Roger did not know what to do. He might offer to stop behind and wait in the carriage outside the garden gates. But if he did this itwould seem strange and even ungracious to the Commandant, who was taking so much trouble to entertain them, and to "seem strange" was alone enough to constitute danger. He compromised, keeping behind with George, while Virginia walked ahead with the old Frenchman.
In the midst of the garden stood the quadrangular building of the hospital, the steep roof forming broad verandahs. There were gray figures sitting or lounging there also, but the Commandant said that Number 1280 would not be found among these, for he fled as much as might be from the society of his fellow-convicts.
They turned the corner of a shaded path and came out under a green canopy made by four large palms. A man lay underneath, his head pillowed on his arm, his face upturned—a man in the sordid prison gray. Virginia Beverly grew giddy, and, brave as she had been so far, for an instant she feared that she was going to faint like an ordinary, stay-at-home girl. She started, and caught at the arm of the Commandant, who turned to her in concerned surprise.
"One would think you had guessed that this was our man," he said in a low voice, for the convict, whose face was ghastly pale in the green dusk, seemed to sleep.
"I beg your pardon," whispered Virginia. "I stepped on a stone and twisted my foot. Is this, then, the man we have come to find?"
How well she knew that it was he! How well she knew, though the terrible years had changed the brave young face in the portrait almost beyond the recognition of a stranger. All the gay audacity was gone, therefore much of the individuality which had distinguished it for Virginia. The strong, clear features of the man looked, as he lay there asleep, as if they had been carved from old ivory; the lines were sharpened, there were hollows in the cheeks and under the black lines of the lashes. Even in sleep the dark brows were drawn together in a slight frown, and the clean-cut lips drooped in unutterable melancholy. The figure, lying on its back and extended along the grass, appeared very tall, and lay so still that it might have been the form of a dead man.
Roger, without seeing the sleeping face, guessed by the abrupt stop and the low-spoken words of the two in front that Maxime Dalahaide was found. He drew back slightly, with a meaning glance at George, who stepped forward to join the others.
Suddenly the black line of lashes trembled; a pair of dark, tragic eyes, more like those of Madeleine Dalahaide than the laughing ones of the portrait, opened and looked straight into Virginia's. For a few seconds their gaze remained fixed, as if the white vision had been a broken dream; then a deep flush spread over the thin face of the young man, and he rose to his feet.
"This lady and her brother have come a long way to see New Caledonia," said the Commandant kindly. "They wish to talk to you."
Maxime Dalahaide bowed. Virginia saw that he pressed his lips together, and that the muscles of his face quivered. She guessed how he must suffer at having to gratify—as he supposed—the morbid curiosity of a girl, and it hurt herto think that she must be the one to give him this added pain.
She turned to the Commandant, and, with a voice not quite steady, asked if she and her brother might speak to the man alone. She felt that she should be less embarrassed in her questions, she said, if no one listened. With a smile the old Frenchman consented, bowing like a courtier, and joined Roger Broom, who stood at a little distance out of sight of the convict.
"I thought there was no use embarrassing the poor fellow with any more strangers," Roger explained to the Commandant, as they moved further away down the path by which they had come. "After all, my place in this expedition is only to take a few photographs, wherever they are permitted"; and he touched the camera, slung over his shoulder, of which he had already made ostentatious use on several occasions. "May I have a snapshot of the hospital, with all those chaps on the verandahs? Thanks; we must go a little to the right, then. By Jove! what a lot of gray figures there areabout. How do you make sure they can't escape, if they choose, out here where they don't seem to be guarded?"
"It is only 'seem,'" retorted the Commandant, laughing. "All these men are invalids; we make short work of malingerers. Very few could run a dozen yards without falling down, and most of them are well contented as they are. But, if any one should be mad enough to attempt a dash for freedom, four or five surveillants would be on him before he could count twenty. They do not make themselves conspicuous here, that is all."
Sir Roger Broom looked across the eastern wall of the hospital garden, over the green expanse of the great lagoon, and thought much; but he said nothing. Quietly he prepared to take the suggested photograph, and the hand that held the camera did not shake, though he could guess of what, by this time, George Trent and Virginia were talking with the convict under the palms.
When the Commandant had left them alone with him, Maxime Dalahaide remained silent,Virginia's beauty filled him—not with happy worship of its perfection, but rather with an overwhelming bitterness. He was a Thing, of whom this exquisite, fresh young girl wished to ask a few questions, so that she might go back to her world, thousands of miles away, and say, "Only fancy, I talked to one of the convicts—an awful creature. He had murdered a woman, but he was quite quiet, and, as my brother was close beside me, I was not one bit afraid."
Just because he was a Thing, with no right to pride and self-respect, she could ask what she pleased, and he would answer her; but she must begin, not he.
She did begin, yet so differently from the cut-and-dried beginning which he had scornfully expected, that a flash of vivid amazement swept the hardness from the exile's face.
"Be very careful," she said rapidly in English. "Don't speak, don't show anything you may feel. Perhaps we are watched. You are Maxime Dalahaide. We haven't come here for curiosity, as you think, but to save you. We have come thousands of miles for that."
"Why?" It was as if the question fell from his lips without volition. The man did not believe his own ears. He thought that he must have been seized with delirium.
"Because we believe in you and because we are friends of your sister's," Virginia answered. "A man you once knew is with us—Roger Broom. Do you remember?"
"Roger Broom!" Maxime repeated dazedly. "It is like an echo from the past. Yes—yes, I remember."
"It is through him that we have been able to reach you. He is close by, but dared not let you see him, until you had been warned. Now, we must arrange everything in a few minutes for your escape; the Commandant has been kind, but he may not give us long together."
"I think I must be dreaming," stammered Maxime, all his bitterness forgotten. "I've been ill. I don't understand things as quickly as I used. Escape! You have come here to—help me to escape. Yes, it is certainly a dream. I shall wake up by and by!"
"You will wake up free," said Virginia notdaring to raise her voice above a low monotone. "Free, on our yacht, that has brought us from France to take you home."
Suddenly a glaze of tears overspread Maxime Dalahaide's dark eyes. "Home?" he echoed wistfully. "Home! Ah, if it might be!"
"It shall be," returned Virginia. "George, tell him our plan. You can do it better than I."
"The thing is to get you on board the yacht," said Trent. "After that, you're all right. We can show our heels to pretty well anything in these parts."
