The _Sea Spume_, with its curiously assorted passengers, sailed from
New York on Saturday.
Besides Caruth, it carried Marie Fitzhugh, Professor Shishkin, his
pretended daughter, Thomas Wilkins, and several bewhiskered individuals
whose names ended in _ski_ or _vitch_. They were the divers whom
Miss Fitzhugh had selected and Professor Shishkin had brought along
ostensibly to explore the bottom of the Baltic for proofs of his theory
of rising sea-floors. Caruth felt sure that they were nihilists and
suspected them of having bombs on their persons, but it was too late to
balk at that.
The yacht was swift and the weather fine, and the miles fell behind
with gratifying regularity. The sun shone bright by day, and the moon
cast silvery gleams by night. In short, the astronomy of the trip was
all that could be desired.
As soon as the yacht was out of sight of land, the Professor, who was
a born sailor, took occasion to explain matters a little more fully to
Miss Lee, who likewise seemed not to feel the motion of the vessel. He
explained them not because he wanted to do so, but because he could
not help himself. The girl was altogether too clever not to suspect
that something was being kept back. In any event, she must very soon
find out that the yacht was going to dredge for something besides sea
creatures. Unless told enough to satisfy her, she would surely ask
questions that might show her ignorance of matters concerning which
Olga could scarcely be supposed to be ignorant. It was better to tell
her something of the objects of the trip rather than to risk the
possible effects of her inquisitiveness.
He told her that the _Sea Spume_ was going to search for a vessel that
had been wrecked a year or two before, with a large sum in gold on
her. He admitted frankly that he himself had come in order that by his
scientific reputation he might conceal the true object of the trip.
He meant to go so far and no farther. But he had not reckoned on Miss
Lee. She heard him out; then she turned questioner.
“These heart-to-heart talks are all right,” she remarked, “if they are
all right. But if they ain’t, they’re punk. I’m from Missouri, y’know,
and I’ve got to be shown. Why d’ye want to hide the object of your
trip? Who owns this gold you’re after?”
The Professor hesitated. “My friends own it,” he answered at last.
“Then why don’t they go after it openly? A man’s got a right to his
own, ain’t he? What’s the need of all this masquerading?”
The Professor squirmed. The question, though natural, was not what he
had expected.
Pitilessly the girl went on: “Who are you afraid of? Who’s likely to
interfere with you?”
“Well!” Professor Shishkin was desperate. “Well!” he admitted. “I
might as well tell you that our title to the gold is disputed, and we
are likely to have trouble if it is known that we are after it. It is
really ours, but our enemies are unscrupulous and dangerous, and they
could make things very unpleasant for us. They would have gotten the
gold long ago if they had known just where it was.”
“Humph! Then you do know just where it is?”
“We think we do.”
Miss Lee considered a while. “It ain’t good enough,” she remarked.
“I’ve studied geography, and I’ve been looking up the Baltic lately.
There’s too much Russovitsky about this game. I’ll bet a box of taffy
there’s a nihilist plot mixed in it somewhere.”
“Sh!” The Professor’s face had changed, and he held up his hand
warningly. “There’ll be suspicion enough on that point before long, I
fear,” he whispered. “Don’t start it any sooner than it can be helped.”
“But is it true?”
“I can’t tell you. You must draw your own conclusions. If it is true,
would you draw back? The cause of the revolution is the cause of
freedom.”
“Humph! Maybe so. I’ll think about it. But--I want to know. What’ll the
Czarski do to us if he catches us?”
“Nothing. We’ll lose the gold, but nothing more. We are American
citizens on an American vessel on the high seas. No one will dare to
touch us.”
“Well, where do I come in? What’s my part in the melodrama?”
“You?” The Professor was amazed. “Why, my dear young lady, my daughter
wanted to marry and didn’t want to come. I told you all this.”
“Ye-es. You told me why she didn’t want to come. But you ain’t told me
why you want everybody to think she did come.”
