trip rather than to risk the possible effects of her inquisitiveness.
He told her that theSea Spumewas going to search for a vessel that had been wrecked a year or two before, with a large sum in gold on her. He admitted frankly that he himself had come in order that by his scientific reputation he might conceal the true object of the trip.
He meant to go so far and no farther. But he had not reckoned on Miss Lee. She heard him out; then she turned questioner.
“These heart-to-heart talks are all right,” she remarked, “if they are all right. But if they ain’t, they’re punk. I’m from Missouri, y’know, and I’ve got to be shown. Why d’ye want to hide the object of your trip? Who owns this gold you’re after?”
The Professor hesitated. “My friends own it,” he answered at last.
“Then why don’t they go after it openly? A man’s got a right to his own, ain’t he? What’s the need of all this masquerading?”
The Professor squirmed. The question, though natural, was not what he had expected.
Pitilessly the girl went on: “Who are you afraid of? Who’s likely to interfere with you?”
“Well!” Professor Shishkin was desperate. “Well!” he admitted. “I might as well tell you that our title to the gold is disputed, and we are likely to have trouble if it is known that we are after it. It is really ours, but our enemies are unscrupulous and dangerous, and they could make things very unpleasant for us. They would have gotten the gold long ago if they had known just where it was.”
“Humph! Then you do know just where it is?”
“We think we do.”
Miss Lee considered a while. “It ain’t good enough,” she remarked. “I’ve studied geography, and I’ve been looking up the Baltic lately. There’s too much Russovitsky about this game. I’ll bet a box of taffy there’s a nihilist plot mixed in it somewhere.”
“Sh!” The Professor’s face had changed, and he held up his hand warningly. “There’ll be suspicion enough on that point before long, I fear,” he whispered. “Don’t start it any sooner than it can be helped.”
“But is it true?”
“I can’t tell you. You must draw your own conclusions. If it is true, would you draw back? The cause of the revolution is the cause of freedom.”
“Humph! Maybe so. I’ll think about it. But—I want to know. What’ll the Czarski do to us if he catches us?”
“Nothing. We’ll lose the gold, but nothing more. We are American citizens on an American vessel on the high seas. No one will dare to touch us.”
“Well, where do I come in? What’s my part in the melodrama?”
“You?” The Professor was amazed. “Why, my dear young lady, my daughter wanted to marry and didn’t want to come. I told you all this.”
“Ye-es. You told me why she didn’t want to come. But you ain’t told me why you want everybody to think she did come.”
The Professor hesitated, and the girl put her finger on the weak spot. “You didn’t bring her because you thought it was too dangerous,” she remarked shrewdly; “and you didn’t want others to know how risky you thought it was. And you picked me for the goat. Ain’t that it?”
The Professor leaned forward. “Not exactly,” he explained. “Itwouldbe very dangerous for her to visit Russia. Being what she is and who she is, it would beverydangerous. For you, it is not so. Danger may threaten you, but you can always escape by declaring who you are. With her it is different. Besides”—he spoke slowly and impressively—“I have reasons—reasons that I assure you are crucial—for having it thought that she is with us. I implore you to keep the secret. It might and probably would cost her her life if certain persons on board suspected the truth. You will keep faith?”
“Oh, sure! I’ll keep faith. You needn’t worryabout that. Especially if that stuck-up Fitzhugh woman is one of the ‘certain persons.’”
The Professor said nothing more. He was by no means satisfied with the situation; but, then, he had been dissatisfied with it from the first. It was a mere choice of evils, and, he told himself despondently, in trying to better matters he was only too likely to make them worse. Nothing but the absolute necessity of keeping the real Olga out of Russia would have ever driven him to such a desperate scheme as this.
It was really more desperate than he knew, though not more so than he might have guessed had he known of the relations that were developing between Miss Lee and Thomas Wilkins.
These two had drawn very close together during the trip. While neither would have endured for a moment any intimation that they were not as good as any one breathing, still neither could help feeling more or less out of place in their new surroundings. The girl saw this more clearly and felt it more sharply than the man. She recognized the fact that these people were lucky enough to possess what she had longed for all her life—money and social position—and concluded that their ways must be correct ways. Therefore she set herself to study them and to mould herself by their standards. The conditions were peculiar, and perhaps she might grasp the money and the position if she once fitted herself for them.
Wilkins, on the other hand, had no yearnings forthe social altitudes. It never occurred to him to copy any one else’s manners. He only felt vaguely uncomfortable, more or less seasick, and very much bored. Therefore he welcomed the companionship of the one person among the cabin passengers with whom he somehow felt himself to be on a plane.
As the voyage continued, this intimacy increased. Caruth noticed it and vaguely wondered at it; but then he had wondered from the first at the rather singular manners and conversation of the Professor’s daughter. Miss Fitzhugh noticed it, and did not like it; just why, she scarcely knew. But neither she nor Caruth made any effort to check it. Supposing Miss Lee to be the Professor’s daughter and therefore devoted to his cause, they naturally were glad of anything that tended to bind Wilkins closer to their cause.
