Armitage was not obliged to wait, however. A tall, well-built young woman, heavily veiled, came down the winding path as he shut off power. When he leaned around to open the door of the tonneau, she threw back her veil and he caught sight of a full, dark, handsome face and eyes filled with a curious light. He slammed the door and turned quickly to the wheel.
"What is your name, my man?" The deep alto voice contained a note of mirth.
"McCall," replied Armitage gruffly, jerking his head a bit side-wise and then jerking it quickly back again.
"You are—not a very good driver," came the voice. "But I should like to employ you.… Would you consider leaving Miss Wellington?"
Armitage shook his head grouchily.
"For a consideration? Come, I won't use you as a chauffeur. I want you for a statue in my Japanese garden. I—"
Armitage suddenly pointed the car toward the ocean and stopped. Then he turned in his seat.
"Look here, Sara," he said, "if you don't let up, I 'll run you into the ocean."
Mrs. Van Valkenberg was rocking with laughter.
"Oh, Jack! Jack!" she cried. "This is too rich. What on earth are you up to?"
Armitage, who had not seen her since they had attended school together in Louisville, paid no attention to her question.
"I had no idea you were in Newport."
"I suppose I should expect more of one of my very oldest and best friends," she said.
"I was in the Philippines when you married; faint rumors of the event penetrated even there. I was too prostrated to write; besides, I didn't receive any cards." He paused a moment. "Van Valkenberg—that's so; I remember now. He—"
"I am a widow," said Sara soberly.
"Oh," he was silent, not knowing what to say.
She hastened to relieve his embarrassment, smiling brightly.
"I was to go to see Anne later in the week, but when I saw you, I simply could n't wait another minute. I wanted a front seat at this little comedy. You see," she raised her eyes knowingly, "I have n't asked you why you are here in the Wellington livery and driving the Wellington car because—because I rather imagine I can guess the reason."
She glanced at Armitage, who did not reply.
"Fancy my missing this romance," she went on, laughing musically. "Jack, it's perfectly delightful. It's more than delightful, it's sublimely rich. You,youof all men! Come, won't you confide in me? Ah, go on." Her eyes were brimming with laughter.
Armitage frowned.
"Look here, Sara, you're on the wrong tack."
"Oh, is it possible! All right, you need n't confide in me if you don't wish to. All I ask is permission to view events—and you can't withhold that, you know. But seriously, Jack, can I be of any assistance? I approve, don't you know, awfully. And—she's worth every bit of it. But how are you going to win her in the guise of a chauffeur? I always knew you possessed a large amount of self-confidence, but allow me to inform you, sir, there are some things your natural qualifications can't overshadow. Come, Jack, do strip off your motley and court her as a naval officer—you see I, at least, have kept track ofyou—and a gentleman should; I don't like this way."
"I tell you, you are wrong. I can't say anything now. But wait—then you 'll know. And, Sara, please; not a word as to whom I am; promise me you 'll keep still until I give you the word."
She smiled enigmatically.
"Don't you admire Anne Wellington?"
"Come, Sara, promise; this is a serious matter with me."
"Don't you?" she persisted.
"Of course I do," he snapped. "She's a corker. Now promise."
"I promise nothing. I shall act as I think best for you."
Armitage gazed at her thoughtfully for a moment.
"You may trust me, Jack. I may be able to help you. I feel sure I shall. I want to help you—and Anne."
Armitage raised his hand warningly.
"Don't, Sara, please!"
"Very well." She smiled sweetly. "You may proceed to The Crags, McCall."
Anne met her at the doorway and Armitage took the car to the garage.
"Say," said Ryan, "there 's some one been calling you up for the past hour."
Armitage looked at the man excitedly.
"Who was it? Did he give his name?"
"No, would n't give it. He said he 'd call up again, though. He—there goes the bell now."
Armitage took up the receiver.
"Is this you, Jack?" came the voice. "This is Thornton. Say, they 've got Yeasky."
"Where?" Jack's voice was husky.
"In Boston."
"Did they find anything?"
"No; they went through everything. He had n't a thing except a note signed 'Vassili' something, and some Austrian army data."
"The family name of the man we 're gunning for," said Armitage. "Has he said anything?"
"Nothing. They have not told him what he was captured for either, although I guess he knows. They want your orders."
"All right," said Armitage. "Tell them to let him go, provided he leaves Boston by the first boat."
"What!"
"Turn him loose. Get shed of him. It 'll simplify matters. I 'm getting this thing in hand now. Push the thing through for me, will you, Joe? I'm busy as a pup here. Get Bill Rawlins on the long distance at the Boston Navy Yard, explain things to him, and get him to help. There 's nothing to do. Just have him seen on board the boat. That note was all I wanted. Have that sent to me. Now do it all nicely for me, won't you, old chap,—and a day or two will see the finish of the whole thing. Oh, say,—have them hold those papers."
"All right," said Thornton. "By the way, we are going to torpedo the Atlantic fleet tonight. The battleships are on their way down from Provincetown at last."
