If Florence had delayed her flight from Helsingfors a day longer, she
would probably not have gone at all. At practically the same moment
at which she arrived at St. Petersburg, Bill Wilkins left that city,
having completed arrangements for the shipment of the gold.
He had found the task of finding a ship a difficult one. Ten tons of
gold was not freight that would ordinarily be found in the possession
of a man of Wilkins’s appearance, and the fact that he wanted to get
it out of the country secretly was abundant proof that he had come by
it illegally. To explain the true nature of the stuff he wanted to
ship, was to risk arrest by the police on the one hand, and robbery and
murder by those who aided him on the other.
Yet it was practically impossible to conceal the fact that it was gold
with which he wished to escape. Its mere weight would almost inevitably
betray its character, for it was not credible that he should be willing
to pay the sum necessary to induce a captain to violate the laws and
risk his ship in order to carry off a few tons of lead, which was about
the only conceivable substance of approximately equal weight.
Gold, of course, might be so packed in boxes too large for it, as to
conceal its relative weight, but the Wilkins brothers had no means at
hand to enable them to do this.
Under these circumstances, it was not surprising that it took Wilkins
practically all of the ten days he had supposed might be required
to make his arrangements. He made them at last, however, with a
villainous-looking captain, who drove a very hard bargain, and
whom Wilkins suspected would turn robber if given the ghost of an
opportunity. Neither he nor Tom, however, shrank from taking risks.
Meanwhile, Tom Wilkins had discovered Florence’s disappearance but had
found himself helpless. Florence had taken the sloop’s only small boat,
and Wilkins, unable to swim, found himself hopelessly marooned, unable
to get ashore except by calling for aid. Although he had no nerves to
speak of, and was ready at any time to fight his weight in wild-cats,
even he found the situation appalling. Alone in a strange seaport,
unable to speak a word of the language, under ban of the police, tied
by the leg to a pile of gold, and deserted by his companions, a weaker
man would have attempted to sail away despite his ignorance in regard
to the management of the boat. But Tom Wilkins was not that sort. He
would stick till the last minute.
Florence’s desertion was the hardest to bear. He really loved the girl,
and he had almost persuaded himself that she loved him; believing this,
he found it very hard to conclude that her absence spelled treachery,
as it obviously seemed to do. Rather, knowing how she chafed against
the long confinement and remembering her hysterical fit of the night
before, he clung to the hope that she had merely gone ashore and would
soon be back.
But as the hours wore on and she did not return, he was forced to
believe that she had deserted and perhaps betrayed him. He had taken
her as a partner in his flight when he had expected to reach safety
easily and quickly. If he had had any idea of what was before him,
he would have gone without her and sent for her after the toil and
danger of the adventure was over. But, having taken her, he expected
her to stand by him, and to find that she was a “quitter,” the thing
he despised most on earth, hurt him. According to his ideas, his own
conduct in leaving the yacht was not “quitting,” but frank piracy, a
thing which he by no means held in the same disesteem.
Bill’s arrival did not mend matters. Arriving at the shore, his
sailor’s eyes quickly missed the dinghy that had trailed behind the
sloop and he promptly hired a shore boat and had himself rowed out.
As he came alongside, Tom, who had been watching from below, came on
deck to meet him, but showed no interest in the success of his errand.
Bill, however, did not notice the other’s moodiness.
“It’s all right, Tom,” he cried breathlessly. “It’s all right.
Everything’s fixed, and we’ll be off as soon as it gets dark. I had a
d----d hard time of it with them d----d nihilists on one side and the
cops on the other. But I pulled it off at last. Where’s the liquor!
Let’s splice the main brace on the strength of it.”
Without answering, Tom set out a bottle and watched the other drink.
But he himself took nothing.
Such disrespect to the convenances roused Bill’s indignation. “What
in h----l’s the matter with you?” he demanded. “Anybody’d think I’d
brought bad news ’stead of tellin’ you I’d pulled the thing off.”
Still Tom did not answer, and the other stared at him with growing
suspicion. “Where’s the dinghy?” he demanded suddenly. “And where’s
that girl?”
Tom raised his heavy eyes. “Gone,” he responded briefly. “She took the
boat and vamosed some time last night.”