Dalahaide shook his head. "There are no words to thank you for what you have done, and would do for me," he answered. "But it is impossible. Once I thought of escape. I tried and failed, as others have tried and failed. After the second time, they put me in the Black Cell, and I saved myself from madness by calling to memory all of Shakespeare that I had ever learned. I don't say 'impossible' because I am afraid of that again. I have passed beyond fear of anything. What have I left to dread? I know the worst; I have lived through the worstthat can befall a man. But in that dreadful blackness, where my very soul seemed to dissolve in night, I realized that, even if I could escape, how useless freedom would be if my innocence were not proved. I could not go to France or England. I should live a hunted life. As well be an exile here as nearer home—better, perhaps, now that the first bitterness has passed."
"You think this because you've been ill, and your blood runs slow," said George Trent. "All you need is to be strong again, and——"
"Strong again!" echoed Maxime, with sorrowful contempt. "I've been thanking heaven that I hadn't strength enough left to care for anything. It's true, as you say; the oil in my lamp of life burns low, and so much the better for me. What I want now is to get it all over as soon as may be. You are kind—you are so good to me that I am lost in wonder; yet even you cannot give me a freedom worth having. Take back my love to my sister, but tell her—tell her that I am content to stay as I am."
"Content to die, you mean!" cried Virginia.
"Oh, you are ill indeed to feel like this. How can you bear to stay here, when you have a chance to be a free man—even if not a happy man—to stay here, and let your enemy, who sent you to this place, laugh and think how his plot against you has succeeded?"
The dreamy look of weary resignation on Maxime Dalahaide's face changed to alertness. "Why do you speak of an enemy, and a plot against me?" he asked. "That poor girl was murdered; but I have never thought that she was killed because her murderer wished to involve me. That part was an accident. Liane Devereux——"
"Is not dead," broke in Virginia. "She is on our yacht now, in the harbour of Noumea. When you come, and she sees you, she will confess the whole plot."
"But I saw her lying dead—a thousand times that sight has been before my eyes."
"It was not she. If you want to know all, to fathom the whole mystery, and learn how to prove your own innocence, you will not refuse to do what we ask."
Maxime's thin face no longer looked like a carving in old ivory. The statue had come to life. The spring of hope had begun to stir in his veins. "If it were possible to prove it—at this late day!" he exclaimed. "But even if it were—you forget the tremendous difficulties in the way of escape. How could I reach your yacht? It could not come near enough to shore here to pick me up; even a small boat would be seen——"
"Not at night," said Virginia.
"Remember, it is moonlight. The night will be like day. Long before a small boat could reach the yacht from the beach she would be followed, overtaken, and not only should I be brought back, but I should have the misery of knowing that I had been the cause of bringing my brave friends into trouble. They would fire upon us. If I were killed it would matter little enough; but if you were to be shot——" He spoke to George Trent, but his eyes moved quickly to Virginia's face.
"My sister would be waiting for us on board theBella Cuba," said Trent. "Roger Broomand I will take jolly good care of ourselves—and of you, too, if you'll only give us a chance."
"If you'd come here a month ago," sighed the prisoner, "before I got this wound in my back! Now I'm afraid it's too late. I've let myself go. I thought I saw the one door of escape for me opening—death; and instead of turning my back I walked toward it. I've let my strength down. I haven't eaten or slept much, and I began to have a pleasant feeling of slipping easily out with the tide. Now there's an incentive to stop, the tide's too strong and I'm too weak. I can't count on myself."
"Count on us," said George. "We'll see you through, you bet. And think of your sister. We promised we'd take you back with us. We can't go to her without you, after raising her hopes. It would kill her." Trent glanced at Virginia, as if expecting her to add encouraging arguments to his; but she was silent, her eyes alone appealing to Dalahaide. George Trent was her half-brother, and had known her all her life, but he felt the thrill of that look in the girl's beautiful eyes. How much more,then, must Maxime Dalahaide have felt it, he said to himself.
"It is the risk for you I think of—if I fail," the prisoner exclaimed. "If I had only myself to consider I should hesitate no longer."
"We have come a long, long way to you," Virginia's eyes said; and her lips would have added something had not George's hand fallen suddenly in warning on her shoulder. "Somebody is coming," he whispered. "For all our sakes, don't fail us, Dalahaide. We shall look for you to-night—there," and he nodded toward the water. "Make your way to the beach and hide among the rocks till you see our little boat. Don't take to the water—remember the sharks. If you're not there to-night, we'll hang about till the next."
"We'll wait till you come, if we wait a year," said Virginia.
There was time for no more. The Commandant, with Roger Broom by his side, appeared round the corner of the winding path near by.
"Well, mademoiselle, have we given you timeto finish your interview, and has it been satisfactory?" asked the old Frenchman good-naturedly.
"You have given us just enough time, and it has been most satisfactory, thank you," the girl answered. "I hope," she added, "to make the very best use of it later." And again her eyes met those of the statue that she had waked to life.
It was night in the harbour of Noumea; a night of pitiless, white, revealing moonlight which sharpened the black outline of every shadow, and made the whitewashed wall of each low house gleam like mother-o'-pearl. Had there been no secret business on foot, Virginia Beverly's beauty-loving soul would have been on its knees in worship of the scene as she sat on the deck of the yacht, which seemed not to float in water, but to hang suspended in the transparent, mingling azure of sea and sky. To her the moon was an enemy, cruel and terrible. She would have given her right hand for a dark curtain cloud to be drawn across that blazing lamp and the scintillating stars reflected in the water like sequins shining through blue gauze.
Midnight was near, and the yellow lights ofthe town were fewer than they had been. The quay was quiet and deserted, and the Ile Nou was a black shape in the translucent glitter of the water. On theBella Cubaall was very still, and each whisper of the little waves that lapped against the side of the yacht came distinctly to Virginia's ears.
The Countess de Mattos had not appeared at dinner, but had sent excuses, her head being much worse. But it was Virginia's opinion that, once out of sight of Noumea, the lady intended to be convalescent. Kate Gardiner also was in retirement, and had for once shown temper even to Virginia; but Dr. Grayle's report of the day was reassuring, and as Kate had had no opportunity of doing harm, even if she had wished it, she and her grievances were dismissed from Virginia's mind in these supreme moments.