"Pshaw! The one thing I wanted to be in on!"
"Can't you get off and come along on theD'Estang? We shan't leave until eight o'clock. We 're going to try and do up the fleet off Point Jude. Come on, like a good chap."
"I 'd like to. I will if I can, you bet. I think I can work it. Now s'long and don't forget to have that Pole shunted out of the country on the jump."
"I won't. Don't worry; see you later then."
"Right-o, good-bye."
As Armitage hung up the receiver the bell of the house 'phone jingled and Armitage was summoned to bring out the car in a hurry. When he arrived under theporte cochère, Prince Koltsoff was still talking to Anne in a corner of the library.
"It is very necessary," he was saying. "The summons is important. It is even possible I shall not return all night." His agitation seemed momentarily increasing.
"But, Prince Koltsoff," said Anne, "is it so very important? I hardly know what to do. I have arranged a box party for the vaudeville at Freebody to-night—it's distressing."
Koltsoff bowed.
"And I! You cannot suppose I view lightly being away from you to-night!" He shrugged his shoulders. "The rose-strewn paths are not always for diplomats. You will know that better in good time, perhaps. But they are for that all the sweeter while we tread them." He moved very close to her and she, taking fire from his mood, did not step backward, looking him in the eyes, pulling slightly at the front of her skirt. In the very web of a mood which she felt bordered on surrender to the masculine personality of the man before her, she admitted a thrill, which she never before had recognized. The blood mounted swiftly to her temples and she straightened and threw her head back with lips parted and hot. His face came so close to hers that she felt his hot breath.
"Are you sorry for this afternoon?" he asked caressingly.
"Yes," her voice was a half whisper.
His arms were raising to take her, when the voice of Sara Van Valkenberg came to their ears, with an effect very much like a cold stream upon a bar of white hot steel.
"Anne, oh, Anne dearie, did you know the car was waiting for Prince Koltsoff?" She appeared in the doorway to find Anne turning over a magazine and the Prince adjusting his coat. "I beg pardon, but you said Prince Koltsoff was in a hurry. I thought you did n't know the car had arrived."
"We—I didn't," Anne smiled thinly. "Thank you."
They moved to the veranda, where Anne and Sara stood with arms intertwined.
"I am sorry,sosorry," cried Koltsoff, as he climbed into the car. "As I say, I shall possibly not return all night. At all events,au revoir." He turned to Anne and half raised his arm. "The trust," he said. She nodded and smiled.
"Have no fear, Prince Koltsoff," she said.
"Good!" He glared toward Armitage. "To town—and fast," he said.
As Armitage nodded, Anne, whose mood was past praying for, called mischievously:
"McCall, always touch your hat when you receive an order. And come right back, please; I shall want to go to town."
This time Armitage made a faultless salute.
When they had gone, Anne walked to a settee, drawing Mrs. Van Valkenberg by the arm, and flung herself down, laughing hysterically.
"Why, whatisthe matter, Anne?" Sara gazed at her in amazement. "Has anything—" she paused significantly—"happened?"
Anne drew her handkerchief across her eyes.
"No," she said, "not yet. But oh, Sara, if you had n't—" She stopped and gazed at her friend wide-eyed. "Sara," she said, "is it possible I love Prince Koltsoff?"
"No, it is not," replied Sara, decidedly. "Anne, don't be a goose. What is it, tell me?"
"I cannot; but yes, I think it is—it must be. Oh, I wonder!"
"Anne!"
"Sara, for goodness' sake, let me alone a moment. Come," she added, throwing her arm about the young matron's waist, "let's talk about other things now. Come with me while I telephone and call off that stupid theatre party. Then we 'll go to town, exchange the tickets, and then—Sara, let's have a regular bat—alone. You know—one of our old ones. I dare you."
"Done," said Mrs. Van Valkenberg, thankful to change the girl's mood.
While Anne was telephoning and offering various explanations to various persons, Sara sat thinking. It had not taken her ten minutes to decide that she detested Koltsoff and that Anne was under a spell not easily to be broken. If Armitage had tried to break it, if he were there for that purpose, he had failed a long way of success. He had chosen, in any event, a poor method of campaigning. If he did not know what was good for him, so much the worse. She did and accordingly when Anne had finished with the last of her list of prospective guests, she said:
"Anne, I have fallen quite in love with your new chauffeur."
"I don't blame you one bit," said Anne carelessly. "He's a stunner. But I don't believe he 's a chauffeur by profession."
"I happen to know he is n't."
"You—know—he is n't! How do you know? Tell me what he is then. I don't believe I 'll ever have any more curiosity about anything; I 've used it all on him."
"He 's a naval officer and a very promising one, I believe. He is John Armitage and his father is United States Senator Armitage from Kentucky—they 're really a very fine family—one of the best in the State."
"How did—? oh, of course, you were a Kentuckian. You don't mean to say you know him!"
"I know all his family very well. Why, I 've known Jack Armitage all my life," she raised her eyebrows. "But, Anne, promise you won't let on."
