Certainly he was not drawing upon his imagination there.”
“And one might be lost in a very much worse place,” put in Marguerite de
Valois, “if, indeed, it were possible to lose us in Paris at all. I
fancy that I know enough about Paris to find my way about.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Cassandra. “What a foolish little thing you are!
You don’t imagine that the Paris of to-day is the Paris of your time, or
even the Paris of that sweet child Trilby’s time, do you? If you do you
are very much mistaken. I almost wish I had not warned you of your
danger and had let you go, just to see those eyes of yours open with
amazement at the change. You’d find your Louvre a very different sort of
a place from what it used to be, my dear lady. Those pleasing little
windows through which your relations were wont in olden times to indulge
in target practice at people who didn’t go to their church are now kept
closed; the galleries which used to swarm with people, many of whom ought
to have been hanged, now swarm with pictures, many of which ought not to
have been hung; the romance which clung about its walls is as much a part
of the dead past as yourselves, and were you to materialize suddenly
therein you would find yourselves jostled and hustled and trodden upon by
the curious from other lands, with Argus eyes taking in five hundred
pictures a minute, and traversing those halls at a rate of speed at which
Mercury himself would stand aghast.”
“But my beloved Tuileries?” cried Marie Antoinette.
“Has been swallowed up by a play-ground for the people, my dear,” said
Cassandra, gently. “Paris is no place for us, and it is the intention of
these men, in whose hands we are, to take us there and then desert us.
Can you imagine anything worse than ourselves, the phantoms of a glorious
romantic past, basely deserted in the streets of a wholly strange,
superficial, material city of to-day? What do you think, Elizabeth,
would be your fate if, faint and famished, you begged for sustenance at
an English door to-day, and when asked your name and profession were to
reply, ‘Elizabeth, Queen of England’?”
“Insane asylum,” said Elizabeth, shortly.
“Precisely. So in Paris with the rest of us,” said Cassandra.
“How do you know all this?” asked Trilby, still unconvinced.
“I know it just as you knew how to become a prima donna,” said Cassandra.
“I am, however, my own Svengali, which is rather preferable to the patent
detachable hypnotizer you had. I hypnotize myself, and direct my mind
into the future. I was a professional forecaster in the days of ancient
Troy, and if my revelations had been heeded the Priam family would, I
doubt not, still be doing business at the old stand, and Mr. Æneas would
not have grown round-shouldered giving his poor father a picky-back ride
on the opening night of the horse-show, so graphically depicted by
Virgil.”
“I never heard about that,” said Trilby. “It sounds like a very funny
story, though.”
“Well, it wasn’t so humorous for some as it was for others,” said
Cassandra, with a sly glance at Helen. “The fact is, until you mentioned
it yourself, it never occurred to me that there was much fun in any
portion of the Trojan incident, excepting perhaps the delirium tremens of
old Laocoon, who got no more than he deserved for stealing my thunder. I
had warned Troy against the Greeks, and they all laughed at me, and said
my eye to the future was strabismatic; that the Greeks couldn’t get into
Troy at all, even if they wanted to. And then the Greeks made a great
wooden horse as a gift for the Trojans, and when I turned my X-ray gaze
upon it I saw that it contained about six brigades of infantry, three
artillery regiments, and sharp-shooters by the score. It was a sort of
military Noah’s Ark; but I knew that the prejudice against me was so
strong that nobody would believe what I told them. So I said nothing.
My prophecies never came true, they said, failing to observe that my
warning as to what would be was in itself the cause of their
non-fulfilment. But desiring to save Troy, I sent for Laocoon and told
him all about it, and he went out and announced it as his own private
prophecy; and then, having tried to drown his conscience in strong
waters, he fell a victim to the usual serpentine hallucination, and
everybody said he wasn’t sober, and therefore unworthy of belief. The
horse was accepted, hauled into the city, and that night orders came from
hindquarters to the regiments concealed inside to march. They marched,
and next morning Troy had been removed from the map; ninety per cent of
the Trojans died suddenly, and Æneas, grabbing up his family in one hand
and his gods in the other, went yachting for several seasons, ultimately
settling down in Italy. All of this could have been avoided if the
Trojans would have taken the hint from my prophecies. They preferred,
however, not to do it, with the result that to-day no one but Helen and
myself knows even where Troy was, and we’ll never tell.”
