SURPRISES
Fifteen minutes later a small boat, rowed smartly by six sailors in
white canvas, came alongside the 'midships ladder of the _Nettie B._
At a word from the officer the six oars rose as one vertically into
the air, and the bowman staved off the cutter so that she brought up
without a scratch.
A young man in dark blue sprang out of the stern-sheets upon the
deck.
"_Nettie B._ of Freekirk Head?" he asked. "Captain Burns commanding?"
"Yes," said Nat, stepping forward, "I am Captain Burns. What do you
want?"
"I come from the gunboat _Albatross_," said the officer, "and
represent Captain Foraker. You have on board, have you not, a man
named Code Schofield, also of Freekirk Head, under arrest for the
murder of a man or men on the occasion of the sinking of his
schooner?"
Nat scowled.
"Yes," he said. "I arrested him myself in St. Pierre, Miquelon. I am
a constable in Freekirk Head."
"Just as we understood," remarked the officer blandly. "Captain
Foraker desires me to thank you for your prompt and efficient work in
this matter, though I can tell you on the side, Captain Burns, that
the old man is rather put out that he didn't get the fellow himself.
We chased up and down the Banks looking for him, but never got within
sight of as much as his main truck sticking over the horizon.
"And the _Petrel_--that's our steamer, you know--well, sir, maybe he
didn't make a fool of her. Payson, on the _Petrel_, is the ugliest man
in the service, and when this fellow Schofield led him a chase of a
hundred and fifty miles, and then got away among the islands of
Placentia Bay, they say Payson nearly had apoplexy. So your getting
him ought to be quite a feather in your cap."
"I consider that I did my duty. But would you mind telling me what you
have signaled me for?" Burns resented the gossip of this young
whipper-snapper of the service who seemed, despite his frankness, to
have something of a patronizing air.
"Certainly. Captain Foraker desires me to tell you that he wished the
prisoner transferred to the _Albatross_. We know that you are not
provided with an absolutely secure place to keep the prisoner, and,
as we are on our way to St. Andrews on another matter, the skipper
thinks he might just as well take the fellow in and hand him over to
the authorities."
"Well, I don't agree with your skipper," snapped Burns. "I got
Schofield, and I'm going to deliver him. He's safe enough, don't you
worry. When you go back you can tell Captain Foraker that Schofield is
in perfectly good hands."
The pleasant, amiable manner of the subaltern underwent a quick
change. He at once became the stern, businesslike representative of
the government.
"I am sorry, Captain Burns, but I shall deliver no such message, and
when I go back I shall have the criminal with me. Those are my orders,
and I intend to carry them out." He turned to the six sailors sitting
quietly in the boat, their oars still in the air.
"Unship oars!" he commanded. The sweeps fell away, three on each side.
"Squad on deck!" The men scrambled up the short ladder and lined up in
two rows of three. At his belt each man carried a revolver and
cutlasses swung at their sides.
"Now," requested the officer amiably, "will you please lead me to the
prisoner?"
Nat's face darkened into a scowl of black rage, and he cursed under
his breath. It was just his luck, he told himself, that when he was
about to triumph, some of these government loafers should come along
and take the credit out of his hands.
For a moment he thought of resistance. All his crew were on deck,
drawn by curiosity. But he saw they were vastly impressed by the
discipline of the visitors and by their decidedly warlike appearance.
If he resisted there would be blood spilt, and he did not like the
thought of that. He finally admitted to himself that the young officer
was only carrying out orders, and orders that were absolutely just.
"Well, come along!" he snarled ungraciously, and started forward. The
officer spoke a word of command, and the squad marched after him as
he, in turn, followed Nat.
Of all this Code had been ignorant, for the conversation had taken
place too far aft for him to hear. His first warning was when the
sailors marched past the window and Nat reluctantly opened the door of
the old storeroom.
"Officers are here to get you, Schofield," said the skipper of the
_Nettie B._ "Come out."
Wonderingly, Code stepped into the sunlight and open air and saw the
officer with his escort. With the resignation that he had summoned
during his five days of imprisonment he accepted his fate.
"I am ready," he said. "Let's go as soon as possible."
"Captain Schofield," said the subaltern, "you are to be transferred,
and I trust you will deem it advisable to go peaceably."
Catching sight of the six armed sailors, Code could not help
grinning.