Her eyes were straining after a small electric launch, which was already distant. Virginia could not look away, and still she tried to persuade herself that she could not see the little black gliding thing distinctly, because, if it wasplainly visible to her, it must be so to other eyes also—if eyes on shore were waking and watching now.
Suddenly the boat disappeared behind a buttress of rock silhouetted on the silver track of the moon, and at the same instant the yacht's anchor began slowly to be hauled up.
Virginia knew what that meant. To-night's work was for Roger and George, not for her; but she had each detail of the programme at her fingers' ends—indeed, had helped to arrange it. When the launch had gone a certain distance from theBella Cuba, on its stealthy way toward the Ile Nou, the yacht's captain—an Englishman, discreet and expert—had orders to follow slowly. The start had not been made earlier, because it was desirable that town and prison should be asleep, and the danger of discovery minimized. If the yacht were seen moving in the night suspicion would be aroused, for leaving the harbour of Noumea is a perilous undertaking except between sunrise and sunset; yet she must move, and follow the boat like one of the great blacksharks swimming with grim expectancy behind her, lest the little bark should be overtaken in case of alarm and pursuit.
No explanation had been given to Captain Gorst, who neither needed nor desired any. His orders were to follow the boat, and stand in as near the Ile Nou as possible without arousing attention on shore; there to wait until the launch returned, or to approach still closer to the island, if pursuit rendered it advisable. These orders Virginia knew he would obey to the letter; and she knew also, though no word had been spoken to her on the subject, that the little cannon, which had been silent since theBella Cubahad been a lightly armoured despatch-boat in the American-Spanish War, were ready to speak to-night, if worst came to worst.
It was that vague "worst" that troubled Virginia's soul as, almost soundlessly, the heart of theBella Cubabegan to beat, and she glided through the glimmering water. If only one could know exactly where and how to expect the blow, the thought that it might fall would be more bearable, the girl felt. But one ofmany things might happen to wreck their hopes; and failure now probably meant failure forever.
Maxime Dalahaide might be too ill to make the attempt to-night, or he might be watched in the act of making it. The men in the launch might miss seeing him, even if he had contrived to escape from the hospital and gain the beach. Or his flight might be discovered, and the launch only arrive near the shore in time for its occupants to see him dragged back to the old life, with all its past horrors, and many new ones added by way of punishment. Possibly the coral reefs and jagged rocks might prevent the launch getting close to shore, and Maxime would have to swim out to it. Then, there were the sharks. Virginia had already seen two or three to-day—hideous, black shapes swimming far down below the surface of the clear water—and she shuddered as she remembered the great snouts and cold, evil eyes of the man-eaters. What was that the Commandant had said in the afternoon? "The sharks are the best guardians the Ile Nou can have." Were those horrible watch-dogs of the sea on the lookout now?
At the same moment, the same thought was in the minds of Roger Broom and George Trent, as the little electric launch rounded the point of rock and lost sight of theBella Cuba. The water, as they looked toward the Ile Nou, which must be their destination, was a flood of molten silver poured from the white-hot furnace of the full moon. They knew how black the launch must be on this sheet of radiance, how conspicuous an object to watchful eyes on shore; and though the glittering sheen destroyed the transparent effects of the water here, they guessed what gliding shapes were surely upon their track, coldly awaiting disaster.
Sitting in the boat they could not see the hospital; not a light was visible in any prison building; and they had the feeling that in any one of a dozen great masses of shadow armed surveillants might be hiding, to spring out upon Maxime Dalahaide as he crept toward his friends and far-off safety. There was no sound except the crisp rustle of the water as the launch cut through it; but as they entered the lagoon, where among tall reeds the image of the moonlay unbroken like a fallen silver cup, a whispering ran through the rushes, as if to pass the news of their approach from ear to ear.
Suddenly a tall figure rose up on a slight eminence and waved its arms, then disappeared again so quickly that it might almost have been a fantastic shadow; but quickly as it had come and gone, Roger and George knew that their hope had not been in vain. Convict 1280 had completed the first stage of his journey. He had seen them coming to the rescue, and he had given them the secret of his hiding-place.
The two men were alone in the launch. Now, without a word, Roger Broom headed it for the point where the figure had appeared. There was a strange confusion of emotions in his brain, which still left it clear to act. Under his habitual air of lazy indifference he hid strong feelings, and at this moment they worked within him like fermenting wine. In this adventure he was playing for great stakes. Twice in the last year had Virginia refused him; her love and her beautiful self were all that Roger craved for in the world, but he had meant never to askfor them again, when this mad scheme of rescue had been conceived. He had opposed it as foolish and impossible; then Virginia had hinted that, if he would join her in it, giving help and advice, she would refuse him nothing. After that day he had thrown himself into the adventure heart and soul, saying little, but doing all that man could do. Though his few words had sometimes discouraged Virginia's ardent hopes, he had doggedly meant to succeed if he had to die in the supreme effort. He had put his whole soul into the work, with no other thought until to-day. Then—he had seen what George Trent had seen; a certain look in Virginia's eyes as they pleaded with Maxime Dalahaide to free himself. Her lips had said: "Do this for your sister's sake." But her eyes had said: "Do it for mine." Never had such a light shone in those beautiful eyes for Roger; never would it so shine for him; and he knew it well, with a dull, miserable sickening of the heart, which was like a pinch from the hand of Death.
In a moment the whole face of the world hadchanged for him. He was a man of honour, and he would go on along the path which he had traced out for himself; but the wish to succeed in his task for the sake of success was murdered by that sweet light in a girl's eyes. Something coldly calculating said to Roger Broom that it would be a good thing for him if Maxime failed to come to the rendezvous, on that night or any other night; or, if, in case he came, he should be retaken. Should this happen, Virginia's implied promise need not hold good, but Roger thought he knew her generous heart well enough to be certain that she would in the end reward him for what he had tried to do, even though—not through his fault—the fight had been in vain. On the other hand, if he and George succeeded in saving Dalahaide, in bringing Dalahaide to Virginia—but Roger would not quite finish that thought in his mind. Resolutely he turned his back upon it, yet it grinned an evil, skeleton grin over his shoulder, and he could not make his ears deaf to the whisper that though he could and would hold Virginia to the keeping of herbargain, her heart would always have a holy of holies shut away from him.
