Such exertion, however, was not required of him. Evidently Mrs. Hallam

was in no great haste to reach her destination; the speed of the fiacre

remained extremely moderate; Kirkwood found a long, brisk stride fast

enough to keep it well in sight.

Round the green square, under the beautiful walls of Notre Dame

d’Anvers, through Grande Place and past the Hôtel de Ville, the cab

proceeded, dogged by what might plausibly be asserted the most

persistent and infatuated soul that ever crossed the water; and so on

into the Quai Van Dyck, turning to the left at the old Steen dungeon

and, slowing to a walk, moving soberly up the drive.

Beyond the lip of the embankment, the Scheldt flowed, its broad shining

surface oily, smooth and dark, a mirror for the incandescent glory of

the skies. Over on the western bank old Tête de Flandre lifted up its

grim curtains and bastions, sable against the crimson, rampart and

parapet edged with fire. Busy little side-wheeled ferry steamers

spanked the waters noisily and smudged the sunset with dark drifting

trails of smoke; and ever and anon a rowboat would slip out of shadow

to glide languidly with the current. Otherwise the life of the river

was gone; and at their moorings the ships swung in great quietness,

riding lights glimmering like low wan stars.

In the company of the latter the young man marked down the _Alethea_; a

sight which made him unconsciously clench both fists and teeth,

reminding him of that rare wag, Stryker....

To his way of thinking the behavior of the fiacre was quite

unaccountable. Hardly had the horse paced off the length of two blocks

on the Quai ere it was guided to the edge of the promenade and brought

to a stop. And the driver twisted the reins round his whip, thrust the

latter in its socket, turned sidewise on the box, and began to smoke

and swing his heels, surveying the panorama of river and sunset with

complacency—a cabby, one would venture, without a care in the world and

serene in the assurance of a generous _pour-boire_ when he lost his

fare. But as for the latter, she made no move; the door of the cab

remained closed,—like its occupant’s mind, a mystery to the watcher.

Twilight shadows lengthened, darkling, over the land; street-lights

flashed up in long, radiant ranks. Across the promenade hotels and

shops were lighted up; people began to gather round the tables beneath

the awnings of an open-air café. In the distance, somewhere, a band

swung into the dreamy rhythm of a haunting waltz. Scattered couples

moved slowly, arm in arm, along the riverside walk, drinking in the

fragrance of the night. Overhead stars popped out in brilliance and

dropped their reflections to swim lazily on spellbound waters.... And

still the fiacre lingered in inaction, still the driver lorded it

aloft, in care-free abandon.

In the course of time this inertia, where he had looked for action,

this dull suspense when he had forecast interesting developments, wore

upon the watcher’s nerves and made him at once impatient and

suspicious. Now that he had begun to doubt, he conceived it as quite

possible that Mrs. Hallam (who was capable of anything) should have

stolen out of the cab by the other and, to him, invisible door. To

resolve the matter, finally, he took advantage of the darkness, turned

up his coat collar, hunched up his shoulders, hid his hands in pockets,

pulled the visor of his cap well forward over his eyes, and slouched

past the fiacre.

Mrs. Hallam sat within. He could see her profile clearly silhouetted

against the light; she was bending forward and staring fixedly out of

the window, across the driveway. Mentally he calculated the direction

of her gaze, then, moved away and followed it with his own eyes; and

found himself staring at the façade of a third-rate hotel. Above its

roof the gilded letters of a sign, catching the illumination from

below, spelled out the title of “Hôtel du Commerce.”

Mrs. Hallam was interested in the Hôtel du Commerce?

Thoughtfully Kirkwood fell back to his former point of observation, now

the richer by another object of suspicion, the hostelry. Mrs. Hallam

was waiting and watching for some one to enter or to leave that

establishment. It seemed a reasonable inference to draw. Well, then, so

was Kirkwood, no less than the lady; he deemed it quite conceivable

that their objects were identical.

He started to beguile the time by wondering what she would do, if...

Of a sudden he abandoned this line of speculation, and catching his

breath, held it, almost afraid to credit the truth that for once his

anticipations were being realized under his very eyes.