"There's no question about it," he said; "I will."
"Form cordon!" ordered the officer, and the sailors surrounded
him--two before, two beside, and two behind. In this order they
marched to the cutter.
Code was told to get in first and take a seat looking aft. He did so,
and the officer dropped into the stern-sheets so as to face his
prisoner. The sailors took their position, shipped their oars smartly,
and the cutter was soon under way to the gunboat.
Arrived at the accommodation ladder, and on deck, Code found a vessel
with white decks, glistening brass work, and discipline that shamed
naval authority. The subaltern, saluting, reported to the deck-officer
that his mission had been completed, and the latter, after questioning
Code, ordered that he be taken to confinement quarters.
These quarters, unlike the pen on the _Nettie B._, were below the
deck, but were lighted by a porthole. The room was larger, had a
comfortable bunk, a small table loaded with magazines, a chair, and a
sanitary porcelain washstand. The luxury of the appointments was a
revelation.
There was no question of his escaping from this room he very soon
discovered.
The door was of heavy oak and locked on the outside. The walls were of
solid, smooth timber, and the porthole was too small to admit the
possibility of his escaping through it. The roof was formed of the
deck planks.
He had hardly examined his surroundings when he heard a voice in sharp
command on deck, and the running of feet, creaking of blocks, and
straining of sheets as sail was got on the vessel. His room presently
took an acute angle to starboard, and he realized that, with the fair
gale on the quarter, they must be crowding her with canvas.
He could tell by the look of the water as it flew past his port that
the remainder of the trip to St. Andrews would not take long. He knew
the course there from his present position must be north, a little
west, across the Bay of Fundy.
The _Nettie B._, when compelled to surrender her prisoner, had rounded
Nova Scotia and was on the home-stretch toward Quoddy Roads. She was,
in fact, less than thirty miles away from Grande Mignon Island, and
Code had thought with a great and bitter homesickness of the joy just
a sight of her would be.
He longed for the white Swallowtail lighthouse with its tin swallow
above; for the tumbled green-clothed granite of the harbor approaches;
for the black, sharp-toothed reefs that showed on the half-water near
the can-buoy, and for the procession of stately headlands to north and
south, fading from sight in a mantle of purple and gray.
But most of all for the crescent of stony beach, the nestle of white
cottages along the King's Road, and the green background of the
mountain beyond, with Mallaby House in the very heart of it.
This had been his train of thought when Burns had opened the door to
deliver him up to the gunboat, and now it returned to him as the
stanch vessel under him winged her way across the blue afternoon sea.
He wondered if the _Albatross_ would pass close enough inshore for him
to get a glimpse of Mignon's tall and forbidding fog-wreathed
headlands. Just a moment of this familiar sight would be balm to his
bruised spirit. He felt that he could gather strength from the sight
of home. He had been among aliens so long!
But no nearer than just a glimpse. He made a firm resolution never to
push the prow of the _Lass_ into Flagg Cove until he stood clear of
the charges against him. He admitted that it might take years, but
his resolution was none the less strong.
His place of confinement was on the starboard side of the _Albatross_,
and he was gratified after a few minutes to see the sun pouring
through his porthole.
Despair had left him now, and he was quietly cheerful. With something
akin to pleasure that the struggle was over, and that events were out
of his hands for the time being, he settled down in his chair and
picked up a magazine.
He had hardly opened it when a thought occurred to him. If the course
was north a little west, how did it happen that the sun streamed into
his room, which was on the east side of the ship on that course?
He sprang to the port and looked out.
The sun smote him full in the face. He strained his eyes against the
horizon that was unusually clear for this foggy sea, and would have
sworn that along its edge was a dark line of land. The conclusion was
inevitable.
The _Albatross_ was flying directly south as fast as her whole spread
of canvas could take her.
Schofield could not explain this phenomenon to himself, nor did he
try. The orders that a man-of-war sailed under were none of his
affair, and if the captain chose to institute a hunt for the north
pole before delivering a prisoner in port, naturally he had a perfect
right to do so. It was possible, Code told himself, that another
miserable wretch was to be picked up before they were both landed
together.
Whatever course Captain Foraker intended to lay in the future his
present one was taking him as far as possible away from Grande Mignon,
St. Andrew's, and St. John's. And for this meager comfort Code
Schofield was thankful.
