Unaccountably enough in his esteem, and more and more to Lanyard's
exasperation, the evil flavour of that overnight incident lasted; it
tinctured distastefully his first waking thoughts; and through all that
fourth day at sea his mood was dark with irrational depression.
And the fifth day and the sixth were like unto the fourth.
Constantly he caught himself on watch for the young woman, wondering how
she would comport herself toward him, unwilling witness though he had been
to that shabby scene.
But, save distantly at meal times, he saw nothing of her.
And though he knew that she was much on deck after midnight, he was
studious to keep out of her way. The tedium of stopping in a stuffy
stateroom, when the spell of restlessness was on him, waiting for the
sounds of his neighbour's return before he might venture forth, was
nothing; anything were preferable to figuring as the innocent bystander at
another encounter between the Brooke girl and her reluctant lover....
Then that happened which lent the business another complexion altogether.
Its second phase, of close development, drew toward an end. Subtle
underlying forces began to stir in their portentous latency.
The rapiers which thus far had merely touched, shivering lightly against
each other, measuring each its opponent's strength, feeling out his skill,
fell apart, then re-engaged in sharp and deadly play. Steel met steel and,
clashing, struck off sparks whose fugitive glimmerings lightened measurably
the murk....
On the sixth night out, at eleven o'clock as a matter of routine, the
smoking room was closed for the night, terminating an uncommonly protracted
and, in Lanyard's esteem, irksome sitting at cards. Well tired, he went
immediately to his quarters, undressed, stretched out in his berth, and
switched off the light.
Incontinently he found himself bedevilled by thoughts that would not rest.
For upward of an hour he lay moveless, seeking oblivion in that very effort
to preserve immobility, while the _Assyrian_, lunging heavily on her way,
moaned and muttered tedious accompaniment to the chant of the working
engines.
Despairing at length, and fretted by the closeness of his quarters, he got
up, dressed sketchily, and was shrugging into his fur-lined coat when he
heard the door to the adjoining stateroom open and close, stealth in the
sound of it.
At that he hung up his overcoat, and threw himself down with a book on the
lounge seat beneath the port. The novel was dull enough in all conscience;
for that matter no tale within the compass of the cunningest weaver of
words could have enthralled his temper at that time.
He read and read again page after page, but without intelligence.
Between his eyes and the type-blackened paper mirages of the past trembled
and wavered; old faces, old scenes, old illusions took unsubstantial form,
dissolved, blended, faded away: a saddening show of shadows.
His heavy eyelids drooped; slumber's drowsy vestments trailed lazily
athwart the sea of consciousness....
A slight noise startled him, either the shutting of the door to Stateroom
27, or the sound of the book dropping from his relaxed grasp. He sat up and
consulted his watch. The hour was half after twelve.
The ship's bell sounded remotely a single, doleful stroke.
He might have dozed five minutes or fifteen--long enough at least to leave
its tantalising effect of sleep desperately desirable, mockingly elusive,
almost grasped, whisked beyond grasping. And with this he was aware of
something even less tangible, a sense of something amiss, of something
vaguely wrong, as of an evil spirit stalking furtively through the darkened
labyrinth of the ship ... as impalpable and ineluctable as miasmic
exhalations of a morass....
Lanyard passed a hand across his forehead. Had he been dreaming, then? Was
this merely the reaction from some bitter nightmare? He could not remember.
On sheer impulse he stood up, extinguished the light, opened the door. As
he did this he noted that a light burned in Stateroom 27, visible through
the ventilating grille. So the girl must have returned while he slept. Or
had she neglected to turn the switch when she went out? He could not be
certain.
On the threshold he paused a little, attentive to the familiar rumour of
the ship by night: the prolonged sloughing of riven waters down the side,
gnashing of swells hurled back by the bows, sibilance of draughts in
alleyways, groaning of frames, a thin metallic rattle of indeterminate
origin, the crunching grind of the steering gear, the everlasting
deep-throated diapason of the engines, somewhere aft in that tier of
staterooms a persistent human snore ... nothing unusual, no alarming
discordance....
Yet the feeling that mischief was afoot would not be still.
Lanyard moved down to the junction of the thwartship passage with the
fore-and-aft alleyway.
Here he commanded a view of the promenade-deck landing and the main
companionway, all in darkness but for a feeble glimmer of reflected
starlight through the open deck port on the far side of the vessel. Beyond
this the rail was stencilled against the dull face of the sea with its far
lifting and falling horizon; within, no more was visible than the dimmed
whiteness of the forward partition, the dense, indefinite mass of balusters
winding up to the boat-deck, and the flat plane of the tiled landing.
On this last, near the mouth of the port alleyway, half obscured by the
intervening balusters, something moved, something huge, black, and formless
swayed and writhed strangely, and in the strangest silence, like a dumb,
tormented misshapen brute transfixed to one spot from which its most
anguished efforts might not avail to budge it.
Lanyard ran forward, rounded the well of the companionway, and pulled up.
Now the nature of the thing was revealed. Blackly silhouetted against the
square of the doorway two human figures were close-locked and struggling
desperately, straining, resisting, thrusting, giving, recovering ... and
all with never a sound more than the deadened thump of a shifting foot or
the rasp of hard-won breathing.
For several seconds the spectator could not distinguish one contestant from
the other. Then a change in the fortunes of war enabled him to make out
that one was a woman, the other, and momentarily more successful, a man.