The full significance of the information imparted by her friend gradually rose to supremacy in Anne's mind. Her eyes turned slowly to Sara's face.
"Well, of all idiots I am the worst! Why, I even placed him at Annapolis and then let him turn me off! And mother, too! That's a good one on her. Well! What's his play? I confess I am stumped."
"His play?" Sara regarded her with a significant smile. "I wonder!"
Anne gazed at her a moment and then buried her face in her hands with a mock groan.
"Saints and ministers of grace, defend us!" she exclaimed.
Then girl-like, they clung to each other and laughed and laughed.
"Aren't you flattered?" asked Sara at length.
"Flattered? Oh, you mean about—" she grimaced. "Sara! It's perfectly ridiculous! And it is n't true. The very idea! The audacity! Don't tell me, Sara; there 's something else." But Sara caught the tentative note.
"Oh, naturally," she interposed, "you are far from being sufficiently attractive to draw an ardent young man into a romantic situation, especially—as you told me—after you had written him a note virtually inviting him to try his luck."
"Sara, you are beastly!"
"Forgive me, dear, but why not face facts?"
"Well!" Anne smiled resignedly. "Mother must n't know."
"Not until the play is over," said Sara.
Anne gazed moodily at her friend.
"It soon will be, I fear," she said.
As for the unsuspecting Armitage, he burned the road, smiling to think that underground wires were working for him, as well as the Prince. He had no fear that if Koltsoff had the control with him—which Armitage did not for a moment believe—the vigilance of the express companies and of the postal authorities would be found wanting. Koltsoff spent half an hour in the telegraph office and then alighting from the car in Touro Park, bade Armitage return to The Crags.
"Shall I call anywhere for you?" asked Armitage pleasantly.
"No," replied Koltsoff, who stood on the sidewalk, watching until the car disappeared.
"Anne," said Mrs. Wellington, as she came in from her drive a few minutes later, "your chauffeur drives too fast. The car passed me, cutting through Brenton Road a while ago, at a perfectly insane pace. Some one—how do you do, Sara, I 'm delighted to have you with us—was in the tonneau, whom I took to be Koltsoff, although there was such a blur I was n't certain. Was it he?"
"Yes, mother," Anne glanced at Sara. "Isn't it maddening! Some urgent summons, he said, made it necessary for him to go; and he may be away all night. Of course that punctured the party at Freebody."
"It is maddening," Sara hastened to observe.
Mrs. Wellington compressed her lips.
"I had told him your father would arrive this evening. But of course he must have failed to remember that. Fortunately, he will not come on from New York until to-morrow—I 've had a wire. Have you any idea the Prince will be with us to-morrow? Sir Arthur Baddeley will be down from Bar Harbor for the week; Bob Marie is coming with your father, and two or three of the Tuxedo crowd, Sallie and Blanche Turnure and Willie Whipple will be here by Wednesday for the ball, certainly."
"I don't know, really," said Anne, "but I imagine so, of course."
Sara gazed at Mrs. Wellington curiously. It was true the woman was outwardly unperturbed, characteristically so, but Sara had never before been able to read in that mask-like face so many indications of inward irritation. Anne's sly glance told her that she, too, had been able to enjoy a rare opportunity of penetrating beneath the surface.
Mrs. Wellington toyed with her lorgnette for a moment.
"Anne, if Koltsoff returns and I don't see him, let me know the very first minute, will you, please?" She glanced at the girl with an expression best described as detached. "If it interests you any, my daughter, you succeeded in making a sensation this afternoon—you and Koltsoff. I gather that everything was done but placarding him; and I have heard of at least eight persons you cut in the Casino."
"Oh—mother, by the way, if I am not too inquisitive," said Anne, hastening to change the trend of thought, "I read, or heard, somewhere that father was interested in getting hold of a Russian issue of railroad bonds, or something of the sort. Is Prince Koltsoff concerned?"
"Your father has no business dealings with him. Dismiss that thought. Railroad bonds—I believe he was looking into them. I don't know the details, or rather do not recall them. I do remember, though, his saying that he had relinquished the opportunity to the French with great pleasure."
"Oh," said Anne, "I imagined his visit here was a mingling of business with pleasure."
"I don't know what it is a mingling of, I 'm quite sure," said Mrs. Wellington. She turned to go. "I 'm dining out to-night, at the Cunningham-Jones'. I shouldn't have accepted, but you were to be at Berger's with your theatre party. You won't mind, Sara?"
"Not at all, Mrs. Wellington, don't bother about me. I hope I 'm not company."
Mrs. Wellington smiled. She was very partial to the young widow.
"The boys are at Ochre Point for the night. You might call up people if you want company for dinner, Anne."
"To think," cried Anne, as her mother left the room, "how events have shaped themselves for us! Of course we shan't dine at home; I 'll have Emilia tell Mrs. Stetson after we have gone. Now, Sara, what can we do exciting?" Her eyes flashed with animation as she gazed at her friend. "Shall it be shop girl disguises with dinner on Thames Street, or what?"