“It is all true,” said Helen, proudly. “I was the woman who was at the
bottom of it all, and I can testify that Cassandra always told the truth,
which is why she was always so unpopular. When anything that was
unpleasant happened, after it was all over she would turn and say,
sweetly, ‘I told you so.’ She was the original ‘I told you so’ nuisance,
and of course she had the newspapyruses down on her, because she never
left them any sensation to spring upon the public. If she had only told
a fib once in a while, the public would have had more confidence in her.”
“Thank you for your endorsement,” said Cassandra, with a nod at Helen.
“With such testimony I cannot see how you can refrain from taking my
advice in this matter; and I tell you, ladies, that this man Kidd has
made his story up out of whole cloth; the men of Hades had no more to do
with our being here than we had; they were as much surprised as we are to
find us gone. Kidd himself was not aware of our presence, and his object
in taking us to Paris is to leave us stranded there, disembodied spirits,
vagrant souls with no familiar haunts to haunt, no place to rest, and
nothing before us save perpetual exile in a world that would have no
sympathy for us in our misfortune, and no belief in our continued
existence.”
“But what, then, shall we do?” cried Ophelia, wringing her hands in
despair.
“It is a terrible problem,” said Cleopatra, anxiously; “and yet it does
seem as if our woman’s instinct ought to show us some way out of our
trouble.”
“The Committee on Treachery,” said Delilah, “has already suggested a
chafing-dish party, with Lucretia Borgia in charge of the lobster
Newberg.”
“That is true,” said Lucretia; “but I find, in going through my reticule,
that my maid, for some reason unknown to me, has failed to renew my
supply of poisons. I shall discharge her on my return home, for she
knows that I never go anywhere without them; but that does not help
matters at this juncture. The sad fact remains that I could prepare a
thousand delicacies for these pirates without fatal results.”
“You mean immediately fatal, do you not?” suggested Xanthippe. “I could
myself prepare a cake which would in time reduce our captors to a state
of absolute dependence, but of course the effect is not immediate.”
“We might give a musicale, and let Trilby sing ‘Ben Bolt’ to them,”
suggested Marguerite de Valois, with a giggle.
“Don’t be flippant, please,” said Portia. “We haven’t time to waste on
flippant suggestions. Perhaps a court-martial of these pirates,
supplemented by a yard-arm, wouldn’t be a bad thing. I’ll prosecute the
case.”
“You forget that you are dealing with immortal spirits,” observed
Cleopatra. “If these creatures were mortals, hanging them would be all
right, and comparatively easy, considering that we outnumber them ten to
one, and have many resources for getting them, more or less, in our
power, but they are not. They have gone through the refining process of
dissolution once, and there’s an end to that. Our only resource is in
the line of deception, and if we cannot deceive them, then we have ceased
to be women.”
“That is truly said,” observed Elizabeth. “And inasmuch as we have
already provided ourselves with a suitable committee for the preparation
of our plans of a deceptive nature, I move, as the easiest possible
solution of the difficulty for the rest of us, that the Committee on
Treachery be requested to go at once into executive session, with orders
not to come out of it until they have suggested a plausible plan of
campaign against our abductors. We must be rid of them. Let the
Committee on Treachery say how.”
“Second the motion,” said Mrs. Noah. “You are a very clear-headed young
woman, Lizzie, and your grandmother is proud of you.”
[Picture: “You are a very clear-headed young woman, Lizzie,” said Mrs.
Noah]
The Committee on Treachery were about to protest, but the chair refused
to entertain any debate upon the question, which was put and carried with
a storm of approval.
Five minutes later a note was handed through the port, addressed to
Cleopatra, which read as follows:
“DEAR MADAME,—Six bells has just struck, and the officers and crew
are hungry. Will you and your fair companions co-operate with us in
our enterprise by having a hearty dinner ready within two hours? A
speck has appeared on the horizon which betokens a coming storm, else
we would prepare our supper ourselves. As it is, we feel that your
safety depends on our remaining on deck. If there is any beer on the
ice, we prefer it to tea. Two cases will suffice.
“Yours respectfully,
“HENRY MORGAN, Bart.; First Mate.”
“Hurrah!” cried Cleopatra, as she read this communication. “I have an
idea. Tell the Committee on Treachery to appear before the full meeting
at once.”
The committee was summoned, and Cleopatra announced her plan of
operation, and it was unanimously adopted; but what it was we shall have
to wait for another chapter to learn.
