"Now, when no tidings came, either of the ship I sought or of the man Black, I did not lose all hope. Indeed, I was much occupied making—during a month's leisure in London—a list, as far as that were possible, of all the gems and baubles which the dead men and women on the sunken steamers had owned. This was a paltry record of bracelets, and rings, and tiaras, and clasps, such stuff as any fellow of a jeweller may sell; unconvincing stuff, worth no more than a near relation for purposes of evidence. There was but one piece of the whole mass that did not come in my category—a great box with a fine painting by Jean Petitot upon its lid, and a curious circle of jasper all about the miniatures. This was a historic piece ofbijouteriementioned as having once been the property of Necker, the French financier; then lost by a New York dealer, who was taking it from Paris to Boston in the steamshipCatalania; the ship supposed to have foundered, with the loss of all hands, off the Banks of Newfoundland, sixteen days after the nameless ship left Spezia. I made a record of this trifle, and forgot it until, many months later, a private communication from the head of the New York Secret Service told me that the man I wanted was in London; that he was an American millionaire, who owned a house on the banks of the Hudson River; who had great influence in many cities, who came to Europe to buy precious stones and miniature paintings, a man who was considered eccentric by his friends. I kept the notes, and hurried to England—for I had been to Geneva some while—and took rooms in the hotel where Captain Black was staying. Three days after I was disguised as you have seen me, selling him miniatures. Within a week, by what steps I need not pause to say, I knew that the jasper box, lost, by report, in the steamerCatalania, was under lock and key in his bedroom.
"I cannot tell you how that discovery agitated me. Here, indeed, was my second direct link. The man had in his possession an historic and unmistakable casket, which all the world believed to be lost in a steamer from which no soul had escaped. How I treasured that knowledge! Three months the man remained in London; during three months he was not thirty hours out of my sight or knowledge. Day by day when with him, I consulted such shipping information as I could get; and scored another mark upon my record when I made sure that no inexplicable story from the sea was written while he remained ashore. This was perplexing for a surety. I could not in any way connect the man with the nameless ship, and yet he knew her crew; he was the one in whose possession the jewels were; above all, while he was ashore there were no disasters which could not be set down to ocean peril or the act of God, as the policies say. This further knowledge held me to him with the magnetic attraction of a mystery such as I have never known in my life. I resigned my work for the Government; and henceforth gave myself heart and soul to the pursuit of the man. I followed him to Paris, to St. Petersburg; I tracked him through France to Marseilles; I watched him embark, with three of the ruffians I had seen at Spezia, in his yacht again; and within a month the yacht was in harbour at Cowes without him; while a steamer, bound from the Cape to Cadiz, and known to have specie aboard her, went out of knowledge as the others had done. Then was I sure, sure of that awful dream I had dreamed, conscious that I alone shared with that man and his crew one of the most ghastly secrets that the deep has kept within her.
"The end of my story I judge now that you anticipate. Though absolutely convinced myself, I had still lack of the one direct link to make a legal chain. I had positively to connect the man Black with the nameless ship, for this I had only done so far by pure circumstance. For many months I have made no gain in this attempt. Last year in Liverpool I sketched in yet another point in my picture. I received tidings of the man in that city, and there I did trade with him in my old disguise; but he was not alone—the crew of ruffians you have known by this time kept company with him in that bold and bestial Bohemianism you will have witnessed with me. I kept vigil there a week, but lost him at the end of that time. When he reappeared in the circles of civilisation it was in Paris, but two days ago, when I asked you to accompany me. You know that I attempted to sail with him on his cruise, and your instinct tells you why. If I could, by being two days afloat in his company, prove beyond doubt that he used his yacht as a pretence; if I could prove that when he left port in her he sailed out to sea, and was picked up by the nameless ship, my chain was forged, my book complete, and I had but to call the Government to the work!
"But I have failed, and the labour I have set myself shall be done by others, but chiefly, Mark Strong, by you. From the valley of the dead whence soon I must look back, if it is to be on a life that has no achievement before God in it, I, who have laid down such a life as mine was in this cause, urge you upon it. You have youth, and money sufficient for the enterprise; you will get money in its pursuit. You have no fear of the black After, which is the end of life; but, after all, it may come to you as it came to me, that there is the finger of the Almighty God pointing to your path of duty. I have lived the life of a common eavesdropper; but believe me that in this work I have felt the call of humanity, and hoped, if I might live to accomplish it, that the Book of the Good should find some place for my name. So may you when my mantle falls upon you. What information I have, you have. The names of my friends in the cities mentioned I have written down for you; they will serve you for the memory of my name; but be assured at the outset that you will never take this man upon the sea. And as for the money which is rightly due to the one who rids humanity of this pest, I say, go to the Admiralty in London, and lay so much of your knowledge before them as shall prevent a robbery of your due; claim a fit reward from them and the steamship companies; and, as your beginning, go now to the Hudson River—I meant to go within a month—and learn there more of the man you seek; or, if the time be ripe, lay hands there upon him. And may the spirit of a dead man breathe success upon you!"
