CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
DRIVEN by twin propellers, theSea Spumeraced westward, bearing happy souls released from the suspense of the past month. Caruth had found a wife; Professor Shishkin, a daughter; Marie, a father and a husband; and freed from the long strain of service to the cause, she had learned for the first time how heavy the burden had been.
With them were Bristow and Olga. The reporter’s assignment to the Russian capital was nearly up, and as it was madness for Olga to remain longer in the same city with Baron Demidroff and the pretended Princess Napraxine, he had decided to sail with Caruth.
They were all going back to America, to the western world, and they were all happy at the thought. They would find complications awaiting them, they knew. Olga, reported by the papers to have been identified as the Princess Napraxine and to have married Demidroff, must keep away from her old home and her old friends. Shishkin, though he had gained one daughter without losing the other, must pass as childless in the evening of his life. Caruth would have to satisfy the curious as to his somewhatremarkable performances in Russia and Russian waters. And he would have to raise that million dollars.
One and all they had agreed to shield Florence, both for her sake and for theirs. To betray her was to risk drawing down upon themselves nihilist vengeance for the failure of the expedition—a failure that would assuredly be charged to her substitution for Olga. Besides, in that critical moment at the Embassy they had all tacitly agreed to keep silence in regard to her identity.
None of them were quite certain as to the part she had played, as to whether she had been a traitor, a double traitor, or only a spy. Anyhow, as Caruth put it: “All’s well that ends well. I’m not heaving any stones. I’m living in a tolerable imitation of a glass house myself.”
So, bearing happy souls, the yacht sped westward into the night.
Running before the wind, the sloop bearing the Wilkins brothers and their golden plunder fled eastward. Until the sun set, it had beat to the west, toward the far-off land of promise, but as soon as darkness hid it from sight of the land, it had turned toward St. Petersburg, and for half a dozen hours had churned heavily onward.
Heavily laden, deep in the water, requiring constant bailing even in that smooth, sheltered sea, it made slow progress. Pursuers such as must bequesting the gulf for it would surely find it as soon as day dawned. Let the rising sun once gleam on its sails and the game would be lost.
To Bill Wilkins, seated at the tiller, managing the boat with a consummate skill whose constant exercise alone kept it afloat, the game seemed lost long before the dawn. In vain through the night he had strained his eyes for the signal lights by which the steamerHaakonwas to signify her presence and readiness to ship the gold. Either she had passed unseen or her captain’s heart had failed him. In any case dependence was no longer to be placed on her.
What other hope remained? None that Bill Wilkins could see. The eastward course, while it probably deluded the pursuers and gave the sloop a little longer lease on freedom, led to no safety. Every mile took the fugitives nearer to a Russian prison. Yet any course but an eastern one was but to throw themselves into the arms of the pursuers or to plunge inevitably to the bottom the moment the stronger waves of the Baltic were encountered. To Bill, it seemed that they were rats in a trap, waiting till the captors came to take them out. If he had been alone, he would long ago have surrendered, hoping to win pardon by giving up the gold.
But he soon found that it was useless to talk of terms to his brother. A mere hint in that direction aroused in the plainsman a cold fury before which the weaker man shrank.
“I didn’t mean nothing, Tom,” he hastened to declare.
The plainsman’s eyes flashed. “I hope you didn’t,” he roared. “I hope there ain’t no cowards or quitters in our family. I’ve staked on this here play, and I’m going to see it through. If I can’t get away with this gold, nobody shall. Understand that, Bill Wilkins.”
“I understand, Tom.”
“Besides, I ain’t certain sure we’re done for yet. We’ve missed theHaakon, but she ain’t the only boat on the sea. If we can find a ship—any old ship—before dawn, we’ve got a chance.”
“How so?”
“How so? Great Lord! Ain’t you got no receptions at all, Bill Wilkins? Ain’t we got money enough to buy anything if we can once get a chance to show it? You think any captain breathin’ would refuse a million dollars in gold to take us aboard. And once aboard, who’d catch us? Russia can’t search every ship going out of the Baltic.”
A spark of hope sprang up in Bill’s bosom—but only a spark. “I don’t know where all the ships are,” he muttered. “There’d ought to be plenty all about. This here gulf is usually just crawling with ships. But there ain’t none passing to-night—and the dawn’s breaking.”
Captain Wilson stood on the bridge of the yacht, peering into the darkness. All night he had kept watch, unwilling to leave his post on deck as long as Russian waters lapped around the vessel committed to his care. When, with eight bells in the morningwatch, there came a lightening of the sky, he turned to the first officer.
“The dawn’s breaking, Jackson,” he said, “and I think I’ll turn in. We’ve got through the night safe and that’s more’n I expected.”