XI
MAROONED
WHEN Captain Holmes arrived upon deck he seized his glass, and, gazing
intently through it for a moment, perceived that the faithful Shem had
not deceived him. Flying at half-mast from a rude, roughly hewn pole set
upon a rocky height was the black flag, emblem of piracy, and, as Artemus
Ward put it, “with the second joints reversed.” It was in very truth a
signal of distress.
“I make it a point never to be surprised,” observed Holmes, as he peered
through the glass, “but this beats me. I didn’t know there was an island
of this nature in these latitudes. Blackstone, go below and pipe Captain
Cook on deck. Perhaps he knows what island that is.”
“You’ll have to excuse me, Captain Holmes,” replied the Judge. “I didn’t
ship on this voyage as a cabin-boy or a messenger-boy. Therefore I—”
“Bonaparte, put the Judge in irons,” interrupted Holmes, sternly. “I
expect to be obeyed, Judge Blackstone, whether you shipped as a Lord
Chief-Justice or a state-room steward. When I issue an order it must be
obeyed. Step lively there, Bonaparte. Get his honor ironed and summon
your marines. We may have work to do before night. Hamlet, pipe Captain
Cook on deck.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Hamlet, with alacrity, as he made off.
“That’s the way to obey orders,” said Holmes, with a scornful glance at
Blackstone.
“I was only jesting, Captain,” said the latter, paling somewhat.
“That’s all right,” said Holmes, taking up his glass again. “So was I
when I ordered you in irons, and in order that you may appreciate the
full force of the joke I repeat it. Bonaparte, do your duty.”
In an instant the order was obeyed, and the unhappy Judge shortly found
himself manacled and alone in the forecastle. Meanwhile Captain Cook, in
response to the commander’s order, repaired to the deck and scanned the
distant coast.
“I can’t place it,” he said. “It can’t be Monte Cristo, can it?”
“No, it can’t,” said the Count, who stood hard by. “My island was in the
Mediterranean, and even if it dragged anchor it couldn’t have got out
through the Strait of Gibraltar.”
“Perhaps it’s Robinson Crusoe’s island,” suggested Doctor Johnson.
“Not it,” observed De Foe. “If it is, the rest of you will please keep
off. It’s mine, and I may want to use it again. I’ve been having a
number of interviews with Crusoe latterly, and he’s given me a lot of new
points, which I intend incorporating in a sequel for the Cimmerian
Magazine.”
“Well, in the name of Atlas, what island is it, then?” roared Holmes,
angrily. “What is the matter with all you learned lubbers that I have
brought along on this trip? Do you suppose I’ve brought you to whistle
up favorable winds? Not by the beard of the Prophet! I brought you to
give me information, and now when I ask for the name of a simple little
island like that in plain sight there’s not one of you able so much as to
guess at it reasonably. The next man I ask for information goes into
irons with Judge Blackstone if he doesn’t answer me instantly with the
information I want. Munchausen, what island is that?”
“Ahem! that?” replied Munchausen, trembling, as he reflected upon the
Captain’s threat. “What? Nobody knows what island that is? Why, you
surprise me—
“See here, Baron,” retorted Holmes, menacingly, “I ask you a plain
question, and I want a plain answer, with no evasions to gain time. Now
it’s irons or an answer. What island is that?”
“It’s an island that doesn’t appear on any chart, Captain,” Munchausen
responded instantly, pulling himself together for a mighty effort, “and
it has never been given a name; but as you insist upon having one, we’ll
call it Holmes Island, in your honor. It is not stationary. It is a
floating island of lava formation, and is a menace to every craft that
goes to sea. I spent a year of my life upon it once, and it is more
barren than the desert of Sahara, because you cannot raise even sand upon
it, and it is devoid of water of any sort, salt or fresh.”
“What did you live on during that year?” asked Holmes, eying him
narrowly.
“Canned food from wrecks,” replied the Baron, feeling much easier now
that he had got a fair start—“canned food from wrecks, commander. There
is a magnetic property in the upper stratum of this piece of derelict
real estate, sir, which attracts to it every bit of canned substance that
is lost overboard in all parts of the world. A ship is wrecked, say, in
the Pacific Ocean, and ultimately all the loose metal upon her will
succumb to the irresistible attraction of this magnetic upper stratum,
and will find its way to its shores. So in any other part of the earth.
Everything metallic turns up here sooner or later; and when you consider
that thousands of vessels go down every year, vessels which are
provisioned with tinned foods only, you will begin to comprehend how many
millions of pounds of preserved salmon, sardines, _pâté de foie gras_,
peaches, and so on, can be found strewn along its coast.”