"I know," cried Sara. "We 'll put on shirt-waist suits and plain hats, muss our hair a bit, and take a trip on a sight-seeing barge."
"Lovely. Mc—Mr. Armitage can take us to the starting place at Easton's Beach and then pick us up there when we get back. After that—"
"Hoop-la," laughed Sara, and the two young women—nothing but school girls now—fell into each other's arms, hugging joyously.
When Armitage appeared again at theporte cochèrea few minutes before five o'clock, two very changed, but merry young women awaited him. Anne flashed her eyes at Armitage.
"To Easton's Beach, McCall," she said sweetly.
Easton's Beach was at the height of the day's exodus of excursionists to Providence, Fall River, Taunton and elsewhere, as Armitage drew alongside the sun-baked board walk in front of the main bathing pavilion. Trolley cars, which had rolled empty down the long hill by the ocean side, were now ascending laden to the guards, and the ocean, relieved of its bathers, whose suits of multifarious cuts and colors had grievously marred the blue waters, had recovered its beautiful serenity.
"We are going to take a barge ride, McCall," said Anne, as they alighted from the car. "You might follow us at a respectful distance, though, so you can pick us up when we decide to get out."
Armitage touched his cap and sat watching amusedly, while Anne and Sara with exaggerated swinging strides walked toward a barge comfortably filled with a heterogeneous assemblage of sightseers. They paused uncertainly at the side of the clumsy vehicle and were thus espied by the driver, who was on the point of starting his horses.
"Whoa!" he cried, pulling at the reins. "Here you are, ladies. Two seats in the front for the sunset drive. Last chance of the day. All the way round for fifty cents. All points pointed out, with inside information."
Sara glanced doubtfully at Anne, but the girl already had her foot on the step.
"We ain't going all the way," she said. "Can we get out where we please?"
"Sure, the sooner the better," cried the driver cheerfully.
"All right," said Anne, clambering in; "come on, Jane."
Sara followed obediently, kneeing her way along the seat to Anne's side.
"The Cliff Walk," said the driver, swinging his whip to the left as they drove up the hill.
"Is that where society people walk?" asked Anne.
"Naw, only the common people," replied the oracle. "Any society person found there would be ostracized."
"They would!" exclaimed an elderly Irishman, smoking a pipe at Anne's side. "Is th' ground too poor fur their phroud feet?"
"Only think," said a stout woman behind them, leaning forward, "the cottage owners have been tryin' to close up the walk to the public. My brother 's a grocer clerk here and he says the city would be better off without the cottagers. They 're awful! Don't pay their bills and such carryin's on—you 've no idea."
"Use n't you to live here?" asked Sara. "I thought I seen you in the city."
"Not me. I live over to Jamestown," said the stout woman.
In the meantime, Anne had noted to her disgust that two men in white duck trousers and straw yachting caps were trying to catch their attention. It was not to be wondered at, for despite the broad-brimmed hats tilted well over their foreheads and hair in studied disarray, by way of disguise, no more dashing pair had ever patronized Newport's sightseeing system. Of course this aspect of their adventure had not occurred to Anne and she was about to pull Sara's skirt and suggest that they abandon the trip forthwith, when that young woman glancing about for fresh material, suddenly turned pale.
"Anne!" she whispered. "For heaven's sake! There 's my cook at the other end of that back seat—the fat, red-headed man. What shall I do?"
Anne, without replying, touched the driver and handed him a two-dollar bill.
"Keep that," she said, "and please let us out at once."
And so, just a bit panic-stricken, but with ardor undimmed, the two awaited the motor car.
"We might have known!" observed Sara. "Do you suppose he recognized me?"
Anne was laughing.
"How in the world could he help it?"
"Of course," said Sara, her face lighting with the humor of the incident. "I shan't care at all, provided he does n't give me notice."
They were quite ready for Armitage when he came up in the car.
"Where to now, Sara?" Anne stamped her foot. "Isn't that the way! When you have the opportunity and the desire for a good time you can't imagine what to do."
"Well, let us get into the car, anyway," said Sara, "those detestable creatures who were in the barge have actually followed us."
So they entered the motor. Armitage turned inquiringly, but Anne shook her head.
"One moment, if you please."
"I wanted to ask you, Miss Wellington, if you thought I could get away to-night about seven o'clock?" He glared defiantly at Sara, who was ostentatiously concealing her face in her hand. "I have rather an important engagement."
"Why—" Anne glanced at Sara, who seeing an opening for a new avenue of fun, was now laughing unreservedly.
"You really can't think of it, you know, dear," she said. "Why, at seven o'clock he will just begin to be useful."
Anne saw the chauffeur's shoulders shrug angrily, and it amused her.
"Cut through here and drive toward the Training Station," she commanded, "and we 'll think about seven o'clock, McCall."
Sara, who had been vigorously nodding and screwing up her eyes at Armitage's back, laughed musically.
"Anne," she said, "your chauffeur is badly trained as to manners. Really, he suggests a man graduated from the Fifth Avenue buses, don't you know."