On the yacht "Celsis" lying at Cowes, written in the month of August, for Mark Strong.
On the yacht "Celsis" lying at Cowes, written in the month of August, for Mark Strong.
When I put down the papers, my eyes were tear-stained with the effort of reading, and the cabin lamp was nigh out. My interest in the writing had been so sustained that I had not seen the march of daylight, now streaming through the glass above, upon my bare cabin table. But I was burnt up almost with a fever; and the oppressive fumes from the stinking lamp seemed to choke me, so that I went above, and saw that we were at anchor in the Solent, and that the whole glory of a summer's dawn lit the sleeping waters. And all the yacht herself breathed sleep, for the others were below, and Dan alone paced the deck.
The first knowledge that I had of the true effect of Martin Hall's narrative was the muttered exclamation of this old sailor—
"Ye haven't slept, sir," said he; "ye're just the colour of yon ensign!"
"Quite true, Dan—it was close down there."
"Gospel truth, without a hitch! but ye're precious bad, sir; I never seed a worse figger-'ed, excusing the liberty. I'd rest a bit, sir."
"Good advice, Dan. I'll sleep here an hour, if you'll get my rug from below."
I stretched myself on a deck-chair, and he covered my limbs almost with a woman's tenderness, so that I slept and dreamt again of Hall, of Captain Black, of the man "Four-Eyes," of a great holocaust on the sea. I was carried away by sleep to far cities and among other men, to great perils of the sea, to strange sights; but over them all loomed the phantom of a golden ship, and from her decks great fires came. When I awoke, a doctor from Southsea was writing down the names of drugs upon paper; and Mary was busy with ice. They told me I had slept for thirty hours, and that they had feared brain-fever. But the sleep had saved me; and when Mary talked of the doctor's order that I was to lie resting a week, I laughed aloud.
"You'd better prescribe that for Roderick," said I; "he'd rest a month; wouldn't you, old chap?"
"I don't know about a month, old man, but you mustn't try the system too much."
"Well, I'm going to try it now, anyway, for I start for London to-night!"
"What!" they cried in one voice.
"Exactly, and if Mary would not mind running on deck for a minute, I'll tell you why, Roderick."
She went at the word, casting one pleading look with her eyes as she stood at the door, but I gave no sign, and she closed it. I had fixed upon a course, and as Roderick, dreamingly indifferent, prepared to talk about that which he called my "madness," I took Hall's manuscript, and read it to him. When I had finished, there was a strange light in his eyes.
"Let us go at once," he said; and that was all.
CHAPTER VI.
I ENGAGE A SECOND MATE.
We caught the first train to London; and were at the Hotel Columbia by Charing Cross in time for dinner. Mary had insisted on her right to accompany us, and, as we could find no valid reason why she should not, we brought her to the hotel with us. Then by way of calming that trouble, excitement, and expectation which crowded on us both, we went to Covent Garden, where the autumn season of opera was then on, and listened to the glorious music ofOrfeoand theCavalleria. Nor did either of us speak again that night of Hall or of his death; but I confess that the vision of it haunted my eyes, standing out upon all the scenes that were set, so that I saw it upon the canvas, and often before me the wind-worn struggle of a burning ship; while that awful "Ahoy!" of my own men yet rang in my ears.
When I returned to the hotel I wrote two letters, the beginning of my task. One was to the Admiralty, the other to the office of the Black Anchor Line of American Steamships. I told Roderick what I had done, but he laughed at the idea; so that I troubled him no more with it, awaiting its proof. On the next morning, in a few moments of privacy between us, he agreed to let me work alone for two days, and then to venture on suggestion himself. So it came to be that on the next day I found myself standing in a meagrely furnished anteroom at the Admiralty, and there waiting the pleasure of one of the clerks, who had been deputed to talk with me. He was a fine fellow, I doubt not: had much merit of his faultless bow, and great worth in the nicety of his spotless waistcoat, but God never made one so dull or so preposterous a blockhead. I see him now, rolling up the starved hairs which struggled for existence upon his chin, and letting his cuffs lie well upon his bony wrists as he asked me, with a floating drawl—
"And what service can I do for you?"
For me! What service couldhedo for me? I smiled at him, and did not disguise my contempt.
"If there is any responsible person here," I said, with emphasis upon the word responsible, "I should be glad to impart to him some very curious, and, as it seems to me, very remarkable, information concerning a war-ship which has just left Spezia, and is supposed to be the property of the Brazilian Government."
"It's very good of you, don't you know," he replied, as he bent down to arrange his ample trousers; "but I fancy we heard something about her last week, so we won't trouble you, don't you know"; and he felt to see if his bow were straight.
"You may have heard something of the ship," I answered with warmth, "but that which I have to communicate is not of descriptive, but of national, importance. You cannot by any means have learnt my story, for there is only one man living who knows it."
