ASHLEY LAGS SUPERFLUOUS.
“If she is the property of the revolutionists, gentlemen, with her
phenomenal speed she can run the strictest blockade the Spaniards can
institute, can land arms, ammunition and re-enforcements at will, and
practically snap her fingers at the whole Spanish navy.”
The speaker is Capt. Meade and the place the officers’ mess table on
board the America. Naturally the one topic of conversation is the
strange yacht and her remarkable performance.
“Yes,” continues the captain, impressively, “I believe that the result
of the insurrection may hang on the fate of that steamer. My sympathies
as an individual, I do not hesitate to say, are with the rebels. But my
duty as an officer impels me to notify the War Department of the
departure of the Semiramis and the flaunting of the Cuban flag. However,
I hardly think the warning will harm her, even if it should set the
entire Spanish navy in pursuit.”
“Do you think the yacht is bound for Cuba now?” inquires Ashley, with an
unpleasant sensation in the vicinity of the fifth rib.
“Certainly. She is apparently coaled and equipped for a long voyage. She
set low enough in the water to carry quite a cargo, too. Oh, yes; she is
off for the West Indies sure enough.”
Ashley relapses into a reverie and the burden of his thoughts is
something like this: “Louise Hathaway, Cyrus Felton and this mysterious
Van Zandt on the same steamer and bound for Cuba! How and why?” He
mechanically pulls at his cigar. Finally, as the signal for breaking up
of the dinner party is given by the commander, he murmurs: “What will
John Barker say?”
The America has completed her run; and now, her officers and the naval
experts aboard having expressed their satisfaction with her performance,
the cruiser is steaming back to her dock. The shrill salutes of the many
steam craft in the harbor greet the ears of Ashley as he accompanies the
officers to the deck. The sun is shining in a haze of cold gray. The
March air, a few hours ago so clear and warm, is dull and
marrow-piercing. Ashley shivers and buttons his coat more closely about
him.
A few moments more, and the cruiser is slowing down preparatory to
making her pier, and Jack seeks Capt. Meade to express his thanks. The
latter shakes his hand cordially and remarks: “Better come on our next
cruise, my boy; we may have another try at the black yacht. The navy
expert says it was rumored in official circles that if this trial was
satisfactory the America is to be ordered immediately to Cuba to protect
American interests. Good news, if true, eh?”
Ashley allows that if the captain says it is good news, good news it
certainly must be; and a half-defined hope is forming in his mind as he
steps once more on terra firma.
“After I turn in my story on the trial trip I shall proceed to hunt up
some possible light on the latest twist in the Hathaway tangle,” he
meditates, as he sets his face toward the lights of Gotham town. “Felton
and Miss Hathaway were booked to sail on the City of Callao on Saturday;
yet I discover them to-day headed southward on the Semiramis. Miss
Hathaway must have left some explanation, and it is barely possible that
Barker may know something about the sudden departure. I should not be a
particle surprised if John, too, were aboard the Semiramis. Nothing will
ever surprise me again. But if Barker got left I shall probably find him
sitting on the steps of the Hemisphere office, in a state of mind
bordering on the profane.”
But fate decrees that many days shall elapse ere the detective and his
newspaper friend again clasp each other by the hand; days big with
exciting events that the serene Ashley dreams not of as he saunters down
Newspaper Row.
From his box in the office Ashley extracts a letter, evidently hastily
written and sealed. The address is in Barker’s handwriting, and Ashley
tears it open. He reads:
“My Dear Ashley: I start for Cuba at 12 o’clock via Key West.
Write this just before the train starts. Felton has eluded
me—thanks to your infernal French ball—and sailed for Cuba on
City of Havana at 11 o’clock. Don’t know whether he got wind of
contemplated arrest or not. If I have good luck at Key West will
be in H. as soon as he. May trail him to the son and bag both at
once. In any event, do not intend to lose sight of him again
till he is safely landed in Vermont. I may run across your Mrs.
Harding, and if I do will try my luck at making her tell what
she knows of young Felton, on threat of exposing her as a
Spanish spy. Good scheme, eh? Must close, train starting; will
write from Cuba. Hastily,
“Barker.”
“So Cuba is to be the scene of the next act of the Raymond tragedy,”
Jack thinks. “How suddenly all the characters have betaken themselves to
the southern isle, and how events have crowded on each other the last
day or two! First, news that young Felton is in Cuba; then appear Cyrus
Felton and Louise Hathaway in the city; then the mysterious woman of the
Raymond hotel, and the stranger of the mountain gorge—and all of these
are at this moment en route to Cuba. Only Derrick Ames and Helen
Hathaway remain to be accounted for, and if Barker’s theory is correct,
and they, too, are in Cuba, what a situation and what a complication! I
must be there at the finish. The paper really needs a war correspondent
in the ever-faithful isle, and I’ve half a mind to ask for the
assignment.”