Slender and youthful and strong, she fought with the indomitable fury of
a pantheress. He on his part had won this much temporary advantage--had
broken the woman's clutch upon his throat and was bending her back over
his hip, one hand fumbling at her windpipe, the other imprisoning her two
wrists.
Yet she was far from being vanquished. Even as Lanyard moved toward the
pair, she drove a savage knee into the man's middle and, as he checked
instantaneously with a grunt of pained surprise, regained her footing and
planted both elbows against his chest, striving frantically to free her
hands.
Simultaneously Lanyard took the fellow from behind, wound an arm around his
neck, jerked his head sharply back, twisted his forearm till he released
the woman's wrists, and threw him with a force that must have jarred his
every bone.
The woman staggered back against the partition, panting and sobbing beneath
her breath. The man rebounded from his fall with astonishing agility, and
flew back at Lanyard. An object in his right hand gave off the dull gleam
of polished steel.
Lanyard, his automatic in his stateroom, in the pocket of the overcoat
where he had deposited it when meaning to go out on deck, lacked any means
of defense other than his two hands; but his one-time fame as an amateur
pugilist had been second only to his fame as a connaisseur d'art; and to
one whose youth had been passed in association with the Apaches of Paris,
some mastery of la savate was an inevitable accomplishment.
A lightning coup de pied planted a heel against one of the man's shins,
and his onslaught faltered in a gust of curses. Then the point of his jaw
received the full force of Lanyard's right fist with all the ill will
imaginable behind it. The man reared back, reeled into the black mouth of
the alleyway, fell heavily.
Even so, he demonstrated extraordinary vitality and appetite for
punishment. He had no more gone down than the adventurer, peering into the
gloom, saw him struggle up on his knees. Instantly Lanyard made toward
him, intent on finishing this work so well begun, but in his second stride
tripped over a heavy body hidden in the shadows, and pitched headlong.
Falling, he was conscious of a flashing thing that sped past his cheek,
immediately above his shoulder. There followed an echoing thud against the
forward partition.
Picking himself up smartly, Lanyard crept several paces down the alleyway,
flattening against the wall, straining his vision, listening intently,
rewarded by neither sign nor sound of his antagonist.
That one must have been swift to advantage himself of Lanyard's tumble.
If he had not vanished into thin air, or gone to earth in some untenanted
stateroom thereabouts, he found in the close blackness of that narrow
passage a cloak of positive invisibility to cover his escape.
And there is little wisdom in stalking an armed man whom one cannot see,
with what little light there is at one's own back.
So Lanyard went back to the landing, stepping carefully over the obstacle
which had both thrown him and saved his life--the supine body of a third
man, motionless; whether dead or merely insensible, he did not stop to
investigate. His immediate concern was for the woman.
As he came upon her now, she stood en profile to the partition, tugging
strongly at something embedded in the woodwork close by her side, between
her waist and armpit. At the sound of his approach she looked up with a
tremor of apprehension quickly calmed.
"Monsieur Duchemin! If you please--"
Lanyard, in no way surprised to recognise the voice of Miss Cecelia Brooke,
stepped closer. "What is it?" he enquired; and then, bending over to look,
found that her cloak was pinned to the partition by the blade of a heavy
knife buried a full half of its considerable length.
"He threw it as you fell," the girl explained. "I was in the direct line."
"Permit me, mademoiselle...."
He laid hold of the haft of the weapon and with some difficulty withdrew
it.
"Who was it?" he asked, weighing the knife in his palm and examining it as
closely as he could without the aid of light.
There was no reply. Directly her cloak was freed, the girl had moved
hastily away to the body over which Lanyard had stumbled. He heard an
imploring whisper--"Please!"--and looked up to see her on her knees.
"Who, then, is this?" he demanded, joining her.
"Lionel--Lieutenant Thackeray. Please--O please!--tell me he is not dead."
Her voice broke; he saw her slender body convulsed with racking emotions.
Kneeling, Lanyard made a hasty and superficial examination, necessarily no
more under the conditions.
"His heart beats," he announced--"he breathes. I do not think him seriously
injured." He made as if to get up. "I will get a light--a flash-lamp from
my stateroom--or, better still, the ship's surgeon--"
Her hand fell upon his arm. "Please, no! Not that--not now. Later, if
necessary; but now--surely, you can help me carry him to his stateroom."
"You know the number?"
"It's close by--30."
"Find it, and light up. No--leave this to me; I can carry him without
assistance."
The girl rose and disappeared. Lanyard passed his arms beneath the
Englishman's body, gathered him into them, and struggled to his feet: no
inconsiderable task.
Light gushed from an open doorway, the third aft from the landing.
Staggering, the adventurer entered and deposited the body upon the berth.
Immediately the girl closed and bolted the door, then passed between him
and the berth to bend over the unconscious man. He lay in deep coma, limbs
a-sprawl, unpleasant glints of white between his half-closed eyelids, his
breathing stertorous through parted lips. Free of its sling, his wounded
arm dangled over the edge of the berth. In putting him down, Lanyard had
remarked that its sleeve had been slit to the shoulder, and that its
bandages were undone. Now, in amazement, he saw the arm was firm and
muscular, with an unbroken skin, never a sign of any injury in all its
length.
Gently the girl lifted the lieutenant's head to the light, discovering a
hideously bruised swelling at the base of the skull, blood darkly matting
the close-clipped hair.