“What did you think was due to happen, sir?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I felt something brooding. My mother was Scotch and had second sight, and I can generally tell when something’s due to come off. But I guess I missed it this time. There comes the sun, and nothing’s doing.”
“Sail O!” The forward lookout had hailed.
“Where away?”
“Dead ahead, sir.”
Captain Wilson lifted his glasses and stared forward across the brightening water. After a moment he turned to his companion.
“Can you make her out?” he asked, in a curious tone.
“Only a fishing boat, I should judge, sir.”
“Yes, but behind her and abeam. Don’t you see——”
“By the Lord! One, two, three, four steamers, all heading for her. What’s it mean?”
“It means—the something that was due to happen. Send for Mr. Caruth at once. Unless I miss my guess that boat carries Wilkins and his gold!”
As the sun came, Wilkins notched the sloop’s bowsprit into it. “There’s the sun,” he remarked grimly.
Tom stood up, releasing the handle of the pump, and peered forward under his hand.
“And there comes a steamer,” he exulted.
Bill had been staring around the horizon. “Yes, —— ——her!” he cried. “There she comes—too late. Look yonder.”
Tom looked, and counted just as the yacht’s officer had done. “One! Two! Three! Four! By God! They’re right after us! All right”—grimly. “We’ll give ’em a run for their money.”
But Bill groaned. “Wot’s the use,” he whined. “It’ll only make things worse. We ain’t got a chance.” He rose, his nerveless hand dropped away from the tiller, and the sloop yawed sharply to port.
“You d——n cur!” Tom’s voice rang out. “You d——n cur! Grab that thing again quick, or, by God, you won’t live to go to no jail!” His revolver emphasized the words.
Between the two terrors, Bill deferred to the nearer. Once more his hand closed on the tiller, and the sloop, recovering headway, swept onward.
“Straight for the steamer,” Tom ordered.
Bill laughed harshly. “A h——l of a lot of help she’ll be to us!” he cried. “You darned fool, don’t you see it’s theSea Spume?”
“What?” Tom spun round. “So much the better!” he cried. “We won’t need to waste no time explaining. And she’ll save us even if we lose the gold. That’s the kind of soft-headed fool that man Caruth is.”
The yacht was very near now—so near Tom Wilkins could distinctly hear the sound of her engine-room bells signalling “stop.” The Russian boats were also near. Wilkins looked at them, then at the yacht, then thrust his pistols back into his belt.
“They won’t shoot,” he declared. “We’re too valuable to shoot. And I guess you’re right. We can’t whip a whole fleet, but we’ll spoil their game, all the same.” He paused and glanced at the yacht. “Run across her bows,” he ordered, “and float down alongside.”
Little margin was there, but the sloop took what there was and swept across just ahead of the yacht’s sharp prow.
As she scraped aft, screened for a moment from the sight of the Russians, Wilkins caught his brother’s arms, and hoisted the slighter man upward toward the yacht’s shrouds. “Grab hold! Quick!” he directed.
As Bill scrambled upward, the plainsman sprang upon the further gunwale of the sloop and leaned far outward. Borne down by his weight, the overloaded boat careened; a green wave curled in over her side; and quietly and soberly she went down beneath his feet.
As he felt her go down, Tom turned to the yacht, and waved his hand. “Heave us a rope, Mr. Caruth,” he called. “I can’t swim!”
Caruth did not hesitate. He had read the plainsman’s purpose and had given orders accordingly. In less than a minute Tom Wilkins, dripping butunhurt, stood on the deck beside his brother Bill, while aft, in the water churned into foam by the screws of the yacht, a white sail fluttered for a moment; then was gone.
Caruth looked at the spot where the sloop had disappeared; then at the plainsman; then at the hurrying Russians. “That was a child’s trick, Wilkins,” he said severely. “The water isn’t fifty feet deep here, and Demidroff can fish the gold up easy. Meanwhile, you’ve put us all in a hole.”
“Not much I ain’t. Look!”
Caruth looked again. The yacht was drawing rapidly away, and the Russians were making no effort to follow her. Clustered around the spot where the sloop sank, they seemed to be throwing out buoys to mark the spot.
And the yacht swept westward.
Six months later, five of the chief participants in the contest for theOrkney’sgold were gathered at a home dinner given by the Caruths to mark their departure from the apartment in the Chimneystack Building to the splendid new house Caruth had bought for his bride. Until then, Marie had insisted on remaining in the rooms where she had first met her husband.
Inevitably, as always when these five met, the talk turned on the trip of theSea Spumeand those connected with the quest for theOrkney’sgold.