“Gone! Gone!” Bill’s voice rose to a scream. “Gone where? After the
cops? I always knowed it. I always told you she’d do us. The little
hell cat. D---- her----”
A pair of sinewy hands closed round his throat, choking the words, and
he felt himself shaken to and fro like a rat.
“That’ll do, Bill Wilkins,” grated a voice that he hardly recognized
as his brother’s. “That’ll do. Don’t you orthogrify a word agin her.
She’s playin’ for her own hand, same’s we are. You keep your tongue
off her.” With the last word the plainsman hurled the other across the
cabin.
Bill picked himself up slowly. He fingered his throat, swallowed once
or twice, and then came back to where Tom stood glowering.
“All right,” he mumbled. “I won’t say nothing against her. She’s an
angel of light if you say so. But I reckon she’s sold us out, and I
guess the peelers are coming for us right now. We’d better get a move
on--unless you’d sooner stay here and get pulled so’s not to spoil her
game.”
Tom quivered, but said nothing. Lifelong self-control was again in the
ascendency. He knew the other was right, and he already repented his
fury of a moment before.
“All right, Bill!” he said, almost calmly. “You’re right. Only don’t
say nothing against her to me. I’m too plumb sore to stand it just now.
We’ll go as soon as you say.”
“I say now. The _Haakon_--she’s the steamer I’ve chartered--won’t be
along till about dawn, but we’ve got to get out in the bay and wait for
her. That little h---- --that is, them policeoffskis may be down on us
any bloomin’ minute. The water’s quiet, and I guess we won’t swamp.
Wait! Let’s look.”
The man broke off and ran up the ladder that led to the deck and poked
his head above the combings. In a moment he turned, and Tom could see
that his face was pale under its tan.
“---- ---- ----!” he raged. “They’re coming now. A dozen boats are
starting out. Quick! We ain’t got a minute to lose.”
He vaulted up on the deck, followed by the plainsman.
“Here!” he yelled. “Get that anchor up. Quick! Then help me with the
mainsail.”
He darted forward and grasped the jib halliards. The weight was almost
too much for one man, but necessity lent strength, and by the time the
anchor was on board the jib was up. Then the two men tailed on to the
mainsail halliards and the big sail rose slowly to the peak.
“Make fast! Hurry! Them boats are getting near.”
Leaving the halliards to his brother, Bill sprang to the sheet, and
drew aft the flapping sail, holding it with one hand against the bits,
and grasping the helm with the other.
The sloop was moving now, slowly but surely. Behind her pulsed a
distant outcry, borne hoarsely across the water. Bill glared backward
over his shoulder. “Shout! Shout! D---- you!” he cried.
Tom was by his side now, sheeting home the mainsail. The sloop felt
the added press, and with every movement gathered way. But in the
lee of the shore the wind was light, and the boats, driven by sinewy
arms, were coming fast, relentlessly cutting down the distance that
intervened.
Bill glared back at them. “Shoot ’em, Tom,” he cried. “Shoot ’em! Why
don’t you shoot?”
A grim smile curved the plainsman’s lips. Erect he stood, a revolver in
either hand, balancing to the swaying boat. “Too far yet,” he muttered.
“I ain’t got no cartridges to waste. This is only the overturnity;
we’ll need ’em all when the main show begins. Besides, we’re holding
even with them now.”
Indubitably the sloop was holding its own. With every foot she gained
from the land, the breeze grew stronger. Soon the strip of water
between her and the boats showed perceptibly larger and the hoarse
cries grew fainter.
Tom lowered his pistols. “I guess we’re all right now,” he remarked
comfortably.
Bill grunted. “All right as far as them boats counts,” he agreed. “But
they’ll have steam launches and gunboats and torpedo-boats after us
mighty soon, and then where’ll we be?”
“We won’t be in no jail,” returned his brother grimly. “I won’t, any
way. I won’t be took. I always expected to cash in with my boots on,
and I’m ready right now.”
“Same here--if I can’t help myself. But I reckon we’ve got a chance
yet. They’ll be expectin’ us to run west and try to fetch Copenhagen, I
reckon! But we’ll fool ’em. If we can get out of sight, we’ll run east
and try to meet the _Haakon_. We’ve got to go east, any way. If we ran
out into the Baltic, we’d swamp, sure, just as we would have the other
day.”