From his desk Ashley takes a bulky package of manuscript, glances
through it, and with a sigh replaces it within an inner compartment.
“The Raymond mystery story, the newspaper beat of the year,” is not to
be used yet.
But the account of the trial trip of the America must be written, and
soon the sheaves of yellow paper are being rapidly covered by Jack’s
flying pen.
At last it is finished, and with a grunt of satisfaction Jack arranges
the scattered sheets and proceeds to the desk of the city editor.
“Ah, Ashley,” remarks that dignitary, glancing at the manuscript and
without raising his eyes; “trial trip was a success, wasn’t it? Yes;
well, I have a little something here that I wish you would look up. You
have done so much Cuban stuff lately that you are more familiar with the
ground than any other man on the staff. The Washington wire states that
a vessel, the Isabel, that was to have sailed from here to-day, has been
detained at her moorings, foot of Twenty-third Street. She is suspected
of having arms and ammunition for the Cuban rebels on board. The
information was filed by the Spanish minister. Just look up the local
end of the story, find out who fitted out the steamer, where she was
ostensibly to clear for, etc. You had better see your filibuster friend,
Manada. He might give you something on it.”
“Blast Cuba!” mutters Jack, as he leaves the office. “Everything is Cuba
now. Talk about Tantalus! His case wasn’t a marker to mine. Here are all
the characters in a drama in which I am interested gone to Cuba, while I
lag superfluous on the stage, doomed to write up stuff about the
confounded island and its affairs at long range. Besides, I haven’t
fairly got back my land legs, and now I must jaunt up the North River
two or three miles. Well, there is no use kicking, I suppose. Guess I
will look up Don Manada first, though.”
Ashley’s annoyance dissipates rapidly, however, and he has recovered his
customary serenity when he tenders his card to the clerk at the Fifth
Avenue Hotel, to be taken to Don Manada’s rooms.
“Don Manada has left, sir” the clerk tells him. “He had his effects
removed early this morning and stated that he might not return for some
months.”
“Where has he gone, do you know?”
“To Cuba, I think.”
Jack turns away. “To Cuba, of course. Everybody with whom I have
business to-day has gone to Cuba. If that filibustering vessel, the
Isabel, has not eluded the officers and sailed for Cuba by the time I
reach her wharf, I shall be mightily surprised. No; I have decided to be
surprised at nothing hereafter. The Isabel! There’s another
coincidence—the first name of Mrs. Harding or Mrs. Winthrop or whatever
it is—the woman of the Raymond Hotel. Well, here goes for the Isabel.”
It is cold, foggy, dark and altogether disagreeable as Jack alights from
the car at the foot of Twenty-third Street and picks his way down the
long wharf to where he is informed the detained steamer is docked. She
is still there; he sees her smokestacks and masts outlined against the
sky. A single lantern is alight on the vessel, but the gang-plank has
been hauled in.
“Steamer ahoy!” Ashley calls, and after several repetitions of the hail
a gruff voice sounds from the gloom in the vicinity of the lantern.
“Ashore, there! What do you want?”
“Is this the Isabel?”
“Yes,” is the brief reply.
“Well, I want to talk with you a moment. Can’t you run out a plank and
hold that lantern nearer, so I can see to come aboard? I am from the
Hemisphere.”
There is a moment’s hesitation and then the lantern approaches the
steamer’s side and a plank is extended to the pier.
“Now, all I want to find out is about the alleged seizure of the
vessel,” begins Jack, thrusting a cigar into the fist that releases the
lantern.
“There ain’t much to say,” is the reply. “I am a United States deputy
marshal and was placed in charge of the vessel this noon. Whether her
cargo contains arms and ammunition I can’t say for sure, as she is not
to be searched till to-morrow, but from the remarks dropped by some of
the crew I’ll bet a hat the cargo has been taken off. One of the crew
was considerably under the weather when I came aboard and I gathered
from his talk that some of the Isabel’s cargo was shifted to another
steamer, a long, black craft, some time after midnight or early this
morning.”
“What was the name of the other steamer?” inquires Ashley, a sudden
suspicion entering his mind.
“Blessed if I know,” replies the deputy marshal.
“The Semiramis, I’ll wager $4 to a nickel,” mutters Ashley, as he thanks
the marshal and goes ashore.
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