ON THE DARK DECK
Ease, of all good gifts the best,
War and wave at last decree:
Love alone denies us rest,
Crueler than sword or sea.
William Watson.
“I am Columbus every time I cross,” said Shirley. “What lies out there in
the west is an undiscovered country.”
“Then I shall have to take the part of the rebellious and doubting crew.
There is no America, and we’re sure to get into trouble if we don’t turn
back.”
“You shall be clapped into irons and fed on bread and water, and turned
over to the Indians as soon as we reach land.”
“Don’t starve me! Let me hang from the yard-arm at once, or walk the
plank. I choose the hour immediately after dinner for my obsequies!”
“Choose a cheerfuller word!” pleaded Shirley.
“I am sorry to suggest mortality, but I was trying to let my imagination
play a little on the eternal novelty of travel, and you have dropped me
down ‘full faddom five.’”
“I’m sorry, but I have only revealed an honest tendency of character.
Piracy is probably a more profitable line of business than discovery.
Discoverers benefit mankind at great sacrifice and expense, and die
before they can receive the royal thanks. A pirate’s business is all
done over the counter on a strictly cash basis.”
They were silent for a moment, continuing their tramp. Pair weather was
peopling the decks. Dick Claiborne was engrossed with a vivacious
California girl, and Shirley saw him only at meals; but he and Armitage
held night sessions in the smoking-room, with increased liking on both
sides.
“Armitage isn’t a bad sort,” Dick admitted to Shirley. “He’s either an
awful liar, or he’s seen a lot of the world.”
“Of course, he has to travel to sell his glassware,” observed Shirley.
“I’m surprised at your seeming intimacy with a mere ‘peddler,’—and you
an officer in the finest cavalry in the world.”
“Well, if he’s a peddler he’s a high-class one—probably the junior
member of the firm that owns the works.”
Armitage saw something of all the Claibornes every day in the pleasant
intimacy of ship life, and Hilton Claiborne found the young man an
interesting talker. Judge Claiborne is, as every one knows, the
best-posted American of his time in diplomatic history; and when they
were together Armitage suggested topics that were well calculated to
awaken the old lawyer’s interest.
“The glass-blower’s a deep one, all right,” remarked Dick to Shirley. “He
jollies me occasionally, just to show there’s no hard feeling; then he
jollies the governor; and when I saw our mother footing it on his arm
this afternoon I almost fell in a faint. I wish you’d hold on to him
tight till we’re docked. My little friend from California is crazy about
him—and I haven’t dared tell her he’s only a drummer; such a fling would
be unchivalrous of me—”
“It would, Richard. Be a generous foe—whether—whether you can afford to
be or not!”
“My sister—my own sister says this to me! This is quite the unkindest.
I’m going to offer myself to the daughter of the redwoods at once.”
Shirley and Armitage talked—as people will on ship-board—of everything
under the sun. Shirley’s enthusiasms were in themselves interesting; but
she was informed in the world’s larger affairs, as became the daughter of
a man who was an authority in such matters, and found it pleasant to
discuss them with Armitage. He felt the poetic quality in her; it was
that which had first appealed to him; but he did not know that something
of the same sort in himself touched her; it was enough for those days
that he was courteous and amusing, and gained a trifle in her eyes from
the fact that he had no tangible background.
Then came the evening of the fifth day. They were taking a turn after
dinner on the lighted deck. The spring stars hung faint and far through
thin clouds and the wind was keen from the sea. A few passengers were
out; the deck stewards went about gathering up rugs and chairs for the
night.
“Time oughtn’t to be reckoned at all at sea, so that people who feel
themselves getting old might sail forth into the deep and defy the old
man with the hour-glass.”
“I like the idea. Such people could become fishers—permanently,
and grow very wise from so much brain food.”
“They wouldn’t eat, Mr. Armitage. Brain-food forsooth! You talk like a
breakfast-food advertisement. My idea—mine, please note—is for such
fortunate people to sail in pretty little boats with orange-tinted sails
and pick up lost dreams. I got a hint of that in a pretty poem once—
“‘Time seemed to pause a little pace,
I heard a dream go by.’”
“But out here in mid-ocean a little boat with lateen sails wouldn’t have
much show. And dreams passing over—the idea is pretty, and is creditable
to your imagination. But I thought your fancy was more militant. Now, for
example, you like battle pictures—” he said, and paused inquiringly.
She looked at him quickly.
“How do you know I do?”
“You like Detaille particularly.”
“Am I to defend my taste?—what’s the answer, if you don’t mind?”
“Detaille is much to my liking, also; but I prefer Flameng, as a strictly
personal matter. That was a wonderful collection of military and battle
pictures shown in Paris last winter.”
She half withdrew her hand from his arm, and turned away. The sea winds
did not wholly account for the sudden color in her cheeks. She had seen
Armitage in Paris—in cafés, at the opera, but not at the great
exhibition of world-famous battle pictures; yet undoubtedly he had seen
her; and she remembered with instant consciousness the hours of
absorption she had spent before those canvases.