"You must make allowances, Sara; he's only an improvised chauffeur."
"I know; but he 's hardly of the chauffeur type. Now as a detective—can't you imagine him in a pair of false whiskers?"
"I 've always suspected him of a wig," Anne giggled, "or reinforced putees."
With a quick jerking of levers, Armitage stopped the car. He turned around, looked at Sara quietly for a moment and then at Anne. Something in her face told him what he wanted to know.
"Sara," he said, "for a first-class, large gauge sieve, I commend you to any one."
Sara bowed with mock humility and then raising her head, looked Anne straight in the eyes.
"Miss Wellington, I present Mr. Armitage, an officer—a lieutenant, I think—of the United States Navy."
Anne sat silent for a second and then stretched her hand out over the seat, laughing.
"What a situation!" she exclaimed. "I am pleased to know that my 'Dying Gladiator'—" she paused, and looked inquiringly at Armitage, who had taken and released her hand in silence.
"I don't wish to be impertinent," she continued at length, flushing vividly, "but I feel it is my right to know why you posed as a physical instructor and entered service in our house. Surely I—you—you must have had some good reason."
"Anne," Sara hastened to relieve Armitage of apparent confusion, or irritation, she could not tell which, "naturally his reasons for the deceit were excellent." She looked at her friend with a significant raising of the brows. "I—those reasons still exist, do they not, Jack?" She scowled admonishingly at him.
Armitage, who plainly diagnosed Sara's drift, was smiling broadly, as Anne looked at him with a curious, wondering expression.
"They still exist—decidedly, Sara," he said. He paused for a second, and then continued in the lamest sort of way, "Will you let me be a driver just a little while longer, Miss Wellington? It is really important. When I explain everything you 'll understand. Of course, I 've been governed by the best motives."
Anne was somewhat more dignified.
"Certainly, I have not the slightest objection to having a naval officer for a driver—if you have none. I must say, though, I shall be eager to learn the reasons for your rather—rather unconventional behavior."
"You shall be the first one to know," replied Jack, with quite a different meaning in mind than that which Sara Van Valkenberg read, whose eyes, by the way, were dancing with excitement.
There was an awkward silence for a moment and Jack was turning to the wheel when Anne leaned forward.
"You must tell me about the Navy, sometime," she said. "I have begun to feel I am rather a poor American. Where are you attached?"
"I 'm with the torpedo flotilla at present," said Armitage. "By the way, Miss Wellington, that reminds me of my request for liberty to-night. The boats are going out and—and—it's rather important I go with them. I shall be back before midnight."
"Oh!" Sara's exclamation was so sharp and eager that both Jack and Anne started.
"I have it!" She leaned forward eagerly as both turned to her. "I know. We 'll make him take us out with the boats to-night. Can you imagine anything more thrilling? I have never been on a naval vessel in my life—and they 'll shoot torpedoes. Night attack, Port Arthur, and all that sort of thing, don't you know."
Anne was quite carried away.
"Good! Oh, that would be—" She stopped short as a sudden thought came to her. "Do you suppose—" she said slowly, "that you could, Mr. Armitage? I should love the experience. But perhaps—"
"Nonsense," interrupted Sara. "Of course he can take us. Did n't we see that crowd of women on one of the torpedo boats at the King's Cup race?"
"That boat was not in commission," said Jack. "You might be court-martialled if the commanding officer of the flotilla saw you." He spoke lightly, but running clearly through his mind was the uncompromising phraseology of Article 250 of the Navy Regulations: "Officers commanding fleets, divisions, or ships shall not permit women to reside on board of, or take passage in, any ship of the Navy in commission for sea service." Violation of this meant court-martial and perhaps dismissal from the service. And yet Sara's proposition thrilled him potently. He could not deny his eagerness to do as the young women wished. To have Anne at his side for long hours on a footing of equality! As he looked at her now with her lips parted, her eyes blazing with interest, her cheeks flushed, the penalty of disobeying that odious Article 250 seemed, at worst, slight. Besides, theD'Estangwas assigned to him for special service to do with her as he saw fit. There might be a loophole there.
Anne, who had been pondering his words, looked up.
"If you are thinking only of us, I should n't mind one bit. I should love dearly to go. I have often seen the torpedo boats from my windows and wished to be on one of them. They look so black and venomous!"
"All right. I'll take you." Armitage looked at them with serious face. "There may be some danger. It is n't yachting, you know."
"Of course it isn't," said Sara.
"Certainly not," echoed Anne. "And besides, Mr. Armitage, I 've never faced real danger in my life—except once when my polo pony ran away. Oh, I want to go!"
"I should like to change my clothes." Armitage glanced humorously at his livery.
"Of course," said Anne. "I tell you; you leave us at Berger's, drive home and change your clothes, then you can pick us up there and we 'll leave the car at O'Neill's until we return. How is that? We will have a lobster ordered for you."