Against the lighted doorway of the Hôtel du Commerce, the figures of

two men were momentarily sketched, as they came hurriedly forth; and of

the two, one was short and stout, and even at a distance seemed to bear

himself with an accent of assertiveness, while the other was tall and

heavy of shoulder.

Side by side they marched in step across the embankment to the head of

the Quai gangway, descending without pause to the landing-stage.

Kirkwood, hanging breathlessly over the guard-rail, could hear their

footfalls ringing in hollow rhythm on the planks of the inclined

way,—could even discern Calendar’s unlovely profile in dim relief

beneath one of the waterside lights; and he recognized unmistakably

Mulready’s deep voice, grumbling inarticulately.

At the outset he had set after them, with intent to accost Calendar;

but their pace had been swift and his irresolute. He hung fire on the

issue, dreading to reveal himself, unable to decide which were the

better course, to pursue the men, or to wait and discover what Mrs.

Hallam was about. In the end he waited; and had his disappointment for

recompense.

For Mrs. Hallam did nothing intelligible. Had she driven over to the

hotel, hard upon the departure of the men, he would have believed that

she was seeking Dorothy, and would, furthermore, have elected to crowd

their interview, if she succeeded in obtaining one with the girl. But

she did nothing of the sort. For a time the fiacre remained as it had

been ever since stopping; then, evidently admonished by his fare, the

driver straightened up, knocked out his pipe, disentangled reins and

whip, and wheeled the equipage back on the way it had come,

disappearing in a dark side street leading eastward from the

embankment.

Kirkwood was, then, to believe that Mrs. Hallam, having taken all that

trouble and having waited for the two adventurers to appear, had been

content with sight of them? He could hardly believe that of the woman;

it wasn’t like her.

He started across the driveway, after the fiacre, but it was lost in a

tangle of side streets before he could make up his mind whether it was

worth while chasing or not; and, pondering the woman’s singular action,

he retraced his steps to the promenade rail.

Presently he told himself he understood. Dorothy was no longer of her

father’s party; he had a suspicion that Mulready’s attitude had made it

seem advisable to Calendar either to leave the girl behind, in England,

or to segregate her from his associates in Antwerp. If not lodged in

another quarter of the city, or left behind, she was probably traveling

on ahead, to a destination which he could by no means guess. And Mrs.

Hallam was looking for the girl; if there were really jewels in that

gladstone bag, Calendar would naturally have had no hesitation about

intrusting them to his daughter’s care; and Mrs. Hallam avowedly sought

nothing else. How the woman had found out that such was the case,

Kirkwood did not stop to reckon; unless he explained it on the

proposition that she was a person of remarkable address. It made no

matter, one way or the other; he had lost Mrs. Hallam; but Calendar and

Mulready he could put his finger on; they had undoubtedly gone off to

the _Alethea_ to confer again with Stryker,—that was, unless they

proposed sailing on the brigantine, possibly at turn of tide that

night.

Panic gripped his soul and shook it, as a terrier shakes a rat, when he

conceived this frightful proposition.

In his confusion of mind he evolved spontaneously an entirely new

hypothesis: Dorothy had already been spirited aboard the vessel;

Calendar and his confederate, delaying to join her from enigmatic

motives, were now aboard; and presently the word would be, Up-anchor

and away!

Were they again to elude him? Not, he swore, if he had to swim for it.

And he had no wish to swim. The clothes he stood in, with what was left

of his self-respect, were all that he could call his own on that side

of the North Sea. Not a boatman on the Scheldt would so much as

consider accepting three English pennies in exchange for boat-hire. In

brief, it began to look as if he were either to swim or ... to steal a

boat.

Upon such slender threads of circumstance depends our boasted moral

health. In one fleeting minute Kirkwood’s conception of the law of

_meum et tuum_, its foundations already insidiously undermined by a

series of cumulative misfortunes, toppled crashing to its fall; and was

not.

He was wholly unconscious of the change. Beneath him, in a space

between the quays bridged by the gangway, a number of rowboats, a

putative score, lay moored for the night and gently rubbing against

each other with the soundless lift and fall of the river. For all that

Kirkwood could determine to the contrary, the lot lay at the mercy of

the public; nowhere about was he able to discern a figure in anything

resembling a watchman.