“Munchausen,” said Holmes, smiling, “by the blush upon your cheek,
coupled with an occasional uneasy glance of the eye, I know that for once
you are standing upon the, to you, unfamiliar ground of truth, and I
admire you for it. There is nothing to be ashamed of in telling the
truth occasionally. You are a man after my own heart. Come below and
have a cocktail. Captain Cook, take command of the _Gehenna_ during my
absence; head her straight for Holmes Island, and when you discover
anything new let me know. Bonaparte, in honor of Munchausen’s remarkable
genius, I proclaim general amnesty to our prisoners, and you may release
Blackstone from his dilemma; and if you have any tin soldiers among your
marines, see that they are lashed to the rigging. I don’t want this
electric island of the Baron’s to get a grip upon my military force at
this juncture.”
With this Holmes, followed by Munchausen, went below, and the two
worthies were soon deep in the mysteries of a phantom cocktail, while
Doctor Johnson and De Foe gazed mournfully out over the ocean at the
floating island.
“De Foe,” said Johnson “that ought to be a lesson to you. This realism
that you tie up to is all right when you are alone with your conscience;
but when there are great things afoot, an imagination and a broad view as
to the limitations of truth aren’t at all bad. You or I might now be
drinking that cocktail with Holmes if we’d only risen to the opportunity
the way Munchausen did.”
[Picture: That ought to be a lesson to you]
“That is true,” said De Foe, sadly. “But I didn’t suppose he wanted that
kind of information. I could have spun a better yarn than that of
Munchausen’s with my eyes shut. I supposed he wanted truth, and I gave
it.”
“I’d like to know what has become of the House-boat,” said Raleigh,
anxiously gazing through the glass at the island. “I can see old Henry
Morgan sitting down there on the rocks with his elbows on his knees and
his chin in his hands, and Kidd and Abeuchapeta are standing back of him,
yelling like mad, but there isn’t a boat in sight.”
“Who is that man, off to the right, dancing a fandango?” asked Johnson.
“It looks like Conrad, but I can’t tell. He appears to have gone crazy.
He’s got that wild look on his face which betokens insanity. We’ll have
to be careful in our parleyings with these people,” said Raleigh.
“Anything new?” asked Holmes, returning to the deck, smacking his lips in
enjoyment of the cocktail.
“No—except that we are almost within hailing distance,” said Cook.
“Then give orders to cast anchor,” observed Holmes. “Bonaparte, take a
crew of picked men ashore and bring those pirates aboard. Take the three
musketeers with you, and don’t let Kidd or Morgan give you any back talk.
If they try any funny business, exorcise them.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Bonaparte, and in a moment a boat had been
lowered and a sturdy crew of sailors were pulling for the shore. As they
came within ten feet of it the pirates made a mad dash down the rough,
rocky hillside and clamored to be saved.
[Picture: The pirates made a mad dash down the rough, rocky hill-side]
“What’s happened to you?” cried Bonaparte, ordering the sailors to back
water lest the pirates should too hastily board the boat and swamp her.
“We are marooned,” replied Kidd, “and on an island of a volcanic nature.
There isn’t a square inch of it that isn’t heated up to 125 degrees, and
seventeen of us have already evaporated. Conrad has lost his reason;
Abeuchapeta has become so tenuous that a child can see through him. As
for myself, I am growing iridescent with anxiety, and unless I get off
this infernal furnace I’ll disappear like a soap-bubble. For Heaven’s
sake, then, General, take us off, on your own terms. We’ll accept
anything.”
As if in confirmation of Kidd’s words, six of the pirate crew collapsed
and disappeared into thin air, and a glance at Abeuchapeta was proof
enough of his condition. He had become as clear as crystal, and had it
not been for his rugged outlines he would hardly have been visible even
to his fellow-spirits. As for Kidd, he had taken on the aspect of a
rainbow, and it was patent that his fears for himself were all too well
founded.
Bonaparte embarked the leaders of the band first, returning subsequently
for the others, and repaired with them at once to the _Gehenna_, where
they were ushered into the presence of Sherlock Holmes. The first
question he asked was as to the whereabouts of the House-boat.