"Don't bother about that, please. I shall have to run over to the island when I come back from The Crags, to prepare the way. Take a taxicab and be at the Navy Landing—no, that would n't be wise; some one might see you. Go to the New York Yacht Club station and I, or Johnson, my second, will be there in theD'Estang's launch. We are the outer boat in the slips and you can come aboard over the stern without any one seeing you. Don't be a minute later than seven-thirty o'clock—that is," he added, "if you are serious about making the trip."
"Serious!" exclaimed Sara.
"Oh, we are serious," said Anne, "and Mr. Armitage—you 're awfully good!"
A tall, grave, young ensign met the two excited girls at the hour designated and shot them across the bay to the torpedo boat slips in silence.
"He 's a nice-looking boy," whispered Sara. "But I wonder,—he does n't seem altogether to approve."
Anne, who had been studying the officer, smiled easily.
"That isn't it; he's embarrassed. For heaven's sake, Sara, don't try to make me feelde tropat this stage."
The young manwasembarrassed; Anne had diagnosed correctly. And it was with great relief that he turned them over to Armitage, who led them to a hatch and thence down a straight iron ladder to the wardroom. Anne watched the precise steward adjusting a centrepiece of flowers upon the mess table and then glanced around the apartment, which was lined with rifles, cutlasses, and revolvers in holsters.
"How interesting, Mr. Armitage," she said. "Do you recall the last time we were in a cabin together?" smiling. "How absurd it was!"
"Wasn't it," laughed Armitage. He left the wardroom and returned in a few minutes with two officers' long, blue overcoats and caps.
"These are your disguises. I 'll send an orderly down to take you up to the bridge when we get well under way—"
"Do we really have to wear these?" Sara viewed the overcoats with mock concern.
"Must," laughed Armitage. "It is going to be cold and it looks like rain. I 'd tuck my hair up under the caps as much as possible if I were you. Damp salt air is bad for hair."
"You mean you wish us to look like men," asserted Sara.
"I merely want you to be appropriate to the picture."
Sara looked at him mischievously.
"Why not the entire uniform, then?"
"Sara!" cried Anne, as Jack ducked out of the door.
"Anne," Sara placed her hand on Anne's arm, "are you interested in Jack Armitage?"
The girl looked at the dark burning cheeks of the handsome full-blooming young woman in front of her.
"Don't be silly, Sara."
"I 'm not silly," said Mrs. Van Valkenberg, half humorously. "I really want to know."
"Why?"
"Why, because if you 're not, I want you to keep in the background. For I think I 'd—rather like to—enlist in the Navy."
Anne could not tell why, but Sara had succeeded in irritating her.
As a smart young seaman escorted the two young women to the bridge and placed them beside the six-pounder gun, the two destroyers,JeffersonandD'Estangand the torpedo boatsBarclay, Rogers, Bagley, Philip,andDyerwere sweeping between Fort Adams and Rose Island in echelon formation. Long columns of gray-black smoke pouring from the funnels, mingled with the heavy haze of the August evening. There was a bobble of a sea on and as theJeffersonsignalled for the vessels to come up into line, the scene presented by the grim, but lithe torpedo boats, each hurrying across the waves to its appointed position, rolling in the sea hollows and pitching clouds of spray over grimy bows, appealed suggestively to Miss Wellington, who stood with her hand tightly clenched in Sara's. Huge blue-black clouds, with slivery shafts showing through the rents the wind had made, banked the western horizon, and out to seaward the yellow Brenton Reef light vessel rolled desolate on the surge.
"Is n't it beautiful," murmured Anne, half to herself. "It is so different from being on theMayfair, is n't it?"
"Is n't it beautiful," murmured Anne. "So different from being on the _Mayfair_, is n't it?""Is n't it beautiful," murmured Anne. "So differentfrom being on theMayfair, is n't it?"
"Is n't it beautiful," murmured Anne. "So different from being on the _Mayfair_, is n't it?""Is n't it beautiful," murmured Anne. "So differentfrom being on theMayfair, is n't it?"
Sara nodded.
"So much more fun," she replied. "Much more thrilling."
As a matter of fact, the atmosphere of expectancy filled the vessel. Armitage, concerned with the navigation of the ship, his cap reversed to keep the wind from getting under the peak and lifting it into the sea, had neglected them utterly, and the junior had not withdrawn his head from the chart booth for half an hour.
Time and again Jack's face swept past, unseeing them, toward the quartermaster with hands on the wheel, at the rear of the bridge, crying crisply:
"Helm to port."
And the quartermaster replied as he twisted the wheel:
"Helm to port, sir."
Then—
"Ease your helm!"
"Ease your helm, sir."
The dark had fallen now. Ahead the Point Judith acetylene buoy sent its rays toward them. When they came abreast of it, it was pitch black and the white light on Watch Hill was made out to the southeastward. Suddenly from theJefferson'sdeck a series of red and white lights began to wink and blink. Answering signals twinkled over a mile of water and the boats stopped their engines, rolling like logs on the waters.
Armitage walked over to Anne and Sara, who, in their coats and caps, looked not unlike officers themselves.