Caruth opened the subject. Said he:
“I got a letter from Colorado from the Wilkinsesto-day. They’ve struck a gold mine that Tom Wilkins says is going to make them all rich if they can get the money to develop it. He offers to sell me a share on easy terms. He certainly has more assurance than anybody I ever knew.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” It was Bristow who spoke. “He was within his rights, you know, in that matter of theOrkney. Irrespective of his part in sinking theOrkney, Bill Wilkins saved that gold from the abandoned wreck, and thereby got a perfect title to about nine-tenths of it by the laws of pretty nearly every country in the world. Russia had no right to take it from him, and he would have had a good claim against her at the end if Tom Wilkins hadn’t wrecked and abandoned it again. That gave the second salvors their claim and wiped out his.”
Caruth growled. “He’d have had a hard time making good,” he observed. “Demidroff didn’t fish that gold up from the bottom of the gulf to surrender it to the Wilkinses.”
“Oh, no! I’m only discussing the legal rights of the matter, and Tom Wilkins’s part in it. If Bill Wilkins owned the gold—as he did—he had a right to take any partners in he liked. Oh, yes, the Wilkinses were within their legal rights all the time, though that isn’t exactly a recommendation for going in with them on a gold mine. There are too many legal robberies connected with that class of property to suit me.”
“I’m afraid there is too much law in this country,” chimed in Marie. “Just as there is too little inRussia. But what have you heard of the progress of the suit of the Princess Napraxine against Count Strogoff, Mr. Bristow?”
Bristow glanced quickly at his wife. “The Princess really seems about to win,” he declared, “though the case is still in the courts. Our man there writes me that he understands the Czar is convinced that the claim is valid, and has received the ‘Princess’ officially at his court. That means that everything’s over except the shouting. I don’t know; sometimes I wonder if I did right in letting Olga give up everything!”
But Olga smiled. “Not for me,” she declared, as she had declared in Baron Demidroff’s presence six months before. “Not for me. I told Baron Demidroff the truth. My tastes are simple, and I am quite content without the millions and the rank.”
“And in any event you are right.” It was Marie who spoke. “I have tested that mode of life, and I know. There is nothing in its glitter and pomp to balance home—home such as I never had and never could have had in Russia’s splendid barbarism. No, no, Mr. Bristow! If Olga had hesitated, it would have been your duty to tear her away from it by force. The world has nothing to offer that is better than America and American husbands.”
“Yes, you are quite right!” The Professor smiled benignantly on his two daughters. “You are quite right, both of you! Money and rank! What are they? Nothing! Nothing to freedom and the chance for a man to be a man! Besides,” he addedshrewdly, “I suspect those estates will not be so very large after all. If Strogoff has not plundered them, he is not the man he is reputed to be.”
The bell at the door of the apartment rang, and a moment later a servant brought an evening paper to Caruth.
“The janitor brought this up, sir,” he explained. “He says as how there’s something in it he thinks you’ll like to see, sir.”
Caruth took the paper and glanced down its columns. Then he uttered an exclamation.
“Good Lord!” he cried. “Listen to this dispatch from St. Petersburg:
“A tragic sequel to the suit of the Princess Yves Napraxine against Count Strogoff for the possession of her ancestral estates took place here to-day. Both the Princess and her husband, Baron Demidroff, for fifteen years chief at the dreaded third section of the Russian police, were instantly killed this morning by a bomb thrown by a man who was mortally wounded by the guard as he tried to flee. Before he died, he confessed that he had acted at the instigation of Count Strogoff. Officers were at once sent to arrest the Count, but he had learned somehow that his complicity was known and blew out his brains as they came in at the door. The estates of the Princess, whose romantic story has become well known to the world in the past year, will now revert to the Crown. It is rumored that they have been shamelessly plundered, and instead of being at colossal value are really almost worthless.”
“A tragic sequel to the suit of the Princess Yves Napraxine against Count Strogoff for the possession of her ancestral estates took place here to-day. Both the Princess and her husband, Baron Demidroff, for fifteen years chief at the dreaded third section of the Russian police, were instantly killed this morning by a bomb thrown by a man who was mortally wounded by the guard as he tried to flee. Before he died, he confessed that he had acted at the instigation of Count Strogoff. Officers were at once sent to arrest the Count, but he had learned somehow that his complicity was known and blew out his brains as they came in at the door. The estates of the Princess, whose romantic story has become well known to the world in the past year, will now revert to the Crown. It is rumored that they have been shamelessly plundered, and instead of being at colossal value are really almost worthless.”
Caruth dropped the paper. “There’s more of it,” he finished, “but that’s the substance.”
Olga clasped her hands. “Oh, Joe, Joe!” she cried. “It might have been you and me! It might have been you and me!”
THE END.