“It was a public exhibition, I believe; there was no great harm in seeing
it.”
“No; there certainly was not!” He laughed, then was serious at once.
Shirley’s tense, arrested figure, her bright, eager eyes, her parted
lips, as he saw her before the battle pictures in the gallery at Paris,
came up before him and gave him pause. He could not play upon that stolen
glance or tease her curiosity in respect to it. If this were a ship
flirtation, it might be well enough; but the very sweetness and
open-heartedness of her youth shielded her. It seemed to him in that
moment a contemptible and unpardonable thing that he had followed
her about—and caught her, there at Paris, in an exalted mood, to which
she had been wrought by the moving incidents of war.
“I was in Paris during the exhibition,” he said quietly. “Ormsby, the
American painter—the man who did the _High Tide at Gettysburg_—is an
acquaintance of mine.”
“Oh!”
It was Ormsby’s painting that had particularly captivated Shirley. She
had returned to it day after day; and the thought that Armitage had taken
advantage of her deep interest in Pickett’s charging gray line was
annoying, and she abruptly changed the subject.
Shirley had speculated much as to the meaning of Armitage’s remark at the
carriage door in Geneva—that he expected the slayer of the old Austrian
prime minister to pass that way. Armitage had not referred to the crime
in any way in his talks with her on the _King Edward_; their
conversations had been pitched usually in a light and frivolous key, or
if one were disposed to be serious the other responded in a note of
levity.
“We’re all imperialists at heart,” said Shirley, referring to a talk
between them earlier in the day. “We Americans are hungry for empire;
we’re simply waiting for the man on horseback to gallop down Broadway and
up Fifth Avenue with a troop of cavalry at his heels and proclaim the new
dispensation.”
“And before he’d gone a block a big Irish policeman would arrest him for
disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, or for giving a show without
a license, and the republic would continue to do business at the old
stand.”
“No; the police would have been bribed in advance, and would deliver the
keys of the city to the new emperor at the door of St. Patrick’s
Cathedral, and his majesty would go to Sherry’s for luncheon, and sign a
few decrees, and order the guillotine set up in Union Square. Do you
follow me, Mr. Armitage?”
“Yes; to the very steps of the guillotine, Miss Claiborne. But the
looting of the temples and the plundering of banks—if the thing is bound
to be—I should like to share in the general joy. But I have an idea,
Miss Claiborne,” he exclaimed, as though with inspiration.
“Yes—you have an idea—”
“Let me be the man on horseback; and you might be—”
“Yes—the suspense is terrible!—what might I be, your Majesty?”
“Well, we should call you—”
He hesitated, and she wondered whether he would be bold enough to meet
the issue offered by this turn of their nonsense.
“I seem to give your Majesty difficulty; the silence isn’t flattering,”
she said mockingly; but she was conscious of a certain excitement as she
walked the deck beside him.
“Oh, pardon me! The difficulty is only as to title—you would, of course,
occupy the dais; but whether you should be queen or empress—that’s the
rub! If America is to be an empire, then of course you would be an
empress. So there you are answered.”
They passed laughingly on to the other phases of the matter in the
whimsical vein that was natural in her, and to which he responded. They
watched the lights of an east-bound steamer that was passing near. The
exchange of rocket signals—that pretty and graceful parley between ships
that pass in the night—interested them for a moment. Then the deck
lights went out so suddenly it seemed that a dark curtain had descended
and shut them in with the sea.
“Accident to the dynamo—we shall have the lights on in a moment!”
shouted the deck officer, who stood near, talking to a passenger.
“Shall we go in?” asked Armitage.
“Yes, it is getting cold,” replied Shirley.
For a moment they were quite alone on the dark deck, though they heard
voices near at hand.
They were groping their way toward the main saloon, where they had left
Mr. and Mrs. Claiborne, when Shirley was aware of some one lurking near.
A figure seemed to be crouching close by, and she felt its furtive
movements and knew that it had passed but remained a few feet away. Her
hand on Armitage’s arm tightened.
“What is that?—there is some one following us,” she said.
At the same moment Armitage, too, became aware of the presence of a
stooping figure behind him. He stopped abruptly and faced about.
“Stand quite still, Miss Claiborne.”
He peered about, and instantly, as though waiting for his voice, a tall
figure rose not a yard from him and a long arm shot high above his head
and descended swiftly. They were close to the rail, and a roll of the
ship sent Armitage off his feet and away from his assailant. Shirley
at the same moment threw out her hands, defensively or for support, and
clutched the arm and shoulder of the man who had assailed Armitage. He
had driven a knife at John Armitage, and was poising himself for another
attempt when Shirley seized his arm. As he drew back a fold of his cloak
still lay in Shirley’s grasp, and she gave a sharp little cry as the
figure, with a quick jerk, released the cloak and slipped away into the
shadows. A moment later the lights were restored, and she saw Armitage
regarding ruefully a long slit in the left arm of his ulster.