He looked up at the clock a moment as though seeking inspiration, but his mind was quite vacant when he replied—
"It's awfully good of you, don't you know; we're so frightfully busy this month; if you could come up in a month's time——"
"In a month's time," I said, rising with scorn, "in a month's time, if you and yours don't stand condemned before Europe for a parcel of fools and incompetents, then you'll send for me, but I'll see you at blazes first—good-morning!"
I was outside the office before his exclamation of surprise had passed away; and within half an hour I sat in the private room of the secretary to the Black Anchor Steamship Company. He was a sharp man of business, keen-visaged as a ferret, and restless as a nervous horse long reined in. I told him shortly that I had reason to doubt the truth of the statement that a warship recently built at Spezia was intended for the purposes set down to her; that I believed she was the property of an American adventurer whose motives I scarce dared to realise; that I had proof, amounting to conviction, that this man possessed jewels which were commonly accounted as lost in his firm's steamer,Catalania; and that if his company would agree to bear the expense, and to give me suitable recompense if I succeeded in supporting my conjectures, I would undertake to bring him the whole history of the nameless ship within twelve months; and also to give him such knowledge as would enable him to lay hands on the man called "Captain Black," should this man prove the criminal I believed him to be. To all which tale he listened, his searching eye fixing its stare plump upon me, from time to time; but when I had done, he rang the bell for his clerk, and I could see that he felt himself in the company of a maniac. So I left him, and breathed the breath of liberty again as I went back to the hotel, and told Roderick of the utter and crushing failure waiting upon the very beginning of the task which Martin Hall had left to me.
Roderick was not at all surprised—it seemed to me rather that he was glad.
"What did I tell you?" he said, as he sat up on the couch, and took the tube of his hookah from his mouth; "who will believe such a tale as we are hawking in the market-place—selling, in fact, to the highest bidder? If a man came to you with the same account, and with no more authority to support him than the story of a dead detective—who may have lost his wits, or may never have had any to lose—would you put down a shilling to see him through with the business? Pshaw! my dear old Mark, you, with your long head and that horribly critical eyes of yours, you wouldn't give him a groat."
"Exactly, I should consider him a dupe or a stark-staring madman; but the case is different as it stands. I know—I would stake my life on it—that every word Martin Hall wrote is true, true as my life itself. I am not so sure that you are convinced, though."
I awaited his answer, but it did not come for many minutes. He had passed through his momentary enthusiasm and lay at full length upon the couch, making circles, parabolas, and ellipses of fine white smoke, while he fixed his gaze upon the frieze of the wall, as if he were counting the architraves.
"Mark," he said at last, "when we were at Harrow together an aged sage impressed upon us the meaning of Seneca's line, 'Veritas odit moras.' I regard myself at the moment in a position of truth; but whether on calm reflection I believe the whole of your dead friend's story, I'm hanged if I know, and therefore"—here he made a long pause and smoked violently—"and therefore I have bought a steamer."
"You have done what?"
"At two o'clock to-day, in your absence, I bought the steam-yachtRocket, lately the property of Lord Wilmer, now the property of Roderick Stewart, of the Hotel Columbia, London."
I think I must have laughed sorrowfully at him, as a man laughs at a drawing-room humorist, for he continued quickly—
"Before we go on board her, the yacht will be re-christened by Mary—who will stay with her dear maiden aunt in our absence—and will be named after your vesselCelsis. Her crew will consist of our silent friend, Captain York, of his brother as chief mate, and of your men now at Portsmouth, with half a dozen more. We shall need eight firemen, whom the agents will engage, and three engineers, already found, for I have taken on Lord Wilmer's men. Your cook, old 'Cuss-a-lot,' will serve us very well during the fourteen or fifteen days we shall need to go across the Atlantic, and we want now only a second and third officer. As these men will be mixed up with us on the quarter-deck, I have told the agents to send them up to see you here—so you'll run your eye over them and tell me if they'll do. I hate seeing people; they bore me, and I mean you to take the charge of this enterprise from the very beginning—you quite understand?"
"Roderick, my old friend, I'm as blank as a drawing-board—would you mind giving me that yarn from the beginning again—and tell me first, why are we going; then, where are we going; and after that, what has your steamer to do with the business of Martin Hall—and, well, and what we know?"
He spoke quickly in answer, and seemed disappointed.