"How do you like it?"
"Oh, it is terribly interesting!" said Anne. "What are you going to do now?"
"Wait for the battleships, I imagine," said Armitage. "We don't really torpedo them," he added. "The object is to get as close as possible without being observed. They try to locate us with searchlights. As soon as they see us they put the light on us and fire a red star. After that star is fired the discovered boat must steam full speed for the quarry for one minute and then fire a green star and turn on her lights. The distance from the battleship to the boat is measured and if we are within torpedo range, two thousand yards, the torpedo boat wins. If the distance is greater, we are technically out of action—the battleship wins."
"How interesting!" Anne gazed at Armitage admiringly. "And that is what you would do in real warfare then—rush into the very face of the battleship's firing in the effort to blow her up?"
"About that," smiled Armitage.
"But what a risk! You must steam through a perfect hail of bullets, with chances of striking with your torpedo largely against you. And even if you do strike you are liable to pay the price with your lives. Am I not right?"
"These pirates of the flotilla," laughed Jack, "do not think of the price. They 're in the Navy to think of other things."
"And is that the spirit of the American Navy?"
"Of course," Armitage looked at her curiously. "Why not?"
Anne laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
"Oh, I don't know. I know something of the British and French Navies, but patriotism—the sort of spirit you speak of—has always appeared to me such an abstract thing as regards America. It's because, I suppose, I have never known anything about it, because I have been more or less of an expatriate all my life."
Jack had been watching a display of Ardois lights from theJefferson'smast. He turned away, but spoke over his shoulder.
"Don't be that, Miss Wellington, for you have proved to me that a girl or a child, reared as you have been, can be American in every instinct and action. I had never believed that."
He hurried away to the bridge rail and Anne's arm turned red under the impress of Sara's fingers.
In compliance with theJefferson'ssignals, the engines of the flotilla began to throb and the boats turned to the eastward.
A cry came from theD'Estang'slookout. Anne and Sara leaned forward and saw that a blundering sailing vessel—her dark sails a blotch against the sky, her hull invisible—was careening just ahead. She had no lights, and curses on the heads of coastwise skippers who take risks and place other vessels in jeopardy merely to save oil, swept through the flotilla like ether waves.
Armitage let a good Anglo-Saxon objurgation slip from his tongue as he turned toward the yeoman.
"Half speed!"
"Half speed, sir," answered the yeoman as he tugged at the engine room telegraph.
All eyes were now on the schooner. How was she heading? A group of seamen stood beside Armitage and Johnson on the bridge, trying to ascertain that important point. A flash of lightning gave a momentary glance of greasy sails bulged to port.
"She 's on the starboard tack, crossing the flotilla!"
"All right." There was relief in Jack's voice as he called for full speed ahead.
"It's no fun to ram a merchantman, with all the law you get into," said the signal quartermaster, standing near the young women. "And if they hit you, good-bye."
But the schooner had a knowing captain. He had no intention of trying to cross all those sharp bows. He quickly tacked between theD'EstangandBarclayand passed the rest of the boats astern.
Slowly the boats were loafing along now.
At ten-thirty the Jefferson winked her signals at the rest of the flotilla.
"Put out all lights."
As the young women glanced over the sea the truck lights died responsively. Then the green and red starboard and port lamps and lights in wardroom and galley went out and men hurried along the deck placing tarpaulins over the engine room gratings. Only the binnacle lights remained and these were muffled with just a crack for the helmsman to peer through.
A great blackness settled over the waters. To Anne, always an impressionable girl, it was as though all life had suddenly been obliterated from the face of them. Her hand tightened its grasp on Sara's fingers, for as the vessel plunged along there was a palpable impression that the flotilla, now hurrying forward in viewless haste, was pitched for the supreme test. Off to the seaward signal lights from the parent shipRacine, having on board the officer in charge of the Navy's mobile defences—which is to say, torpedo boats—had flared and died. The battleships were approaching.
Anne, quivering with excitement, peered out through the night; nothing but darkness. Below, lined along the rails, she caught dull outlines of the white caps of the seamen, all as eager to defeat the battleships as their officers. She saw the phosphorescent gleam from a shattered wave. But she heard nothing, not even the swish of water.
Johnson approached diffidently, and leaned over the rail at their side, straining his eyes into the night.
"The chances of making a successful attack," he said, "are best if we approach from almost ahead, a little on the bow. Then we are lessening the distance between us at the sum of the speeds of the flotilla and the battleships. We 'll hit up about twenty-five knots when we see them. Of—"
A low incisive voice sounded forward, a blotch of a hand and arm pointing. There was a movement on the bridge as a dark object came close. It was theJefferson. A dull figure leaned over her bridge with a megaphone.
"We 've blown out some boiler tubes and scalded a couple of men,D'Estang. Go in ahead."
"All right," Jack's voice was muffled.
Again came the voice of the lookout and the arm pointed ahead.
"Oh!" Anne pinched Sara's arm. "I see them. See those great black shadows over there?" She stepped forward. "Shall I tell them?"