Roger hated the cold Voice that explained his heart to his head, and he did his best not to listen. But all he could compass was not to let himself be guided by its promptings. If he had desired Dalahaide's escape as whole-heartedly as before, he could have worked for it no harder than he did; still, he experienced no warmth of gladness at sight of the dark figure silhouetted for an instant against a moonlit haze. Trent was not close to him in the launch, and yet somehow he felt the thrill of joyous relief which shot through the younger man's body at the signal, and envied it. But all was different with George; he could afford to be single-minded. Roger knew very well that George was in love with Madeleine Dalahaide, and that there was nothing he would not sacrifice for the happiness of giving her back her brother.
As Roger Broom wrestled with his own black thoughts, the launch, which had hitherto slipped swiftly toward its goal, dividing the rushes and reeds of the lagoon, refused to move on. Thelush, green barricade was too thick to be cut through by its clean bow and the force of its powerful little electric motor.
"It's no good," whispered George. "We can't get on any farther. This is what I was afraid of. He'll have to come out to us. Thank goodness, if we can't get through, neither can the sharks."
"Where is he? Can you see him?" Roger asked. And the Voice was loud in his ears again.
"No, I wish I could. I don't like to sing out. This luck of ours so far is too good to last."
"Stand up and wave your hand. Perhaps he'll see and reply," said Roger.
Somehow he wanted George to take the initiative now. He was afraid of being unconsciously guided by the Voice.
George stood up and waved a handkerchief. No figure rose in response, but as if in answer, they heard a distant splashing in the water, and then, following so quickly that it blurred the impression of the first stealthy sound, came the sharp explosion of a shot. Instantly theslumberous silence of the tropical night was shattered by a savage confusion of noises. Other shots were fired, a great bell began to clang, another boomed a sullen echo, and from far away spoke the deep, angry voice of a cannon.
"Good heavens! that's the cannon on board that beastly steam tub of theirs!" cried George. "Luckily for us it's a makeshift concern and no gunboat; but it can catch us on our way back to the yacht, and if it does, all's up."
Roger did not answer. His ears were strained for the splashing in the water, if still it might be heard as an undertone beneath the distant din of the alarm. The launch could not advance a foot farther, if it were to save all three lives; and it would take some time at best for Dalahaide to wade, and swim, and fight his way to them, among the tangling reeds. The escaping prisoner was weak still from his recent wound; no matter how high his courage might be now, it could not in a moment repair the physical waste which he had voluntarily allowed to go on, courting the sole release he had then foreseen.
The one chance left, now the alarm was given,lay in the hope that, though Dalahaide's flight from the prison hospital had been discovered, the direction he had chosen was not yet known. But the lagoon was at least as likely a place for the search to begin as any other; and then the launch might have been seen moving across the bright streak of the moon's track before it could reach the shelter of the rocks on its way to the lagoon. A few minutes at most, and the hounds would be on the right scent.
These things Roger told himself, but he had not sat still to listen. After the first second of straining attention, he sprang up, threw off his coat and waistcoat, and kicked off his shoes.
"I'm going to help him if I can," he said. "His strength may fail, or some stray shark may be a little cleverer than its fellows and find its way through the rushes. Anyhow, here goes; and if Dalahaide gets to you before me, don't wait. Push out the best you can, and I'll catch you up, swimming."
There was no time for arguing or objecting, even if it had been in Trent's mind to do either. Since it was right for one to go, and Roger choseto be that one, he must stay; but, even for Maxime's sake, and for Madeleine's, he could not, he decided, leave Roger Broom to follow—for there were the sharks. No, they three must stand or fall together, whatever happened now.
The lagoon, in the spot where Roger left the launch, was too deep for wading, nor could he swim there. Somehow—he scarcely knew how—he seemed to tread water, his feet slipping among the slimy tangled stems that were like a network under the surface, a brackish taste in his mouth, the rank, salt smell of seaweeds in his nostrils, and his ears a soft, sly rustling which might mean the disturbed protest of a thousand little subterranean existences, or—the pursuit of an enemy more deadly than any on land.
It was a harder task than he had thought; still he persevered. "Dalahaide, where are you?" he called.
"Here!" came the answer, only a few yards away. "I'm caught in something, and up to my knees in mud. I think my wound's broken out again. For heaven's sake, go back andlet them take me. After all, what does it matter for me? I'm done. A thousand times better die than get you all into trouble."
"Youall!" Even in that moment Roger said to himself that "all" meant Virginia. Dalahaide was thinking of her. He would rather die than she should be punished for this bold attempt to break the law. But aloud Roger cried out that he would go back with Maxime or he would not go back at all, and cheering the other, with death in his own heart, he struggled along, half swimming, half wading, but always moving on, how he hardly knew. Then at last he saw a dark head, and a face, white in the moonlight, floating seemingly on the reedy surface of the lagoon, like a water lotus on its stem.
Roger grasped a handful of slippery stems and held out a strong left hand to the wounded man.
"Take hold, and I'll pull you out," he said.
The two hands met, one thin and white with a prison pallor, the other brown and muscular and dependable. They joined, and Roger held on to the bunch of slippery stems so hard that they cut into his fingers. Once he thought theywere yielding, but at that instant Dalahaide was lifted out of the mud in which he had sunk. Roger caught him under the arm and held him up. Scrambling, rustling, pushing, sinking, rising, spitting out salt, brackish water, they struggled back toward the launch.
There it was, waiting, Trent crouching down, scarcely breathing in his agony of impatience. They saw him, and at the same time their heads came into sight for him, among the tall, dark spears of the rushes. In another moment George in the launch and Roger in the water were pulling and pushing Maxime, half fainting now, up over the side of the swaying boat.
As he tumbled in, limply, Roger saw a dark stain on the wet, gray convict jacket. It was black in the moonlight, but Roger knew it would be red by day. The wound in his back had broken out again, as he had thought; even if they saved him now, it might only be to die. It was the cold Voice that said this; and Roger shuddered, yet half his nature welcomed the suggestion. "I've done what I could, let him die," was the answer that came. Quickly thelittle launch began to back out from the entanglement of the rushes, and as soon as there was room George turned her and sent her out like an arrow from the lagoon to deeper, clearer water. Beyond a certain point of rock theBella Cubashould lie by this time, and once on board her all might yet be well, for she could easily show her heels to anything that walked the sea in these waters.
They headed straight for the place where they hoped to find the yacht waiting, and with an exclamation Trent pointed to the sky, across which floated a black, gauzy scarf of smoke.