Without a quiver of hesitation—moments were invaluable, if what he

feared were true—he strode to the gangway, passed down, and with

absolute nonchalance dropped into the nearest boat, stepping from one

to another until he had gained the outermost. To his joy he found a

pair of oars stowed beneath the thwarts.

If he had paused to moralize—which he didn’t—upon the discovery, he

would have laid it all at the door of his lucky star; and would have

been wrong. We who have never stooped to petty larceny know that the

oars had been placed there at the direction of his evil genius bent

upon facilitating his descent into the avernus of crime. Let us, then,

pity the poor young man without condoning his offense.

Unhitching the painter he set one oar against the gunwale of the next

boat, and with a powerful thrust sent his own (let us so call it for

convenience) stern-first out upon the river; then sat him composedly

down, fitted the oars to their locks, and began to pull straight

across-stream, trusting to the current to carry him down to the

_Alethea_. He had already marked down that vessel’s riding-light; and

that not without a glow of gratitude to see it still aloft and in

proper juxtaposition to the river-bank; proof that it had not moved.

He pulled a good oar, reckoned his distance prettily, and shipping the

blades at just the right moment, brought the little boat in under the

brigantine’s counter with scarce a jar. An element of surprise he held

essential to the success of his plan, whatever that might turn out to

be.

Standing up, he caught the brigantine’s after-rail with both hands, one

of which held the painter of the purloined boat, and lifted his head

above the deck line. A short survey of the deserted after-deck gave him

further assurance. The anchor-watch was not in sight; he may have been

keeping well forward by Stryker’s instructions, or he may have crept

off for forty winks. Whatever the reason for his absence from the post

of duty, Kirkwood was relieved not to have him to deal with; and

drawing himself gently in over the rail, made the painter fast, and

stepped noiselessly over toward the lighted oblong of the companionway.

A murmur of voices from below comforted him with the knowledge that he

had not miscalculated, this time; at last he stood within striking

distance of his quarry.

The syllables of his surname ringing clearly in his ears and followed

by Stryker’s fleeting laugh, brought him to a pause. He flushed hotly

in the darkness; the captain was retailing with relish some of his most

successful witticisms at Kirkwood’s expense.... “You’d ought to’ve seed

the wye’e looked at me!” concluded the _raconteur_ in a gale of mirth.

Mulready laughed with him, if a little uncertainly. Calendar’s chuckle

was not audible, but he broke the pause that followed.

“I don’t know,” he said with doubting emphasis. “You say you landed him

without a penny in his pocket? I don’t call that a good plan at all. Of

course, he ain’t a factor, but ... Well, it might’ve been as well to

give him his fare home. He might make trouble for us, somehow.... I

don’t mind telling you, Cap’n, that you’re an ass.”

The tensity of certain situations numbs the sensibilities. Kirkwood had

never in his weirdest dreams thought of himself as an eavesdropper; he

did not think of himself as such in the present instance; he merely

listened, edging nearer the skylight, of which the wings were slightly

raised, and keeping as far as possible in shadow.

“Ow, I sye!” the captain was remonstrating, aggrieved. “’Ow was I to

know ’e didn’t ’ave it in for you? First off, when ’e comes on board

(I’ll sye this for ’im, ’e’s as plucky as they myke ’em), I thought ’e

was from the Yard. Then, when I see wot a bally hinnocent ’e was, I

mykes up my mind ’e’s just some one you’ve been ply in’ one of your

little gymes on, and ’oo was lookin’ to square ’is account. So I did

’im proper.”

“Evidently,” assented Calendar dryly. “You’re a bit of a heavy-handed

brute, Stryker. Personally I’m kind of sorry for the boy; he wasn’t a

bad sort, as his kind runs, and he was no fool, from what little I saw

of him.... I wonder what he wanted.”

“Possibly,” Mulready chimed in suavely, “you can explain what you

wanted of him, in the first place. How did you come to drag him into

_this_ business?”