The Professor hesitated, and the girl put her finger on the weak spot.
“You didn’t bring her because you thought it was too dangerous,” she
remarked shrewdly; “and you didn’t want others to know how risky you
thought it was. And you picked me for the goat. Ain’t that it?”
The Professor leaned forward. “Not exactly,” he explained. “It _would_
be very dangerous for her to visit Russia. Being what she is and who
she is, it would be _very_ dangerous. For you, it is not so. Danger may
threaten you, but you can always escape by declaring who you are. With
her it is different. Besides”--he spoke slowly and impressively--“I
have reasons--reasons that I assure you are crucial--for having it
thought that she is with us. I implore you to keep the secret. It
might and probably would cost her her life if certain persons on board
suspected the truth. You will keep faith?”
“Oh, sure! I’ll keep faith. You needn’t worry about that. Especially
if that stuck-up Fitzhugh woman is one of the ‘certain persons.’”
The Professor said nothing more. He was by no means satisfied with the
situation; but, then, he had been dissatisfied with it from the first.
It was a mere choice of evils, and, he told himself despondently, in
trying to better matters he was only too likely to make them worse.
Nothing but the absolute necessity of keeping the real Olga out of
Russia would have ever driven him to such a desperate scheme as this.
It was really more desperate than he knew, though not more so than he
might have guessed had he known of the relations that were developing
between Miss Lee and Thomas Wilkins.
These two had drawn very close together during the trip. While neither
would have endured for a moment any intimation that they were not as
good as any one breathing, still neither could help feeling more or
less out of place in their new surroundings. The girl saw this more
clearly and felt it more sharply than the man. She recognized the fact
that these people were lucky enough to possess what she had longed for
all her life--money and social position--and concluded that their ways
must be correct ways. Therefore she set herself to study them and to
mould herself by their standards. The conditions were peculiar, and
perhaps she might grasp the money and the position if she once fitted
herself for them.
Wilkins, on the other hand, had no yearnings for the social altitudes.
It never occurred to him to copy any one else’s manners. He only felt
vaguely uncomfortable, more or less seasick, and very much bored.
Therefore he welcomed the companionship of the one person among the
cabin passengers with whom he somehow felt himself to be on a plane.
As the voyage continued, this intimacy increased. Caruth noticed it and
vaguely wondered at it; but then he had wondered from the first at the
rather singular manners and conversation of the Professor’s daughter.
Miss Fitzhugh noticed it, and did not like it; just why, she scarcely
knew. But neither she nor Caruth made any effort to check it. Supposing
Miss Lee to be the Professor’s daughter and therefore devoted to his
cause, they naturally were glad of anything that tended to bind Wilkins
closer to their cause.
So matters ran along till nearly the end of the voyage. Cattegat and
Skagerrak had been traversed, Copenhagen was a blur of light on the
clouds behind them; the widening sea space before them showed that the
broad Baltic lay close at hand.
Miss Lee and Wilkins sat together on the quarter-deck watching the
moonlight as it shone white on the wake of the _Sea Spume_. For some
time neither had spoken.
At last Wilkins broke the silence. “Lady,” he said, “I s’pose your pa’s
told you how I come to be on this here trip?”
Florence nodded. The Professor had not told her, but it seemed
unnecessary to admit that fact.
Wilkins went on. “I’ll own right up to you,” he explained, “that when I
come I warn’t by no means satisfied that I was gettin’ a square deal;
a ten per cent rake-off ain’t very high when you hold the joker and
nobody else can get nothin’ unless you helps. Then I wasn’t satisfied
about Jim. That Miss Fitzhugh swears her friends didn’t kill him; but,
then, she naturally would, you know, and I’ve got my doubts. Still,
there didn’t seem nothin’ else for me to do but to come along, and give
’em all the rope they wanted, and watch my chance to find out about
Jim and to get a bigger share of the gold. But I want to say now that
that’s all to the past. Your friends is my friends, and I’ll stick by
’em. You understand?”