"Ripping old chap, Captain Gorst," chuckled George. "That's his signal. Trust him to be where he's wanted on time and a bit before."
But Roger was silent. There was a thought in his mind with which he could not darken George's mood by speaking out. Sufficient for the moment was the evil thereof.
They were close to the jutting rock now, and it seemed within ten minutes of safety. But something shot into sight round the point, something big, and black, and swift, with a gleam offiery eyes and a belching stream of smoke streaked with fire.
"By thunder!" stammered George. "It's not theCuba. It's the Government boat, coming down on us. We're trapped, sure as fate."
The words rang in Maxime Dalahaide's ears and reached his dimmed consciousness. The danger was not for him alone, but for the others who were risking everything to save him. It was this thought which seemed to grip him, and shake him into sudden animation. He sat up, resting on one elbow, not even wincing at the grinding pain that gnawed within the lips of his re-opened wound.
"Not trapped yet," he said. "Keep to the right; to the right—not too far out. She daren't come where we are, for she'd be ripped to pieces on the reef, and she knows that."
"Hark! They've spotted us. She's hailing!" cried Roger Broom.
"Halte! halte!" came harshly across the moonlit space of water, as, obedient to Dalahaide's quick hint, the course of the launch was changed.
The three fugitives were mute, and again a raucous cry broke the silence of the sea.
"Halt, or we fire!"
"They've two cannon," said Maxime. "I was mad to bring this on you, my friends. If they fire——"
"Let them fire, and be hanged to them!" grumbled George Trent. "Two can play at that game. In heaven's name, where's the yacht? Ah—youwould, would you!"
This in answer to a shot that, with a red blaze and a loud report, came dancing across the water, churning up spray and missing the launch by a man's length.
"Keep her going, George," said Roger as quietly as was his wont. "Our hope's in speed now, and dodging, till theBella Cubatakes a part in this game."
As if the calling on her name had conjured her like a spirit from the "vasty deep," the graceful form of the yacht came into sight. George, tingling with the joyous lust of the battle, could not resist a hurrah; but his shout was deadened by the din of another shot, andthen an answering roar from theBella Cuba. One of those cannon of hers had "paid for its keep" at last. Now the yacht, and every one on board her—to say nothing of the three who wished to be on board—were in for a penny, in for a pound.
The act just committed was an offense against law and justice (not always the same) and joined hands with piracy. To be caught meant punishment the most severe for all, possibly even international complications. If the French prison-boat sunk the yacht and the launch, and drowned every soul concerned in this mad adventure, she would be within her rights, and the fugitives knew it well. TheBella Cubahad flung the red rag into the face of the bull, and Roger Broom and George Trent thought they saw Virginia's hand in the unhesitating challenge. Captain Gorst might have thought twice before assuring himself that the time had come to obey orders given in case of dire necessity; but once would be enough for Virginia.
"She's given herself away!" laughed George, keeping the launch between the lagoon and anirregular line of dark horns which, rising just above the shining surface of the water, marked a group of coral reefs. "There won't be much doubt in Johnny Crapaud's mind now as to what part that tidy little craft's cast to play in this show, eh? Hello-o!"
Another blaze and a following roar drew the exclamation; but before George had had time to draw breath after it, he and Roger and Maxime were all three in the water. The ball from the little cannon of the prison-boat had done its work better this time, striking the electric launch on her nose and shattering her to pieces.
George Trent was a brave man, but his first thought was "Sharks!" and the horror of it caught his throat with a sensation of nausea. The instinct of self-preservation is strong in all healthy men, and, though an instant later he was ashamed on realizing it, the fear that thrilled him was for himself. He expected, as his momentarily scattered senses told him what had happened and where he was, to feel huge teeth, sharp as scythes, meet round his thigh and cut off a leg as cleanly as a surgeon's knife.
While he still quivered with this living horror, he remembered that the danger was Roger's and Maxime's as well as his, and manhood and unselfishness came back. He forgot himself in his fear for them, more especially for Maxime—poor Maxime, who had suffered so much that it would be hard indeed if he were to meet a ghastly death in the very act of achieving safety and freedom. Madeleine's beautiful, tragic face rose, clear as a star, before his eyes, and he knew that it would be reward enough for him if he could give his life for the brother she loved so well. If she should say afterward, "Poor fellow, he died that you might live, Maxime," he felt that the words and the gratitude in the girl's heart would warm him even, if his grave were to be under these dark waters at the other end of the world.
He had gone down at first, and a hundred thoughts seemed to have spun themselves in his head by the time he rose to the surface. Shaking the water out of his eyes, he looked anxiously round for Roger and Maxime. They were nowhere to be seen, and a pang shot throughGeorge Trent's breast like a dagger of ice. What if one or both of them had already met the terrible fate which he had pictured for himself?
His whole soul was so concentrated upon this fear that for a few seconds he was deaf and blind to everything outside; but suddenly he realized that the firing between the yacht and the Government boat was still going on, a further cannonade which woke strange echoes over the water.
"Roger—Dalahaide!" he called. No answer came, but, as his eyes strained through the haze of moonlight, a dark dot appeared on the bright mirror of the sea, moving fast, and a cry was raised which, though not loud, carried clearly, and seemed to George Trent the most terrible he had ever heard:
"A shark—a shark!"
It was Roger Broom's voice which sent across the water that ominous shout so appalling to Trent's ears. Mechanically George swam toward the place where the dark head had risen, but as he took his first stroke a second head appeared beside the other, then both went down together.
That moment concentrated more of anguish for George Trent than all the years of his past life had held. He believed that both Roger and Maxime had almost before his eyes suffered the most hideous death possible to imagine, and he knew that at any instant he might share their fate. But that thought no longer shook him as before. Since the others had died so horribly it would be well that he should die too. A moment of sharp agony, and all would be over. Better so, since he couldnot go back to Virginia or to Madeleine Dalahaide alone.
His eyes strained despairingly over the cruel glitter of the rippling sea, with a cold, vague feeling that he had reached the edge of the world, and was looking over into the dim mystery of the next. He was young and vigorous, and had loved life for its own sake; but, with Roger and Dalahaide both dead, there was no longer a full-blooded craving for help to save himself in his mind as he gazed toward the yacht and the French boat. Instead he wondered with a sickly curiosity how long it would be before the filthy brutes, which had put an end to his companions, would make a meal of him, and whether it would hurt much, or if unconsciousness would come soon. Mechanically he swam on, more or less in the direction of theBella Cubaand the French boat, which were at close quarters now; and perhaps there was a scarcely defined hope in his heart that a stray shot might finish him before the hideous "guardians of the Ile Nou" found their chance.