"I hate palaver," he said, "and didn't think to find you dense, but you're growing silly at this business anyway. Now, look here; until you read me that paper in your cabin, I don't know that I ever felt anger against any man, but, before God, I'll bring the man who murdered Martin Hall, and Heaven knows how many others, to justice or I'll never know another hour's rest. You have been talking of Governments and ship-owners for twenty-four hours; but what have Governments and ship-owners to do with us? Is it money you want? Well, what's mine is yours; and I'm worth two hundred and fifty thousand pounds if I'm worth a shilling. Is it profit of a dead man's work you're after? Well then, mark your man, learn all about him, run him to his hole; and then, when other people besides yourself know his story, as it must be known in a few months' time, put your price on what is your own, and don't fear to recompense yourself. What I want you to see is this:—For some months, at any rate, we shall get no outside help in this matter from any living creature; what we're going to do must be done at our cost, which is my cost. And what we're going to do isn't to be done at this hotel, or on this couch, or in the City: it's going to be done on the high seas, and after that in America on the Hudson River, where, if Hall be right, is the home of Captain Black. It is to the Hudson River that I mean to go now—at once, as soon as money and the devil's own number of men can get the steam-yachtCelsisready for sea. And at my cost, don't forget that; though I'm a fool in the game, which is yours to make and yours to play, as it has been from the beginning, when the dead man chose you to finish it and to reckon with the scoundrels now afloat somewhere between here and the Banks. In his name I ask you now to close your hand with me on this bargain, to ask no question, to make no protests, and to remember that we sail in three days, if possible, and if not in three, then, in as small a number as will serve to get the steamer ready."
What could I say to a story such as this one? I could only wring his hand, and feel how hot it was, knowing that the same haunting wish to be up and off in pursuit was about him as about me. For half-an-hour we sat and smoked together. In three-quarters I was closeted in the room below with Francis Paolo, who had come from the agents to seek the berth of second officer to the new yachtCelsis. When the servant gave me this man's name, I had some misgiving at its Italian sound, but I remembered that Italy is breeding a nation of sailors; and I put off the prejudice and hurried down to see him. I found him to be a sprightly, dark-faced, black-haired Italian, apparently no more than twenty-five years old; and he greeted me with much smoothness of speech. He had served three years as third officer to the big steam-yacht owned by the noted Frenchman, the Marquis de Cluneville; and, as he was unmistakably a gentleman, and his discharges were in perfect order, I engaged him there and then for the post of second officer to theCelsis, and gave him orders to join her at Plymouth, where she lay, as soon as might be.
But had I known him then as I know him now, I would have paid a thousand pounds never to have seen him!
CHAPTER VII.
THE BEGINNING OF THE GREAT PURSUIT.
It was our last day in London. Roderick and I sat down to dinner in the hotel, the touch of depression upon us both. Mary had left us early in the morning to go to Salisbury, where her kinsfolk lived, and I confess that her readiness to quit us without protest somewhat hurt me. I imagine that I was thinking of it, for I blurted out at last, when we had been silent for at least a quarter of an hour—
"I suppose she's arrived by this."
"No, I didn't post her till three," Roderick replied in equal reflective mood.
"Didn't post who?" I asked indignantly.
"Why, old Belle, of course. I sent her down with the guard to get her out of the way."
"Oh," I replied, "I was thinking of Mary, not of your dog."
"You always are," he said; "but, between ourselves, I'm glad she went. I thought there'd be a fuss; and if it comes to a row, as it most probably will, girls are in the way. Don't you think so? But, of course, you don't."
I didn't, and made no bones of pretence about it. Mary was a child; there was no doubt about that; but as I girded up my courage for this undertaking, I thought how much those pretty eyes would have encouraged me, and how sweet that childish laugh would have been in mid-Atlantic. But there—that's no part of this story.
We were going down to Plymouth by the nine o'clock mail from Paddington, and there was not a wealth of time to spare. So soon as we had dined, I went up to my room to put the small things of need away, meaning to be no more than five minutes at the work; but, to my amazement, the whole of the place had been turned utterly inside out by one who had been there before me. My trunk lay upside down; my writing-case was unlocked and stripped, my diary was torn and rent, my clothes were scattered; I thought at first that a common cheat of a hotel thief had been busy snapping up trifles; but I got a shock greater than any I had known since Martin Hall's death when I felt for his writing, which lay secure in its case, and found that, while the main narrative was intact, his letters to the police at New York, his plans, and his sketches had been taken. For the moment the discovery made me reel. I could not realise its import, and almost mechanically I rang for a servant, who sent the manager to me.
His perplexity and dismay were no less than mine.
"No one has any right to enter your rooms," he said; "and I will guarantee the honesty of my servants unhesitatingly. Let us ring and ask for the porter."
The porter was emphatic.
"No one has been here after you since yesterday, sir, when the Italian gentleman came," he pleaded. "To-day he sent a man for a parcel he left here, but I know of no one else who has even mentioned your name."
"What is the amount of your loss?" asked the manager, as he began to assist me to make things straight, and the question gave me inspiration. I made a hurried search, and I must have shown feeling, for I was conscious of pallor of face and momentary giddiness.
"You have lost something of great value, then?" he continued, as he watched. And I replied—
"Yes, but to myself only. Nothing has been taken from the room but papers, which may be worth ten thousand pounds to me. They are not worth a penny to anyone else."
"Oh! papers only—that is fortunate; it is, perhaps, a case for your own private detective."