“Oh, that!” Calendar laughed shortly. “That was partly accident, partly

inspiration. I happened to see his name on the Pless register; he’d put

himself down as from ’Frisco. I figured it out that he would be next

door to broke and getting desperate, ready to do anything to get home;

and thought we might utilize him; to smuggle some of the stuff into the

States. Once before, if you’ll remember—no; that was before we got

together, Mulready—I picked up a fellow-countryman on the Strand. He

was down and out, jumped at the job, and we made a neat little wad on

it.”

“The more fool you, to take outsiders into your confidence,” grumbled

Mulready.

“Ow?” interrogated Calendar, mimicking Stryker’s accent inimitably.

“Well, you’ve got a heap to learn about this game, Mul; about the first

thing is that you must trust Old Man Know-it-all, which is me. I’ve run

more diamonds into the States, in one way or another, in my time, than

you ever pinched out of the shirt-front of a toff on the Empire Prom.,

before they made the graft too hot for you and you came to take lessons

from me in the gentle art of living easy.”

“Oh, cut that, cawn’t you?”

“Delighted, dear boy.... One of the first principles, next to profiting

by the admirable example I set you, is to make the fellows in your own

line trust you. Now, if this boy had taken on with me, I could have got

a bunch of the sparklers on my mere say-so, from old Morganthau up on

Finsbury Pavement. He does a steady business hoodwinking the Customs

for the benefit of his American clients—and himself. And I’d’ve made a

neat little profit besides: something to fall back on, if this fell

through. I don’t mind having two strings to my bow.”

“Yes,” argued Mulready; “but suppose this Kirkwood had taken on with

you and then peached?”

“That’s another secret; you’ve got to know your man, be able to size

him up. I called on this chap for that very purpose; but I saw at a

glance he wasn’t our man. He smelt a nigger in the woodpile and most

politely told me to go to the devil. But if he _had_ come in, he’d’ve

died before he squealed. I know the breed; there’s honor among

gentlemen that knocks the honor of thieves higher’n a kite, the old saw

to the contrary—nothing doing.... You understand me, I’m sure,

Mulready?” he concluded with envenomed sweetness.

“I don’t see yet how Kirkwood got anything to do with Dorothy.”

“Miss Calendar to you, _Mister_ Mulready!” snapped Calendar. “There,

there, now! Don’t get excited.... It was when the Hallam passed me word

that a man from the Yard was waiting on the altar steps for me, that

Kirkwood came in. He was dining close by; I went over and worked on his

feelings until he agreed to take Dorothy off my hands. If I had

attempted to leave the place with her, they’d’ve spotted me for

sure.... My compliments to you, Dick Mulready.”

There came the noise of chair legs scraped harshly on the cabin deck.

Apparently Mulready had leaped to his feet in a rage.

“I’ve told you—” he began in a voice thick with passion.

“Oh, sit down!” Calendar cut in contemptuously. “Sit down, d’you hear?

That’s all over and done with. We understand each other now, and you

won’t try any more monkey-shines. It’s a square deal and a square

divide, so far’s I’m concerned; if we stick together there’ll be profit

enough for all concerned. Sit down, Mul, and have another slug of the

captain’s bum rum.”

Although Mulready consented to be pacified, Kirkwood got the impression

that the man was far gone in drink. A moment later he heard him growl

“Chin-chin!” antiphonal to the captain’s “Cheer-o!”

“Now, then,” Calendar proposed, “Mr. Kirkwood aside—peace be with

him!—let’s get down to cases.”

“Wot’s the row?” asked the captain.

“The row, Cap’n, is the Hallam female, who has unexpectedly shown up in

Antwerp, we have reason to believe with malicious intent and a private

detective to add to the gaiety of nations.”

“Wot’s the odds? She carn’t ’urt us without lyin’ up trouble for

’erself.”

“Damn little consolation to us when we’re working it out in Dartmoor.”

“Speak for yourself,” grunted Mulready surlily.

“I do,” returned Calendar easily; “we’re both in the shadow of

Dartmoor, Mul, my boy; since you choose to take the reference as

personal. Sing Sing, however, yawns for me alone; it’s going to keep on

yawning, too, unless I miss my guess. I love my native land most to

death, _but_ ...”

“Ow, blow that!” interrupted the captain irritably. “Let’s ’ear about

the ’Allam. Wot’re you afryd of?”