“Are you hurt? What has happened?” she demanded.
“It must have been a sea-serpent,” he replied, laughing.
The deck officer regarded them curiously as they blinked in the glare of
light, and asked whether anything was wrong. Armitage turned the matter
off.
“I guess it was a sea-serpent,” he said. “It bit a hole in my ulster, for
which I am not grateful.” Then in a lower tone to Shirley: “That was
certainly a strange proceeding. I am sorry you were startled; and I am
under greatest obligations to you, Miss Claiborne. Why, you actually
pulled the fellow away!”
“Oh, no,” she returned lightly, but still breathing hard; “it was the
instinct of self-preservation. I was unsteady on my feet for a moment,
and sought something to take hold of. That pirate was the nearest thing,
and I caught hold of his cloak; I’m sure it was a cloak, and that makes
me sure he was a human villain of some sort. He didn’t feel in the least
like a sea-serpent. But some one tried to injure you—it is no jesting
matter—”
“Some lunatic escaped from the steerage, probably. I shall report it to
the officers.”
“Yes, it should be reported,” said Shirley.
“It was very strange. Why, the deck of the _King Edward_ is the safest
place in the world; but it’s something to have had hold of a sea-serpent,
or a pirate! I hope you will forgive me for bringing you into such an
encounter; but if you hadn’t caught his cloak—”
Armitage was uncomfortable, and anxious to allay her fears. The incident
was by no means trivial, as he knew. Passengers on the great
transatlantic steamers are safeguarded by every possible means; and the
fact that he had been attacked in the few minutes that the deck lights
had been out of order pointed to an espionage that was both close and
daring. He was greatly surprised and more shaken than he wished Shirley
to believe. The thing was disquieting enough, and it could not but
impress her strangely that he, of all the persons on board, should have
been the object of so unusual an assault. He was in the disagreeable
plight of having subjected her to danger, and as they entered the
brilliant saloon he freed himself of the ulster with its telltale gash
and sought to minimize her impression of the incident.
Shirley did not refer to the matter again, but resolved to keep her own
counsel. She felt that any one who would accept the one chance in a
thousand of striking down an enemy on a steamer deck must be animated by
very bitter hatred. She knew that to speak of the affair to her father or
brother would be to alarm them and prejudice them against John Armitage,
about whom her brother, at least, had entertained doubts. And it is not
reassuring as to a man of whom little or nothing is known that he is
menaced by secret enemies.
The attack had found Armitage unprepared and off guard, but with swift
reaction his wits were at work. He at once sought the purser and
scrutinized every name on the passenger list. It was unlikely that a
steerage passenger could reach the saloon deck unobserved; a second cabin
passenger might do so, however, and he sought among the names in the
second cabin list for a clue. He did not believe that Chauvenet or Durand
had boarded the _King Edward_. He himself had made the boat only by a
quick dash, and he had left those two gentlemen at Geneva with much to
consider.
It was, however, quite within the probabilities that they would send some
one to watch him, for the two men whom he had overheard in the dark house
on the Boulevard Froissart were active and resourceful rascals, he had no
doubt. Whether they would be able to make anything of the cigarette case
he had stupidly left behind he could not conjecture; but the importance
of recovering the packet he had cut from Chauvenet’s coat was not a
trifle that rogues of their caliber would ignore. There was, the purser
said, a sick man in the second cabin, who had kept close to his berth.
The steward believed the man to be a continental of some sort, who spoke
bad German. He had taken the boat at Liverpool, paid for his passage in
gold, and, complaining of illness, retired, evidently for the voyage. His
name was Peter Ludovic, and the steward described him in detail.
“Big fellow; bullet head; bristling mustache; small eyes—”
“That will do,” said Armitage, grinning at the ease with which he
identified the man.
“You understand that it is wholly irregular for us to let such a matter
pass without acting—” said the purser.
“It would serve no purpose, and might do harm. I will take the
responsibility.”
And John Armitage made a memorandum in his notebook:
“_Zmai_—; _travels as Peter Ludovic_.”
Armitage carried the envelope which he had cut from Chauvenet’s coat
pinned into an inner pocket of his waistcoat, and since boarding the
_King Edward _he had examined it twice daily to see that it was intact.
The three red wax seals were in blank, replacing those of like size that
had originally been affixed to the envelope; and at once after the attack
on the dark deck he opened the packet and examined the papers—some
half-dozen sheets of thin linen, written in a clerk’s clear hand in
black ink. There had been no mistake in the matter; the packet which
Chauvenet had purloined from the old prime minister at Vienna had come
again into Armitage’s hands. He was daily tempted to destroy it and
cast it in bits to the sea winds; but he was deterred by the remembrance
of his last interview with the old prime minister.
“Do something for Austria—something for the Empire.” These phrases
repeated themselves over and over again in his mind until they rose and
fell with the cadence of the high, wavering voice of the Cardinal
Archbishop of Vienna as he chanted the mass of requiem for Count
Ferdinand von Stroebel.