“That we do not know,” replied Kidd, mournfully, gazing downward at the
wreck of his former self. “We came ashore, sir, early yesterday morning,
in search of food. It appears that when—acting in a wholly inexcusable
fashion, and influenced, I confess it, by motives of revenge—I made off
with your club-house, I neglected to ascertain if it were well stocked
with provisions, a fatal error; for when we endeavored to get supper we
discovered that the larder contained but half a bottle of farcie olives,
two salted almonds, and a soda cracker—not a luxurious feast for
sixty-nine pirates and a hundred and eighty-three women to sit down to.”
“That’s all nonsense,” said Demosthenes. “The House Committee had
provided enough supper for six hundred people, in anticipation of the
appetite of the members on their return from the fight.”
“Of course they did,” said Confucius; “and it was a good one, too—salads,
salmon glacé, lobsters—every blessed thing a man can’t get at home we
had; and what is more, they’d been delivered on board. I saw to that
before I went up the river.”
“Then,” moaned Kidd, “it is as I suspected. We were the victims of base
treachery on the part of those women.”
“Treachery? Well, I like that. Call it reciprocity,” said Hamlet,
dryly.
“We were informed by the ladies that there was nothing for supper save
the items I have already referred to,” said Kidd. “I see it all now. We
had tried to make them comfortable, and I put myself to some considerable
personal inconvenience to make them easy in their minds, but they were
ungrateful.”
“Whatever induced you to take ’em along with you?” asked Socrates.
“We didn’t want them,” said Kidd.
“We didn’t know they were on board until it was too late to turn back.
They’d broken in, and were having the club all to themselves in your
absence.”
“It served you good and right,” said Socrates, with a laugh. “Next time
you try to take things that don’t belong to you, maybe you’ll be a trifle
more careful as to whose property you confiscate.”
“But the House-boat—you haven’t told us how you lost her,” put in
Raleigh, impatiently.
“Well, it was this way,” said Kidd. “When, in response to our polite
request for supper, the ladies said there was nothing to eat on board,
something had to be done, for we were all as hungry as bears, and we
decided to go ashore at the first port and provision. Unfortunately the
crew got restive, and when this floating frying-pan loomed into view, to
keep them good-natured we decided to land and see if we could beg,
borrow, or steal some supplies. We had to. Observations taken with the
sextant showed that there was no port within five hundred miles; the
island looked as if it might be inhabited at least by goats, and ashore
we went, every man of us, leaving the House-boat safely anchored in the
harbor. At first we didn’t mind the heat, and we hunted and hunted and
hunted; but after three or four hours I began to notice that three of my
sailors were shrivelling up, and Conrad began to act as if he were daft.
Hawkins burst right before my eyes. Then Abeuchapeta got prismatic
around the eyes and began to fade, and I noticed a slight iridescence
about myself; and as for Morgan, he had the misfortune to lie down to
take a nap in the sun, and when he waked up, his whole right side had
evaporated. Then we saw what the trouble was. We’d struck this lava
island, and were gradually succumbing to its intense heat. We rushed
madly back to the harbor to embark; and our ship, gentlemen, and your
House-boat, was slowly but surely disappearing over the horizon, and
flying from the flag-staff at the fore were signals of farewell, with an
unfeeling P.S. below to this effect: ‘_Don’t wait up for us_. _We may
not be back until late_.’”
There was a pause, during which Socrates laughed quietly to himself,
while Abeuchapeta and the one-sided Morgan wept silently.
“That, gentlemen of the Associated Shades, is all I know of the
whereabouts of the House-boat,” continued Captain Kidd. “I have no doubt
that the ladies practised a deception, to our discomfiture, and I must
say that I think it was exceedingly clever—granting that it was desirable
to be rid of us, which I don’t, for we meant well by them, and they would
have enjoyed themselves.”
“But,” cried Hamlet, “may they not now be in peril? They cannot navigate
that ship.”
“They got her out of the harbor all right,” said Kidd. “And I judged
from the figure at the helm that Mrs. Noah had taken charge. What kind
of a seaman she is I don’t know.”
“Almighty bad,” ejaculated Shem, turning pale. “It was she who ran us
ashore on Ararat.”
“Well, wasn’t that what you wanted?” queried Munchausen.
“What we wanted!” cried Shem. “Well, I guess not. You don’t want your
yacht stranded on a mountain-top, do you? She was a dead loss there,
whereas if mother hadn’t been in such a hurry to get ashore, we could
have waited a month and landed on the seaboard.”
“You might have turned her into a summer hotel,” suggested Munchausen.