“’Fraid she’ll set up a yell when she finds out we’re planting the

loot, Cap’n. She’s just that vindictive; you’d think she’d be satisfied

with her end of the stick, but you don’t know the Hallam. That

milk-and-water offspring of hers is the apple of her eye, and Freddie’s

going to collar the whole shooting-match or madam will kick over the

traces.”

“Well?”

“Well, she’s queered us here. We can’t do anything if my lady is going

to camp on our trail and tell everybody we’re shady customers, can we?

The question now before the board is: Where now,—and how?”

“Amsterdam,” Mulready chimed in. “I told you that in the beginning.”

“But how?” argued Calendar. “The Lord knows I’m willing but ... we

can’t go by rail, thanks to the Hallam. We’ve got to lose her first of

all.”

“But wot I’m arskin’ is, wot’s the matter with—”

“The _Alethea_, Cap’n? Nothing, so far as Dick and I are concerned. But

my dutiful daughter is prejudiced; she’s been so long without proper

paternal discipline,” Calendar laughed, “that she’s rather

high-spirited. Of course I might overcome her objections, but the

girl’s no fool, and every ounce of pressure I bring to bear just now

only helps make her more restless and suspicious.”

“You leave her to me,” Mulready interposed, with a brutal laugh. “I’ll

guarantee to get her aboard, or...”

“Drop it, Dick!” Calendar advised quietly. “And go a bit easy with that

bottle for five minutes, can’t you?”

“Well, then,” Stryker resumed, apparently concurring in Calendar’s

attitude, “w’y don’t one of you tyke the stuff, go off quiet and

dispose of it to a proper fence, and come back to divide. I don’t see

w’y that—”

“Naturally you wouldn’t,” chuckled Calendar. “Few people besides the

two of us understand the depth of affection existing between Dick,

here, and me. We just can’t bear to get out of sight of each other.

We’re sure inseparable—since night before last. Odd, isn’t it?”

“You drop it!” snarled Mulready, in accents so ugly that the listener

was startled. “Enough’s enough and—”

“There, there, Dick! All right; I’ll behave,” Calendar soothed him.

“We’ll forget and say no more about it.”

“Well, see you don’t.”

“But ’as either of you a plan?” persisted Stryker.

“I have,” replied Mulready; “and it’s the simplest and best, if you

could only make this long-lost parent here see it.”

“Wot is it?”

Mulready seemed to ignore Calendar and address himself to the captain.

He articulated with some difficulty, slurring his words to the point of

indistinctness at times.

“Simple enough,” he propounded solemnly. “We’ve got the gladstone bag

here; Miss Dolly’s at the hotel—that’s her papa’s bright notion; he

thinks she’s to be trusted ... Now then, what’s the matter with

weighing anchor and slipping quietly out to sea?”

“Leavin’ the dootiful darter?”

“Cert’n’y. She’s only a drag any way. ’Better off without her.... Then

we can wait our time and get highest market prices—”

“You forget, Dick,” Calendar put it, “that there’s a thousand in it for

each of us if she’s kept out of England for six weeks. A thousand’s

five thousand in the land I hail from; I can use five thousand in my

business.”

“Why can’t you be content with what you’ve got?” demanded Mulready

wrathfully.

“Because I’m a seventh son of a seventh son; I can see an inch or two

beyond my nose. If Dorothy ever finds her way back to England she’ll

spoil one of the finest fields of legitimate graft I ever licked my

lips to look at. The trouble with you, Mul, is you’re too high-toned.

You want to play the swell mobs-man from post to finish. A quick touch

and a clean getaway for yours. Now, that’s all right; that has its good

points, but you don’t want to underestimate the advantages of a good

blackmailing connection.... If I can keep Dorothy quiet long enough, I

look to the Hallam and precious Freddie to be a great comfort to me in

my old age.”

“Then, for God’s sake,” cried Mulready, “go to the hotel, get your brat

by the scruif of her pretty neck and drag her aboard. Let’s get out of

this.”

“I won’t,” returned Calendar inflexibly.

The dispute continued, but the listener had heard enough. He had to get

away and think, could no longer listen; indeed, the voices of the three

blackguards below came but indistinctly to his ears, as if from a

distance. He was sick at heart and ablaze with indignation by turns.