The state of his own brain and nerves becamea matter of cold surprise to him; the suspense without fear, though tingling with physical dread, and the capacity for separation of emotions. He found himself thinking of Virginia, and pitying her. This would break her heart, he told himself. She would have a morbid feeling that she was to blame for the disaster; that she had caused the death of her brother and cousin, and the other man so strangely important in her life of late. He wished that he might talk to her, and tell her not to mind, because it was not in the least her fault, and she had done nothing but good.
Then he began to wonder why the yacht and the French boat had ceased firing. The latter had only two guns, while theBella Cubahad four, and, as he had said to Roger a few minutes (or was it years?) ago, she was but a poor "makeshift," rigged up more as a kind of "scarecrow" forforçatsmeditating escape than for actual service. Still, she must carry at least ten or twelve rounds of ammunition. Could it be that the littleBella Cubahad contrived to knock a hole in her hull, and that her men must choosebetween beaching her immediately or having her sink? It looked as if this explanation might be the right one, for she was certainly retiring, and that with haste. To beach she must go round the point whence she had come in, approaching the lagoon, and this she was doing, the yacht having no more to say to her.
"The Frenchies know what their sea-wolves have done," George thought grimly, "and so they can afford to let things slide and save themselves. No good sending out a boat and trying to pick up their man under the nose of the enemy, for the poor fellow's gone where neither friends nor foes can get him. The episode is closed. And all theBella Cubawanted was to put the prison boat out of the running. There's no good being vindictive. I could get to her now, if I liked—provided those brutes would let me. But it's impossible—I won't think of it. Afterward I should loathe myself for being a coward and going back to life without the others. I couldn't have helped them—but it would seem as if I might have, and didn't. Heavens! When is thisgoing to end? I can't bear it long. The best thing I could do would be to drown myself like a man, and get it over before the worst can happen."
He flung up his arms, meaning to sink, and wondering whether it would be really possible for a strong swimmer deliberately to drown himself, or whether instinct would keep on countermanding the brain's orders, until exhaustion did its work. One last look at the world he gave before the plunge, and that look showed him a thing which he could not believe. Between him and the black horns of the outer reef he saw once more two dark heads close together.
"It can't be!" Trent said to himself; nevertheless, instead of flinging away life, with all his strength he struck out lustily toward those floating dots in the water. Then, suddenly, something cold and solid rubbed against his leg. How the knowledge of what it was and what to do came to him so quickly, and how he acted upon that knowledge swiftly almost as light moves, he could not have told; but he knew that a shark was after him; he knew that itmust turn over on its back in the water before the cavernous, fang-set jaws could crunch his bone and flesh, and like a flash he dived. Queerly, as he shot down through the water, he thought again of something outside the desperate need of self-preservation. "This is what happened when I saw their heads go down before and supposed it was all up with them both!" he said to himself. "That's what they are supposing about me now, if they're looking my way. Well, we shall see. It's going to be a race between this infernal brute and me. I'd bet on him—but the dark horse sometimes gets in."
After that he had no more consecutive thoughts. Primitive instinct guided him, and hope was the light which marked the goal. The others were not dead yet, so he had a right to his life, if he could keep it; and toward that end he strained, swimming as he had never swum before, diving, darting this way and that, feeling rather than seeing which spot to avoid, which to strive for. At last his foot touched rock. He had reached that part of the jagged coral-reef which rose out of the sea. He ceased toswim, and found that slipping, sliding, stumbling on a surface, which felt to clinging hands and feet as if coated with ice, and smeared with soap, he could scramble up to a point above water. He got to his knees, then to his feet, and as he stood up, dripping and dizzy, a shout came to him. Roger's voice again!—but no longer sharp with horror and loathing. There he stood on another low peak of the reef, and Dalahaide was beside him, slimmer, taller, and straighter than he, as the two figures were darkly outlined against the light.
They were safe, at least from the sharks; and from theBella Cubaa boat with four rowers was swiftly approaching. The reaction of joy after the resignation of despair was almost too great. George Trent's throat contracted with a sob, and there was a stinging of his eyelids which was not caused by the salt of the sea.
"Hurrah!" he cried out, waving his hand to the two men on the reef, and to the rowers in the boat. While his shout still rang in the air acanot, such as that in which they had crossed from Noumea to the Ile Nou, manned by twelverowers, leaped round the point of rock behind which the French boat had disappeared, and came straight as an arrow for the reef on which the three men stood.
Now it was a race once more for life and death. The yacht's boat had the start, but those twenty-four oars carried thecanot, heavy as it was, far faster through the water. TheBella Cubacould not use her cannon lest she should destroy her own friends, so nearly did the two boats cross each other as both from, different directions, sped toward the same goal.
The yachtsmen's blood was up, and they worked like heroes, but they were four to twelve. Thecanotshot ahead and got the inside track. The race, as a race, could now have but one end. Thecanotwas bound to be first at the spot where the runawayforçatand one of his English friends stood side by side out of reach of the hungry sharks, but not beyond the grasp of justice. The fugitives, who had fought so long with the sea, were unarmed, while the four surveillants in thecanothad revolvers, and would either recapture or kill.
But Maxime Dalahaide spoke a word to his companion; and, as if the triumph of thecanotover the yacht's boat had been a signal, the two sprang from the shelf of the reef into the sea. George Trent knew well what was in their minds; they preferred to risk being food for sharks to certain capture; and without hesitating for an instant, George followed their example. If they could swim under water to the yacht's boat before the sharks took up the prison cause, all was not yet lost, for the boat would do its best to dodge thecanotwhile theBella Cuba'scannon seized their chance to work once more.