The sun remained above the horizon until six o'clock, and then
suddenly plumped into the sea. The early September darkness rushed
down and, as it did so, a big Tungsten light in the ceiling of Code's
room sprang into a brilliant glow, the iron cover to the porthole
being shut at the same instant.
A few moments later the door of his cell was unceremoniously opened
and a man entered bearing an armful of fresh clothing.
"Captain Schofield," he said, with the deference of a servant, "the
captain wishes your presence at dinner. The ship's barber will be here
presently. Etiquette provides that you wear these clothes. I will fix
them and lay them out for you. If you care for a bath, sir, I will
draw it--"
"Say, look here," exclaimed our hero with a sudden and unexpected
touch of asperity, "if you're trying to kid me, old side-whiskers,
you're due for the licking of your life."
He got deliberately upon his feet and removed the fishing-coat which
he had worn uninterruptedly since the night at St. Pierre.
"I thought I'd read about you in that magazine or something, and had
fallen asleep, but here you are still in the room. I'm going to see
whether you're alive or not. No one can mention a bath to me with
impunity."
He made a sudden grab for the servant, who stood with mouth open,
uncertain as to whether or not he was dealing with a lunatic.
Before he could move, Code's hard, strong hands closed upon his arms
in a grip that brought a bellow of pain. In deadly fear of his life,
he babbled protests, apologies, and pleadings in an incoherent medley
that would have satisfied the most toughened skeptic. Code released
him, laughing.
"Well, I guess you're real, all right," he said. "Now if you're in
earnest about all this, draw that bath _quick_. Then I'll believe
you."
Half an hour later Code, bathed, shaved, and feeling like a different
man, was luxuriating in fresh linen and a comfortable suit.
"Look here, Martin," he said to the valet, "of course I know that this
is no more the gunboat _Albatross_ than I am. The Canadian government
isn't in the habit of treating prisoners in exactly this manner. What
boat is this?"
Martin coughed a little before answering. In all his experience he had
never before been asked to dress the skipper of a fishing vessel.
"I was told to say, sir, in case you asked, that you are aboard the
mystery schooner, sir."
"What! The mystery schooner that led the steamer that chase?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, by the great trawl hook! And I didn't know it!"
"No, sir. Remember we came up behind the _Nettie B._, and when you
were transferred you were made to sit facing away from this ship so
you would not recognize her."
"Then all the guns were fakes, and the whole business of a man-of-war
as well?" cried Code, astonished almost out of his wits by this latest
development in his fortunes.
"Yes, sir. The appearances were false, but as for seamanship, sir,
this vessel could not do what she does were it not for the strict
training aboard her, sir. I'll wager our lads can out-maneuver and
outsail any schooner of her tonnage on the seas, Gloucestermen
included. The navy is easy compared to our discipline."
"But what holds the men to it if it's so hard?"
"Double wages and loyalty to the captain."
"Captain Foraker?"
"Yes, sir. There, sir, that tie is beautiful. Now the waistcoat and
coat. If you will permit me, sir, you look, as I might say, 'andsome,
begging your pardon."
Code flushed and looked into the glass that hung against the wall of
his cabin. He barely recognized the clean-shaven, clear-eyed, broad
shouldered youth he saw there as the rough, salty skipper of the
schooner _Charming Lass_. He wondered with a chuckle what Pete
Ellinwood would say if he could see him.
"And now, sir, if you're ready, just come with me, sir. Dinner is at
seven, and it is now a quarter to the hour."
Stunned by the wonders already experienced, and vaguely hoping that
the dream would last forever, Code followed the bewhiskered valet down
a narrow passage carpeted with a stuff so thick that it permitted no
sound.
Martin passed several doors--the passage was lighted by small
electrics--and finally paused before one on the right-hand side. Here
he knocked, and apparently receiving an answer, peered into the room
for a moment. Withdrawing his head, he swung the door open and turned
to Schofield.
"Go right in, sir," he said, and Code, eager for new wonders, stepped
past him.
The room was a small sitting-room, lighted softly by inverted
bowl-shaped globes of glass so colored as to bring out the full value
of the pink velours and satin brocades with which the room was hung
and the furniture covered.
For a moment he stared without seeing anything, and then a slight
rustling in a far corner diverted his attention. He looked sharply and
saw a woman rise from a lounge and come toward him with outstretched
hands.
She was Elsa Mallaby!