Unconsciously he was trembling violently in every limb; swept by

alternate waves of heat and cold, feverish one minute, shivering the

next. All of which phenomena were due solely to the rage that welled

inside his heart.

Stealthily he crept away to the rail, to stand grasping it and staring

across the water with unseeing eyes at the gay old city twinkling back

with her thousand eyes of light. The cool night breeze, sweeping down

unhindered over the level Netherlands from the bleak North Sea, was

comforting to his throbbing temples. By degrees his head cleared, his

rioting pulses subsided, he could think; and he did.

Over there, across the water, in the dingy and disreputable Hôtel du

Commerce, Dorothy waited in her room, doubtless the prey of unnumbered

nameless terrors, while aboard the brigantine her fate was being

decided by a council of three unspeakable scoundrels, one of whom,

professing himself her father, openly declared his intention of using

her to further his selfish and criminal ends.

His first and natural thought, to steal away to her and induce her to

accompany him back to England, Kirkwood perforce discarded. He could

have wept over the realization of his unqualified impotency. He had no

money,—not even cab-fare from the hotel to the railway station.

Something subtler, more crafty, had to be contrived to meet the

emergency. And there was one way, one only; he could see none other.

Temporarily he must make himself one of the company of her enemies,

force himself upon them, ingratiate himself into their good graces,

gain their confidence, then, when opportunity offered, betray them. And

the power to make them tolerate him, if not receive him as a fellow,

the knowledge of them and their plans that they had unwittingly given

him, was his.

And Dorothy, was waiting....

He swung round and without attempting to muffle his footfalls strode

toward the companionway. He must pretend he had just come aboard.

Subconsciously he had been aware, during his time of pondering, that

the voices in the cabin had been steadily gaining in volume, rising

louder and yet more loud, Mulready’s ominous, drink-blurred accents

dominating the others. There was a quarrel afoot; as soon as he gave it

heed, Kirkwood understood that Mulready, in the madness of his inflamed

brain, was forcing the issue while Calendar sought vainly to calm and

soothe him.

The American arrived at the head of the companionway at a critical

juncture. As he moved to descend some low, cool-toned retort of

Calendar’s seemed to enrage his confederate beyond reason. He yelped

aloud with wrath, sprang to his feet, knocking over a chair, and

leaping back toward the foot of the steps, flashed an adroit hand

behind him and found his revolver.

“I’ve stood enough from you!” he screamed, his voice oddly clear in

that moment of insanity. “You’ve played with me as long as you will,

you hulking American hog! And now I’m going to show—”

As he held his fire to permit his denunciation to bite home, Kirkwood,

appalled to find himself standing on the threshold of a tragedy,

gathered himself together and launched through the air, straight for

the madman’s shoulders.

As they went down together, sprawling, Mulready’s head struck against a

transom and the revolver fell from his limp fingers.

XIV

STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS

Prepared as he had been for the shock, Kirkwood was able to pick

himself up quickly, uninjured, Mulready’s revolver in his grasp.

On his feet, straddling Mulready’s insentient body, he confronted

Calendar and Stryker. The face of the latter was a sickly green, the

gift of his fright. The former seemed coldly composed, already

recovering from his surprise and bringing his wits to bear upon the new

factor which had been so unceremoniously injected into the situation.

[Illustration: Straddling Mulready’s body, he confronted Calendar and

Stryker.]

Standing, but leaning heavily upon a hand that rested flat on the

table, in the other he likewise held a revolver, which he had

apparently drawn in self-defense, at the crisis of Mulready’s frenzy.

Its muzzle was deflected. He looked Kirkwood over with a cool gray eye,

the color gradually returning to his fat, clean-shaven cheeks,

replacing the pardonable pallor which had momentarily rested thereon.

As for Kirkwood, he had covered the fat adventurer before he knew it.

Stryker, who had been standing immediately in the rear of Calendar,

immediately cowered and cringed to find himself in the line of fire.

Of the three conscious men in the brigantine’s cabin, Calendar was

probably the least confused or excited. Stryker was palpably unmanned.