George kept under water as long as he could, then came up to breathe and venture a glance round. Crack! went a pistol-shot close to his head, and he dived again; but not before he had seen the yacht's boat not thirty yards off. How near thecanotlay he had not been able to inform himself, but the narrow shave he had just had gave him a hint that it could not be far distant. He aimed for the boat as well as he could judge, felt an ominous, cold touch, dived deeper for a shark, forged ahead again, trying to forget thedouble danger, came up to breathe because he must, and could have yelled for joy, if he had had breath enough in his lungs, to see that either Roger or Maxime was being pulled into the yacht's boat, while a second head bobbed on the water a couple of yards away. The air cracked with revolver-shots, but George was not the target now: the eyes of the surveillants were for the fugitives nearest safety. Whether Roger or Dalahaide were hit, George could not tell, but he kept his head above water in sheer self-forgetfulness until both had been hauled on board. Then he dived again, and when he rose to the surface he was close to the boat. It was his turn to be helped over the side and to become a target. Something whizzed past his ear, leaving it hot and wet, and he had a sudden burning pain in his left arm; but nothing mattered, for there were Roger and Maxime, and he was beside them. The rowers had set to their work with a will once more, not to reach theBella Cubawith the best speed, but to dodge from between her guns and thecanot. Once she could let her cannon speak, thecanotwas nolonger to be feared. Brave as the Frenchmen were, clearly as they had right on their side, from their point of view, they would have to recognize that they were helpless, that the rest of the battle was to the strong.
A moment more, and one of the little cannon roared a warning. She did not try to hit thecanot; the message she sent was but to say, "Hands off, or take the consequences." And the men of thecanotunderstood. Not only did they cease firing, but began to retire with leisurely dignity toward the point which hid the disabled prison boat.
Now, suddenly, when all such peril was over, the thought of that slimy, cold touch on his flesh, and what it had meant, turned George Trent sick. He did not see how he or his friends had escaped the horror. If it were to come again he was sure that escape would be impossible; and somehow he knew, as if by prevision, that there would be nights so long as he lived when he would dream of that touch in the water, and wrench himself awake, with sweat on his forehead and his hands damp.
"Roger, are you all right, and Dalahaide, too?" he asked, wondering at the weight he felt on his chest and the effort it was to speak.
"Thanks to Dalahaide, I am all right," Roger answered. "If it hadn't been for his quickness and presence of mind, twice I should have been nabbed by a shark. Weak as he was, he pulled me down for a dive that I should have been too dazed to think of without him."
"I have cause enough to know something of these waters and their danger," Maxime said slowly, as if he too found it an effort to speak. "I was weak, yes, but strength comes of great need, I suppose; and already I owed you so much. I had to think and act quickly; besides, it was for myself too."
"Thank heaven it's all over," exclaimed Roger, with a great sigh. "We've a good doctor on board. He'll know how to make you fit once we have you there. And that will be shortly now. See, here's the yacht! In ten minutes you'll be in the stateroom that has been ready for you ever since we left Mentone a few hundred years ago, bound for New Caledonia."
"Yes, your passage was engaged from the first," chuckled George, with an odd little catch in his voice that would have been hysterical if he had been a woman. "And I'll bet something you'll like your quarters. Two lovely ladies took a lot of trouble with them—your sister and mine."
"I don't know what to say, or how to thank you," stammered Maxime. "It goes so far beyond words."
"Just try toliveyour thanks, if you think they're worth while. I reckon that's what our two sisters would say on the subject. Don't let there be any more talk about dying like there was to-day, that's all, you know. And oh, by Jove! doesn't it feel queer to be gabbling this way, when you remember what we've just come out of—those grinning brutes down there, with their red mouths in their white shirt fronts, so to speak. Ugh! I don't want to think of it, but I'm hanged if I can help it. I say, did those Johnnies' revolvers do any damage here?"
"Dalahaide got a bullet in his shoulder, as ifthe wound in his back wasn't enough to remember the place by," said Roger. "He says it's nothing, and I hope that's the truth" (he actually did hope it now, at least for the moment); "as for me, I believe they've saved the yacht's barber a little trouble in cutting my hair on the left side, that's all; luckily no harm done to any of our men."
All these scraps of conversation had been flung backward and forward inside five minutes. Then they were at the yacht's side. Maxime, forced to yield to his own weakness in the reaction now, was being helped on board, the others following.
A slim, white figure, ethereal and spirit-like in the sheen of the moon, was waiting to give them welcome. Virginia stood on deck, weeping and laughing, Dr. Grayle by her side.
"Thank heaven! Thank heaven!" she sobbed at sight of Maxime. The cry was for him, the look, the tears, the clasped hands, all for him. Roger and George came together for her in a second thought, and Roger knew; though he was not surprised, because he had guessedher secret, such joy of success as even he, being a man, had felt, was blotted out for him.
Down below, locked into their staterooms, Lady Gardiner and the Countess de Mattos had passed a strange and terrible hour, each in a different way.
To Kate there was little mystery, though much fear. She had sulkily shut herself up, and, not dreaming what was appointed for the night, had finally dropped asleep, while meditating reprisals for the bad treatment she had received that day. But though her suspicions had not gone as far as an actual rescue in dramatic fashion, with the first shot from the prison boat which woke her from a sound sleep, she divined what was happening. Bounding from her berth, while hardly yet awake, she darted to her porthole, which was wide open. It faced the wrong way to afford her a glimpse of what was going on, but she could hear more firing at a distance, doubtless at the prison on the Ile Nou, the ringing of bells, and much tramping overheadon the deck of the yacht. She felt the throb of the engine too, and though theBella Cubahad been lying quietly at anchor in the harbour when Kate had fallen asleep, now she was moving at a rapid rate through the water, which gurgled past her sides.
Kate had known, of course, that they had not come thousands of miles for nothing, and the moment she was certain that New Caledonia was to be theBella Cuba'sdestination she realized that an attempt would be made to save Maxime Dalahaide. She had been anxious to earn the other half of the Marchese Loria's money, and at the same time to pay Virginia and George Trent for their secretiveness, by letting Loria hear of their arrival, at least, even if she could tell him no more. That desire had been thwarted by Dr. Grayle, but Kate considered the act merely postponed. Next time they coaled—since they must coal somewhere before long—she would certainly find a way of wiring to Loria, and probably she would have something much more definite to tell him, that was all. Exactly what that "something" might be, hadbeen rather vague in her mind; but she had thought that Virginia, George, and Roger would most likely have found means to communicate with Dalahaide and give him hope for the future; perhaps they might even try to put in his hands some means of escape, after which theBella Cubawould linger about in these waters, out of sight of New Caledonia, until he either succeeded in getting away or failed signally to do so. This plan Kate had considered not beyond the bounds of possibility; or (she had told herself) Virginia, who was so enormously, absurdly rich, might be counting upon bribing some lesser prison authority to help the convict to escape. So daring a girl, sure of the power of beauty and wealth, and with millions of pounds to play with, might have conceived such a scheme and have the boldness to carry it out. She could offer any bribe she liked, and—every man was said to have his price. It was conceivable now to Kate that Virginia and Madeleine Dalahaide had had confidences together, and that the mysterious locked stateroom had been specially fitted up for the benefit of the prodigal.It would be like Virginia to have made such a wild plan, and to persuade Roger Broom and George Trent to aid her in carrying it out; yet Kate had not guessed to what desperate lengths they would be ready to go. She had forgotten about the yacht's cannon; but when she heard the shot from the French boat she suddenly remembered them, and wondered, in great terror, whether they would be put to use. She realized that the trio meant to stop at nothing to gain their end and that this end was to have Maxime Dalahaide out of prison at any cost to themselves and others.