"Quite so; I shouldn't have troubled you had I made a search before. I will see to it myself—many thanks."
He withdrew with profuse apologies, but I remained standing, with all the heart out of me. What, in Heaven's name, did it mean? Who had interest to rifle my portfolio and take the papers? Who could have interest? Who but the man I meant to hunt down? And what did he know of me—what? I asked, repeating the words over again, and so loudly that those in the neighbouring rooms must have heard them.
Was I watched from the very beginning? Had I to cope, at the very outset, with a man worth a million, the captain of a band of cutthroats, who stood at no devil's deed, no foul work, no crime, as Martin Hall's death clearly proved? My heart ached at the thought; I felt the sweat dropping off me; I stood without thought of any man; the one word "watched" singing in my ears like the surging of a great sea. And I had forgotten Roderick until he burst into my room, a great laugh on his lips, and a telegram in his hand; but he stood back as he saw me, and went pale, as I must have been.
"Great Scott!" he said; "what's the matter?—what are you doing? We leave in ten minutes; why aren't you ready?"
The excuse gurgled in my throat. I stammered out something, and began to pack as though pursued by Furies. Then I put him off by asking what his humour was about. He laughed again at the question—
"What do you think?" he said; "Mary's arrived all right."
"Oh, that's good; I hope she'll like Salisbury," I replied, bundling shirts, collars, and coats into my trunk with indiscriminate vigour.
"Yes, but you don't wait to hear the end," he continued, with a great roar of laughter; "she isn't at Salisbury at all; she's at Plymouth, on board theCelsis. She went straight down there, and devil a bit as much as sent her aunt a telegram!"
I rose up at his word, and looked him in the face.
"Well," he said, "what do you think?—you don't seemed pleased."
"I'm not pleased," I said, going on with my packing. "I don't think she ought to be there."
"I know that; we've talked it all over, but when I think of it, I don't see where the harm comes in; we can't meet mischief crossing the Atlantic, and when the danger does begin in New York I'll see she's well on the lee-side of it."
I did not answer him, for I knew that which he did not know. Perhaps he began to think that he did not do well to treat the matter so lightly, for he was mute when we entered the cab, and he did not open his lips until we were seated in the night mail for Plymouth. The compartment we rode in was reserved for us as he had wished; and, truth to tell, we neither of us had much liking for talk as the train rolled smoothly westward. We had entered upon this undertaking, so vast, so shadowy, so momentous, with such haste, and moved by such powerful motives, that I know not if some thought of sorrow did not then touch us both. Who could say if we should live to tell the tale, if our fate would not be the fate of Martin Hall, if we should ever so much as see the nameless ship, if chance would ever bring us face to face with Captain Black? And whither did we go? When should we set foot again in that England we loved? God alone could tell; and, with one great hope in a guiding and all-seeing Providence, I covered myself up in my rug, and slept until dawn came, and the fresh breezes from the Channel waves brought new strength and men's hearts to us again.
It was full day when we went on board the yacht, and I did not fail to cast a quick glance of admiration on her beautiful lines and perfect shape as I clambered up the ladder, at the top of which stood Captain York.
"Welcome aboard," he said, giving us hearty hand-shakes; and without further inspection at that hour we followed him to the cabin, where steaming coffee brought the blood to our hands and feet, and put us in better mood.
"So my sister's here," said Roderick, as he filled his cup for the third time.
"Yes, last night, no orders," jerked the skipper with his usual brevity.
"Ah, we must see to that—and the second officer——"
"Still ashore; he left a bit of writing; he'll be aboard midday!"
He had the writing in his hand, and was about to crumple it, but I caught sight of it, and snatched it from him. It was in the same handwriting as the letter which Captain Black had sent to me at the Hôtel Scribe in Paris.
"What's the matter?" said Roderick, as he heard me exclaim; but the skipper looked hard at me, and was much mystified.
"Do you know anything of the man?" he asked very slowly, as he leant back in his chair, but I had already seen the folly of my ejaculation, and I replied—
"Nothing at all, although I have seen that handwriting before somewhere; I could tell you where, perhaps, if I thought."
Roderick nodded his head meaningly, and deftly turned the subject. I yawned with a great yawn, and the episode passed as we both rose to go to our cabins. It is not well to greet the waking day with eyes that are half-closed in sleep; and, although the skipper seemed to desire some fuller knowledge as to the ends of our cruise and the course of it, we put him off, and left him to the coffee and the busy work of the final preparation. But Roderick followed me to my berth and had the matter of the handwriting out. I told him at once of the robbery of some of the papers, and the coincidence of the letter which the second mate had left with the skipper. He was quick-witted enough to see the danger; but he was quite reckless in the methods he proposed to meet it.
"There's no two thoughts about this matter at all," he said; "we've evidently run right into a trap, but luckily there's time to get out again—of course, we shall sail without a second mate?"