So matters ran along till nearly the end of the voyage. Cattegat and Skagerrak had been traversed, Copenhagen was a blur of light on the clouds behind them; the widening sea space before them showed that the broad Baltic lay close at hand.
Miss Lee and Wilkins sat together on the quarter-deck watching the moonlight as it shone white on the wake of theSea Spume. For some time neither had spoken.
At last Wilkins broke the silence. “Lady,” he said, “I s’pose your pa’s told you how I come to be on this here trip?”
Florence nodded. The Professor had not told her, but it seemed unnecessary to admit that fact.
Wilkins went on. “I’ll own right up to you,” he explained, “that when I come I warn’t by no means satisfied that I was gettin’ a square deal; a ten per cent rake-off ain’t very high when you hold the joker and nobody else can get nothin’ unless you helps. Then I wasn’t satisfied about Jim. That Miss Fitzhugh swears her friends didn’t kill him; but, then, she naturally would, you know, and I’ve got my doubts. Still, there didn’t seem nothin’ else for me to do but to come along, and give ’em all the rope they wanted, and watch my chance to find out about Jim and to get a bigger share of the gold. But I want to say now that that’s all to the past. Your friends is my friends, and I’ll stick by ’em. You understand?”
Florence did not understand—how should she? She had never heard of “Jim,” nor of his death; nor did she know that Wilkins held the key to the location of the treasure. She was rapidly finding out things, however; so she held her peace and let the plainsman talk on.
“I promised to show them Bill’s letter as soon as we got into the Baltic,” he continued. “That means to-night. I guess I’d have done it any way, but now I know you, I ain’t hesitatin’ no more.”
Florence found her tongue. “It’s Bill’s letter that tells where the wreck is, isn’t it?” she guessed.
“Sure! The place ain’t much more than a dayfrom here. I’m going to show it to them pretty soon. But first I wanted to say somethin’ to you.”
Florence scarcely heard him. An idea, vague and unformulated, was stirring in her brain. Could any gain accrue to her personally from the fact that Wilkins alone knew the whereabouts of the gold?
While she considered, the man went on. “Lady,” he declared earnestly, “I’m a rough fellow, and I know I ain’t half good enough for you. I know your dad would have a fit if he thought I was makin’ love to you; and your fine friends would think I was crazy. Maybe I am; but it’s for you to say. I’m a sheepman, lady, and many a night when I’ve been bedded down alongside a camp-fire, watching them muttons masticatin’ and baain’ to each other, I’ve thought how nice it would be to go home to find somebody waiting for me. And the minute I see you and hear you talk so bright and clever, says I to myself: ‘That’s the girl for me.’” Wilkins paused for an instant and then went on. “I ain’t no poor man, lady. I’ve got twenty-five thousand baa-baas in Colorado. I didn’t come on this trip for the money, though half a million ain’t to be snuz at. So you’ll understand that when I gets my share home I’ll be mighty well off. Now can’t you and me frame it up together? Say the word, and I’ll make ’em consent before I gives up the letter telling where the gold is.”
Wilkins paused and waited for an answer. His face was as expressionless as ever, but in spite ofhimself a tremor crept into his voice. Plainly he was very much in earnest.
Florence, on the other hand, was by no means ready to answer. To keep “him” guessing was one of the cardinal precepts of the school in which she had been trained.
“No,” she answered slowly; “not yet.”
A flush came on the Westerner’s face. “You mean——” he began.
“I mean this ain’t bargain day,” exclaimed the girl impatiently. “I ain’t saying a word against you, but I’ll have to think a long time before I make up my mind. When I do, it won’t be anybody on this yacht that’ll stop me. But I guess I’ll have to leave you on the anxious bench for a while.”
“All right, lady! Take your time.”
“I’m going to. But I’m goin’ to tell you something right now, and that is that I ain’t stuck on this crowd I’m with.”
Wilkins’s jaw dropped. “But your pa——”
“Popper ain’t the man he was. He ain’t nothing but a deuce in this game. He ain’t going to make anything out of it at all. Do you know who is?”
“Them revolutionists, I guess—what ain’t grafted on the way.”
“Well! I’m not in this to help any old revolution. I tell you right now, Mr. Wilkins, that it’s me for the gold if I can get it to Noo York.”
“Ain’t you afraid of them bombovitches?” demanded the man.
“Me! Not in Noo York, I ain’t. In Russia, I ain’t saying.”
A delighted grin came over Wilkins’s face. “Say!” he exclaimed. “You’re all rightski. They tried to scare me with them fellows, and I let ’em think they had, but, Lord sakes, they ain’t troubling me none. If they come to Colorado after me, the Czar’ll have one less to put in his dungeonoffski.”
“Then”—the girl held out her hand—“it’s understood. We’ll stand together. If we get a chance to skiddoo with the gold, we’ll do it. An’ I’ll marry you the day we get it to Noo York.”