Into the midst of her confused deductions broke the yell of a shot from one of the yacht's guns. It was as if theBella Cubawere alive and had given a tiger-spring out of the water. Kate shrieked with fear, and staggered away from the porthole. Her first thought was to run out of the stateroom and seek refuge somewhere—anywhere. But, with her hand on the bolt with which she had fastened the door, she realized that she was as safe where shewas as she could be elsewhere, in the dreadful circumstances—perhaps safer. But she was in deadly terror. As a roar from the French boat was answered by another roar from the yacht, which again shivered and leaped like a wounded thing, her knees gave way under her, and she half fell, half crouched on the floor of the stateroom, shuddering and moaning. The danger seemed as appalling, as hopeless to escape from, as an earthquake which, go where you would, might tear asunder the ground under your feet and bury you alive.
It was clear that theBella Cubaand the strange, ugly-looking steamboat she had seen in the harbour, with its two unmasked cannon, were waging fierce war upon one another. For all that Lady Gardiner knew, Dalahaide was already on board, and the prison boat was giving chase; yet that could not be true, surely, for suddenly the yacht's engines ceased to move; it was as if her heart had stopped beating. Had theBella Cubabeen struck? Was she sinking? Even if not, one of those horrible cannon-balls might come crashing into theyacht's side at any moment, and every one on board might be instantly killed.
Kate knew not what to do; whether to remain where she was, or to crawl out into the cabin and try to find some one—even the hateful doctor—who would tell her how great the danger was, and what one must do to be saved from it. She forgot all about Loria, and Dalahaide, and her many grievances, and only knew that she wished to be spared from death, no matter whose schemes failed or succeeded, or who else lived or died.
The Countess de Mattos had not been asleep. Her headache, perhaps, had kept her nerves at high tension, and made rest impossible. As she had confessed to Virginia early that morning, on discovering the name of the next landing-place, she did not like New Caledonia. The thought of the place, and the secrets it must hold, oppressed her. She wondered, with a kind of disagreeable fascination which invariably forced her weary mind back to the same subject, whether the convicts' life was very terrible; whether they lived long in this land of exile,or whether they were notoriously short-lived. The climate must be trying, and then there were countless hardships to endure—hardships which must be less bearable to those who had known luxury and refinements. She did not like to dwell upon anything that was painful or even sordid; and when memory persisted in dragging before her reluctant eyes the dead body of any particularly hateful scene in her past, as a cat will sometimes obstinately lay before its master a rat it has mangled, she was in the habit of dulling her sensibility by drinking a little absinthe in which some chlorodyne had been dropped.
When she travelled, she always carried two or three bottles of the liquor with her, wrapped in laces and cambric, in her luggage, for she had grown used to it, and could hardly support life without its soothing influence now. She was careful not to take too much, however, for she worshipped her own beauty; and absinthe was an enemy to a woman's complexion.
She felt to-night, lying in the harbour of Noumea, as she had felt sometimes during afurioussiroccoin Sicily—restless, unnerved, fearful of some vague evil, though common sense assured her that nothing of the kind she dimly pictured could possibly happen. She remembered uncomfortable things more vividly and painfully than usual, too; and, at last, she could deny herself the wished-for solace no longer. She rose from her berth, trailing exquisite silk and lace (for the woman must always frame her beauty worthily, even for her own eyes alone), poured out half a glass of absinthe, dropped in her allowance of the drug, added water, till the mixture looked like liquid opal, and sipped the beverage with a kind of dainty greed.
In a few minutes she had ceased to care whether theBella Cubalay in the harbour of Noumea or off Sydney Heads. What did it matter? What harm could come?
Presently, lying in her berth, dreamily staring out at the moonlight through the open porthole, her lovely arms pillowing her head, the Countess became aware that the yacht was moving. So they were getting out to sea again, she told herself. A little while ago she would have beendelighted, as if at an escape, because, as she had said, Noumea was hateful, and no place for pleasure-seekers. But now that the absinthe and chlorodyne soothed her nerves she was comparatively indifferent whether they stopped or steamed away. Nothing unpleasant had happened. Of course not; why should it? She had racked her nerves, and given herself a headache all in vain. Still, it was good to know that she would see no more of that terrible land of beauty and despair.
She shut her eyes comfortably, and was on the way to the more welcome land of sleep when the boom of the gun, which had wakened Lady Gardiner, roused her from her lotus mood of soft forgetfulness—the greatest joy which she could ever know.
Her brain was dazed with the liquor and the drug she had taken, and she was utterly unable to comprehend the tumult and confusion which followed.
Kate Gardiner had a clue to the mystery which the Countess de Mattos did not possess. The Portuguese beauty had no means of guessingwhat had brought theBella Cubato Noumea. She had never heard any one on board speak the name of Dalahaide, or that of any convict imprisoned at New Caledonia, and the firing between the yacht and the French boat suggested nothing to her but horror.
She, too, was afraid, half-stunned with fear, and she was angry with herself now for having taken the absinthe and chlorodyne, because they prevented her from thinking clearly—the very thing which, a short time ago, she had wished not to do. At first she lay still, burying her head in the pillows; then she murmured prayers to more than one saint, for she was an ardent Catholic; and at last, unable to bear the suspense and isolation any longer, she threw open the stateroom door and ran out into the cabin.
No one was there; but above the sound of trampling overhead she thought she could distinguish voices, and Virginia Beverly's was among them. If Virginia were on deck, the Countess said in her mind, it would be well for her to be there too.