"That's one way out of the hole, no doubt, but it's very serious to find that our very first move in the matter is known to others. Hall said well that his diamond-buyer could command and be obeyed in ten cities: and there isn't much question that we've got one of his men aboard this ship—but I don't know that we shouldn't keep him."
"Keep him! What for?—to watch everything we do, and hear everything we say, and arrange for the cutting of our throats when we land at New York? You've a fine notion of diplomacy, Mark!"
"Perhaps so; but we won't quarrel about that. There's one thing you forget in this little calculation of yours—our men are as true as steel; this rogue couldn't turn one of them if he staked his life on it. Suppose he has come here to use his eyes, and hang about keyholes; well, we know him, fortunately; and what can he learn unless he learns it from you or me? There's not another soul aboard knows anything. You will tell the skipper that we cross to America for a pleasure trip; you will help me to keep so close an eye on Master Francis Paolo, second mate, that if he lose a hair of his head we shall know it. In that way it may turn out that we shall get from him the link which is lost in the chain; and when he would draw us, we shall pump him as dry as a sand-pit. At least, that's my way of thinking, and I don't think it's such a poor notion, after all."
"It's not poor at all—it never came to me like that. Of course, you're right; let's take the man aboard, but I wish we could have left Mary behind—don't you?"
That I did, but what could I tell him? It was bad enough to be hugging all those fears and thoughts of danger to my own heart, without setting him all a-ferment with apprehension and unrest; so I laughed off his question, and after a six hours' sleep I went aft to the quarter-deck, to take stock of the yacht and get some better acquaintance with her.
She was a finely-built ship of some seven hundred tons, and was schooner-rigged, so that she could either sail or steam. Her engines were unusually large for so small a vessel, being triple-compound; while the main saloon, aft, and the small library attached to it, showed in the luxurious fitting that her late owner had been a man of fine taste. In the very centre of her there was a deck-house for the chart-room, the skipper's and engineers' quarters, and a couple of spare cabins; but generally the accommodation was below, there being three small cabins with two berths apiece each side the saloon, and room for the steward and his men amidships. The fo'castle was large, and airy, giving ample berthing for the stokers and seamen; while the whole ornament of the deck was bright-looking with brass, and smart rails, and pots of flowers, these last showing clearly that Mary had been at work. Indeed, I had scarce made my inspection of our new ship when she burst up from below, and began her explanation, standing with flushed cheeks, while the wind played in her hair, and her eyes danced with the merriment of it.
"Come aboard," she said, mocking the seaman's "Adsum," and I said—
"That's evident; the question is, when are you going ashore again?"
"I don't know, but I guess I'll get ashore at New York, because I mean to go to Niagara——"
"You think you'll go ashore at New York, not 'you guess,' Mary."
"But I do guess, and I don't think, and I wish you wouldn't interrupt me with your perpetual grammar. What's the good of grammar? No one had a good time with grammar yet."
"That's not exactly the purpose of grammar——"
"No, nor of orthography, nor deportment; I learnt all these at a guinea a quarter extra when I was at school, so you're just wasting your time, because I'm finished."
"Finished?"
"Yes, didn't Roderick tell you that I went to a finishing school? You wouldn't finish me all over again, would you?"
"Not for anything—but the question is, why did you come aboard here, and why didn't you go to Salisbury? What is your old aunt thinking now?"
She laughed saucily, throwing back her head so that her hair fell well about her shoulders; and then she would have answered me, but I turned round, hearing a step, and there stood our new second mate, Francis Paolo. Our eyes met at once with a long, searching gaze, but he did not flinch. If he were a spy, he was no poor actor, and he stood his ground without the movement of a muscle.
"Well?" I said.
"Is Mr. Stewart awake yet, sir?" he said, asking for Roderick.
"I don't know, but you may wake him if he isn't."
"The skipper wants a word with him when he gets up," he continued; "we are all ready to heave anchor when he speaks."
"That's all right: I'll give you the word, so you can weigh now; perhaps, Mary, you'll go and hammer at Roderick's door, or he'll sleep until breakfast time to-morrow."
She ran at the word, and the new second mate turned to go, but first he followed the girl with his eyes, earnestly, as though he looked upon some all-fascinating picture.
I watched him walk forward, and followed him, listening as he directed the men; and a more seaman-like fellow I have never seen. If he were an Italian, he had left all accent of speech in his own country, and he gave his orders smartly and in a tone which demanded obedience. About his seamanship I never had a doubt from the first; and I say this now, a more capable officer than Francis Paolo never took a watch.
Yet he was a man of violent temper, soon displayed before me.
As I watched him from the hurricane deck, I heard a collier who had not yet left the ship give him some impudence, and look jauntily to the men for approval; but the smile was not off his cheeks when the new mate hit him such a terrific blow on the head with a spy-glass he held that the fellow reeled through the open bulwarks right into his barge, which lay along-side.
"That's to set your face straight," cried the mate after him; "next time you laugh aboard here I'll balance you on the other side."