But Armitage had seen. He turned to the yeoman.
"Full speed, ahead!"
"Full speed, ahead, sir."
The slender hull throbbed with the giant pulsings of the two sets of engines. There was not another sound. It was as though the vessel were plunging through an endless void. In the darkness astern arose a spear-like puff of crimson flame. Again it appeared and again, quivering, sinister.
"Damn theBarclay; she's torching!" There came a shout from out of the dark and in an instant two great beams of lambent light cut wide swaths through the pall. They were too high; they missed theD'Estangaltogether and rested on theBarclay'ssmoke, which rose and tumbled and billowed and writhed like a heavy shroud in the ghastly shafts.
"They 've missed us and are trying to get theBarclay. Come on!" Jack's voice was vibrant with the joy of the test. He was kneeling on the bridge, a megaphone in his hand. He turned it toward the women. "Crouch down beside that gun and stay down, please, until this is over."
As he spoke, the leading battleship, the dreadnaughtArizona, was getting her searchlight beams down, and all unseen, theD'Estangand she were approaching each other at a total speed of thirty-seven knots.
Nearer they came and the destroyer was almost to the great dark blur, with the shining arms radiating from her like living tails from a dead comet, when, with terrible suddenness and intensity almost burning, theArizonaflashed a sixty-inch searchlight directly down on the destroyer's bridge. Sara stifled a scream and Anne bowed her head to the deck to shut out the fearful blaze. Armitage, standing upright now and rubbing open his eyes, saw that the time had come to turn, and quickly. TheD'Estangwas approaching the battleship, pointing toward her port bow. The idea of the manoeuvre was to turn in a semicircle, passing theArizonaat a distance of about two hundred yards. He shouted the order.
"Hard—a—port."
There was an instant's silence and the face of the quartermaster was seen to turn pale in the glare of the relentless searchlight.
"Wheel rope carried away, sir."
Armitage fairly threw himself across the bridge, but Johnson was there first. Quiet, unemotional Johnson, his hat off now, his hair dishevelled, and his eyes blazing.
"The helm is jambed hard a-starboard!" he cried.
In an instant the situation crystallized itself into a flashing picture upon Anne's mind. She had held the wheel on her father's yacht; but it was not that which made her see. It was divination, which fear or danger sometimes brings to highly sensitized minds—just as it brought the same picture to Sara's mind. With helm thus jambed, it meant that theD'Estangwould have to turn in the same direction in which theArizonawas ploughing along at a twelve-knot speed. In making this turn she could not possibly clear, but must strike the battleship. On the other hand she was too near to be stopped in time to avoid going across the bows of that great plunging mass of drab steel, and being cut in two.
Anne, crouching immovable, her eyes fixed on Armitage, saw his head half turn in her direction, then with the automatic movement of a machine, he reached for the port engine room telegraph and with a jerk threw the port engine full speed astern. The bridge quivered as though it were being torn from its place; throughout the hull sounded a great metallic clanking. There came a new motion. The destroyer was spinning like a top, the bow almost at a standstill, the stem swinging in a great arc.
It was like the working out of a problem in dynamics. Nearer they came. Anne could now make out the great shape of the battleship; the dull funnels belching black clouds of smoke, which, merging with the night, were immediately absorbed; the shadowy, basket-like masts, from which the search-light rays went forth; the long, vaguely protruding twelve-inch guns. A whistle, tremulous and piercing, shrilled along the battleship's deck; dull white figures were clambering into the port life boats. Still closer now! Anne could hear the heavy swish of waters under theArizona'sbows. Her nerves were tight strung, prepared for the crash of steel against steel and the shock of the submersion. There was no sound from theArizonanow. Her bridge had echoed with shouts of warning. The time for that had passed. Armitage had not uttered a sound. Straight he stood by the telegraph, tense and rigid, his hand clutching the lever.
Around came the stern with fearful momentum, so close—but clear of the giant hull—that the gunner's mate at the stern torpedo tube took his chew of tobacco and, as he afterwards put it, "torpedoed the battleship with his eyes shut." Now the stern was pointed directly toward theArizona, hardly five yards away. Armitage, bending over the telegraph, jerked sharply upon the lever, throwing the port engine full speed ahead again. He stood up and glanced quickly astern. Like a live thing, theD'Estangjumped clear. Sara leaned heavily on Anne's shoulder with little tearless sobs. But Anne, crouching in the position she had maintained since the search-light had blinded the bridge, still watched Jack with eyes that seemed to transfix him.
A figure leaped to the end of the battleship's bridge.
"The Admiral's compliments,D'Estang!"
The engines were stopped now and Armitage and Johnson and a group of men were working at the helm. Sara raised her head.
"Anne," she said solemnly. "I never wanted to kiss a man until this minute." Mischievously she made a move as though to arise. The girl's hand clenched upon her arm.
"Don't be an idiot," she said. "Can't you see how busy they are? Besides, Sara, no man likes to be kissed by two girls—at the same time."