Florence did not understand--how should she? She had never heard of
“Jim,” nor of his death; nor did she know that Wilkins held the key
to the location of the treasure. She was rapidly finding out things,
however; so she held her peace and let the plainsman talk on.
“I promised to show them Bill’s letter as soon as we got into the
Baltic,” he continued. “That means to-night. I guess I’d have done it
any way, but now I know you, I ain’t hesitatin’ no more.”
Florence found her tongue. “It’s Bill’s letter that tells where the
wreck is, isn’t it?” she guessed.
“Sure! The place ain’t much more than a day from here. I’m going to
show it to them pretty soon. But first I wanted to say somethin’ to
you.”
Florence scarcely heard him. An idea, vague and unformulated, was
stirring in her brain. Could any gain accrue to her personally from the
fact that Wilkins alone knew the whereabouts of the gold?
While she considered, the man went on. “Lady,” he declared earnestly,
“I’m a rough fellow, and I know I ain’t half good enough for you. I
know your dad would have a fit if he thought I was makin’ love to you;
and your fine friends would think I was crazy. Maybe I am; but it’s
for you to say. I’m a sheepman, lady, and many a night when I’ve been
bedded down alongside a camp-fire, watching them muttons masticatin’
and baain’ to each other, I’ve thought how nice it would be to go home
to find somebody waiting for me. And the minute I see you and hear you
talk so bright and clever, says I to myself: ‘That’s the girl for me.’”
Wilkins paused for an instant and then went on. “I ain’t no poor man,
lady. I’ve got twenty-five thousand baa-baas in Colorado. I didn’t come
on this trip for the money, though half a million ain’t to be snuz at.
So you’ll understand that when I gets my share home I’ll be mighty well
off. Now can’t you and me frame it up together? Say the word, and I’ll
make ’em consent before I gives up the letter telling where the gold
is.”
Wilkins paused and waited for an answer. His face was as expressionless
as ever, but in spite of himself a tremor crept into his voice.
Plainly he was very much in earnest.
Florence, on the other hand, was by no means ready to answer. To keep
“him” guessing was one of the cardinal precepts of the school in which
she had been trained.
“No,” she answered slowly; “not yet.”
A flush came on the Westerner’s face. “You mean----” he began.
“I mean this ain’t bargain day,” exclaimed the girl impatiently. “I
ain’t saying a word against you, but I’ll have to think a long time
before I make up my mind. When I do, it won’t be anybody on this yacht
that’ll stop me. But I guess I’ll have to leave you on the anxious
bench for a while.”
“All right, lady! Take your time.”
“I’m going to. But I’m goin’ to tell you something right now, and that
is that I ain’t stuck on this crowd I’m with.”
Wilkins’s jaw dropped. “But your pa----”
“Popper ain’t the man he was. He ain’t nothing but a deuce in this
game. He ain’t going to make anything out of it at all. Do you know who
is?”
“Them revolutionists, I guess--what ain’t grafted on the way.”
“Well! I’m not in this to help any old revolution. I tell you right
now, Mr. Wilkins, that it’s me for the gold if I can get it to Noo
York.”
“Ain’t you afraid of them bombovitches?” demanded the man.
“Me! Not in Noo York, I ain’t. In Russia, I ain’t saying.”
A delighted grin came over Wilkins’s face. “Say!” he exclaimed. “You’re
all rightski. They tried to scare me with them fellows, and I let ’em
think they had, but, Lord sakes, they ain’t troubling me none. If they
come to Colorado after me, the Czar’ll have one less to put in his
dungeonoffski.”
“Then”--the girl held out her hand--“it’s understood. We’ll stand
together. If we get a chance to skiddoo with the gold, we’ll do it. An’
I’ll marry you the day we get it to Noo York.”