The men were hushed before a display of temper like this; the skipper on the bridge flushed red with disapproval, but said nothing.
The order "Hands, heave anchor!" was sung out a moment after as Roderick joined me aft, the newCelsissteamed away from Plymouth, and the episode was forgotten.
For truly, as we lost sight of the town and the beautiful yacht moved slowly upon the broader bosom of the Channel, thoughts of great moment held us; and I, for my part, fell to wondering if I should ever see the face of my country again.
And in that hour the great pursuit began.
CHAPTER VIII.
I DREAM OF PAOLO.
We had left the Scilly Light two days; theCelsissteamed steadily on the great broad of the Atlantic. Night had fallen, and Mary had gone below, leaving me with Roderick upon the aft-deck, watching the veriest rim of a moon which gave no pretence of a picture, no ornament to the deck.
It was Paolo's watch; and the skipper had turned in, so that, save for the occasional ringing of a bell, or a call from the look-out, no sound but the whirring of the screw and the surge of the swell fell upon our ear. A night for dreamy thoughts of home, of kinsfolk, of the more tender things of life; but for us a night for the talk of that great "might be" which was then so powerful a source of speculation for both of us. And we were eager to talk, eager then as ever since the beginning of it all; eager, above all things for the moment, to know when we should next hear of Captain Black or of the nameless ship.
"I shouldn't wonder," said Roderick, after twenty surmises of the sort, "if we heard something of her as we cross. I have given York orders to keep well in the track of steamers; and if your friend Hall be right, that is just where the unknown ship will keep. I would give a thousand pounds to know the story of the man Black. What can he be? Is he mad? Is it possible that a man could commit piracy, to-day, in the Atlantic, where is the traffic of the world; where, if the Powers once learnt of it, they could hunt him down in a day? And yet, put into plain English, that is the tale your friend tells."
"It is; I have never doubted that from the first. Captain Black is either the most original villain living, or the whole story is a silly dream—besides, we have yet to learn if he is the commander of the nameless ship: we have also to learn if the nameless ship is not a myth. Time alone will tell, and our wits."
"If they are not knocked out of us in the attempt, for, see you, Mark, a man with a hole in his head is a precious poor person, and, of course, you are prepared either way, success or the other thing."
"For either; but I trust one of us may come out of it, for Mary's sake."
The thought made him very silent, and presently he turned in. I remained above for half an hour, gazing over the great sweep of the Atlantic. Paolo was on the bridge, as I have said, and, in accordance with my design, I took all opportunity of watching him. That night some inexplicable impulse held me awake when all others slept. I made pretence, first of all, to go to my cabin; and bawled a good-night to the mate as I went; but it was only to put on felt slippers and to get a warm coat, and, with these secured, I made my way stealthily amidships; and took a stand aft of the skipper's cabin, where I could pry, yet not be seen. Not that I got much for my pains; but I heard Paolo address several of the men forward, and it seemed to me that his mode of speech was not quite that which should be between officer and seaman. Perchance he was guilty of nothing more than common affability; but yet I would rather have had him gruff and meddlesome than free and intimate.
It chanced that in this watch the new men were on deck, my old crew being in the port watch, or I would have questioned them there and then. As it was, I let the matter go, and smoked; and, indeed, when another bell had struck, I was more than rewarded for my pains. Suddenly, on the far horizon over the starboard bow, I saw the flare of a blue light, bright over the water; and showing as it flared, the dark hull of a great ship. The light was unmistakably, I thought, the signal of an ocean-going steamer which had sighted another of her company still far away from us; but I had no more than time to come to this conclusion when, to my profound amazement, Paolo himself struck light to a flare which he had with him on the bridge, and answered the signal, our own light showing far out, and lighting the great moving sea on which we rode so that one could count every crest about it.
The action completely staggered me. Without a thought I rushed up the ladder to the hurricane deck and stood beside him. He started as he saw me, and I could see him biting his lips, while an ugly look came into his eyes. But I charged him at once.
"Good-evening, Mister Mate," I said; "will you kindly tell me why you burnt that blue light?"
His excuse came readily.
"I burnt it to answer the signal yonder."
"But that was no affair of ours!"
He shrugged his shoulders, and muttered something about custom and something else, which he meant to be impudent. Yet in another moment he made effort to recall himself, and met me with an open, smiling face which covered anger. I began to upbraid myself for the folly of it, bursting out thus when there was no call for show; and I turned the talk to other things, searching to learn about him and his past; yet it was without reward, for he fenced in speech with all the point of a close Scotsman. But we came down the bridge together when the new watch was set; and he took a glass of wine with me in the saloon.
It was all well acted, a fine pretence of common civility, yet I believe that we two then took acquaintance of each other in the fullest measure; and he learnt, though he did not show it, that in the game of eavesdropping there may be two that play.
When I turned in at last, the little wind there was had fallen away, so that the yacht was almost without motion; save, indeed, that long roll from which an ocean-going ship is rarely free. I had the electric light in my cabin with a tap on the end of my bunk, mighty convenient for reading and waking; but I was full of sleep in spite of what had been above, and I turned out the lamp directly I fell upon my bed.
I think I must have slept very heavily for an hour, when a great sense of unrest and waking weariness took me, and I lay, now dozing, now dreaming, so that in all my dreams I saw the face of Paolo. I seemed to walk the deck of theCelsis, yet was Paolo there more strong and masterful than I; again I went to the stoke-hole, and he was charging the men with much authority; I hurried thence to the saloon, and in my silly dream I thought to see Captain Black upon the one hand and Paolo on the other, and a great friendship of manner and discourse between them.
Again I slept the black sleep; but it passed into other visions, so that in one of them I seemed to be lying awake in my own cabin, and the man Paolo stood over me, looking straight into my eyes; and when I would have risen up to question him I was powerless, held still in every limb, living, yet without life or speech—a horrid dream from which I seemed to rouse myself only at the touch of something cold upon my outstretched hand; and then at last I opened my eyes and saw, during the veriest reality of time, that others looked down into mine. I saw them for some small part of a second, yet in the faint light that came from the port I recognised the face and the form, and was certain of them; for the man who had been watching me as I slept was Paolo.
A quick sense of danger waked me thoroughly then. I put my hand to the tap of the electric light and the white rays flooded the cabin. But the cabin was empty and Roderick's dog sat by my trunk, and had, I could see, been licking my hand as I lay.
I knew not how to make out the meaning of it; but I was trembling from the horror of the dream, and went above in my flannels. It was dawn then; and day was coming up out of the sea, cold and bearing mists, which lay low over the long restful waves. Dan was aft on the quarter-deck, and the first officer was on the bridge, but I looked into Paolo's bunk, and he slept there, in so heavy a sleep that I began to doubt altogether the truth of what I had believed. How could this man have left my cabin as he had done, and yet now be berthed in his own? The dream had cheated me, as dreams often do.
But more sleep was not to be thought of. I fell to talk with Dan, and paced the deck with him, asking what was his opinion of our new second mate.
He scratched his head before he answered, and looked wise, as he loved to look—
"Lord, sir, it's not for me to be spoutin' about them as is above me; but you ask me a fair question, and I'll give you a fair answer. In course, I ain't the party to be thinking ill of any man—not Dan, which is plain and English, though some as is scholars say it should be Dan'el; but what I do know, I know—you won't be contradictin' that, will you?"
I told him to get on with it; but he was woefully deliberate, cutting tobacco to chew, and hitching himself up before he was under weigh again.
"Now," he said at last, "the fact about our second is this, in my opinion—which ain't mine, but the whole of 'em—he's no more'n a ship with a voice under the fore-hatch——"
I laughed at him as I asked, "And what's the matter with a ship like that? Why shouldn't there be a voice under the fore-hatch, Dan?"
He lit his pipe behind the aft skylight, and then answered, as he puffed clouds of smoke to the lee-side—
"Well, you see, sir, as there ain't nobody a-livin' in that perticler place, you don't go for to look to hearin' of voices, or, in plain lingo, there's something queer about it."
"And that's your opinion, Dan?"
"As true as this fog's a-liftin' to windward."
I looked as he jerked his thumb to port, and, sure enough, the curtain of the fog was drawn up from the sea as the wind's wand scattered it. Glorious and joy-giving the sun arose, and the whole horizon-bound expanse of rolling, green water lay beneath us. There is something of God in every daybreak, as most men admit, but I know nothing against the glory of a morn upon the Atlantic for bringing home to a man the delight in mere existence. The very sense of strength which the breeze bears, the limitless deep green of the unmeasured seas, the great arch of the zenith, the clear view of the sun's march, the purity and the stillness and the mastery of it all, the consciousness of the puny power of man, the mind message recalling the sublimity and the awe of the unseen Power beyond—all these things impress you, move in you the deepest thoughts, turn you from the little estimates of self as Nature only can in the holiest of her moods, which are sought yet never found in the cities. Nor can I ever welcome the breath of the great sea's vigour and refuse to listen to her voice, which comes with so powerful a message, even as a message from the great Unknown, whose hand controls, and whose spirit is on, the waters.
The sound of a gun-shot to leeward awoke me from my thoughts. The fog was yet lying there upon the sea, and for some while none of us, expectant as we were, could discern aught. But, fearing that some vessel lay in distress, we put the helm up and went half-speed for a time. We had cruised thus for five minutes or more when a terrific report burst upon our ears, and this time to the alarm of every man who trod deck. For this second report was not that of a small gun such as crippled ships may use, but the thunderous echoing of a great weapon which a man-of-war only could carry.
The sound died away slowly; but in the same minute the fog lifted; and I saw, away a mile on the starboard bow, a spectacle which brought a great flush upon my face, and let me hear the sound of my own heart beating.