Kirkwood was tingling with a sense of mastery, but collected and

rapidly revolving the combinations for the reversed conditions which

had been brought about by Mulready’s drunken folly. His elation was

apparent in his shining, boyish eyes, as well as in the bright color

that glowed in his cheeks. When he decided to speak it was with rapid

enunciation, but clearly and concisely.

“Calendar,” he began, “if a single shot is fired about this vessel the

river police will be buzzing round your ears in a brace of shakes.”

The fat adventurer nodded assent, his eyes contracting.

“Very well!” continued Kirkwood brusquely. “You must know that I have

personally nothing to fear from the police; if arrested, I wouldn’t be

detained a day. On the other hand, you ... Hand me that pistol,

Calendar, butt first, please. Look sharp, my man! If you don’t...”

He left the ellipsis to be filled in by the corpulent blackguard’s

intelligence. The latter, gray eyes still intent on the younger man’s

face, wavered, plainly impressed, but still wondering.

“Quick! I’m not patient to-night...”

No longer was Calendar of two minds. In the face of Kirkwood’s attitude

there was but one course to be followed: that of obedience. Calendar

surrendered an untenable position as gracefully as could be wished.

“I guess you know what you mean by this,” he said, tendering the weapon

as per instructions; “I’m doggoned if I do.... You’ll allow a certain

latitude in consideration of my relief; I can’t say we were

anticipating this—ah—Heaven-sent visitation.”

Accepting the revolver with his left hand and settling his forefinger

on the trigger, Kirkwood beamed with pure enjoyment. He found the

deference of the older man, tempered though it was by his indomitable

swagger, refreshing in the extreme.

“A little appreciation isn’t exactly out of place, come to think of

it,” he commented, adding, with an eye for the captain: “Stryker, you

bold, bad butterfly, have you got a gun concealed about your unclean

person?”

The captain shook visibly with contrition. “No, Mr. Kirkwood,” he

managed to reply in a voice singularly lacking in his wonted bluster.

“Say ‘sir’!” suggested Kirkwood.

“No, Mr. Kirkwood, sir,” amended Stryker eagerly.

“Now come round here and let’s have a look at you. Please stay where

you are, Calendar.... Why, Captain, you’re shivering from head to foot!

Not ill are you, you wag? Step over to the table there, Stryker, and

turn out your pockets; turn ’em inside out and let’s see what you carry

in the way of offensive artillery. And, Stryker, don’t be rash; don’t

do anything you’d be sorry for afterwards.”

“No fear of that,” mumbled the captain, meekly shambling toward the

table, and, in his anxiety to give no cause for unpleasantness,

beginning to empty his pockets on the way.

“Don’t forget the ‘sir,’ Stryker. And, Stryker, if you happen to think

of anything in the line of one of your merry quips or jests, don’t

strain yourself holding in; get it right off your chest, and you’ll

feel better.”

Kirkwood chuckled, in high conceit with himself, watching Calendar out

of the corner of his eye, but with his attention centered on the

infinitely diverting spectacle afforded by Stryker, whose predacious

hands were trembling violently as, one by one, they brought to light

the articles of which he had despoiled his erstwhile victim.

“Come, come, Stryker! Surely you can think of something witty, surely

you haven’t exhausted the possibilities of that almanac joke! Couldn’t

you ring another variation on the lunatic wheeze? Don’t hesitate out of

consideration for me, Captain; I’m joke proof—perhaps you’ve noticed?”

Stryker turned upon him an expression at once ludicrous, piteous and

hateful. “That’s all, sir,” he snarled, displaying his empty palms in

token of his absolute tractability.

“Good enough. Now right about face—quick! Your back’s prettier than

your face, and besides, I want to know whether your hip-pockets are

empty. I’ve heard it’s the habit of you gentry to pack guns in your

clothes.... None? That’s all right, then. Now roost on the transom,

over there in the corner, Stryker, and don’t move. Don’t let me hear a

word from you. Understand?”

Submissively the captain retired to the indicated spot. Kirkwood turned

to Calendar; of whose attitude, however, he had not been for an instant

unmindful.

“Won’t you sit down, Mr. Calendar?” he suggested pleasantly. “Forgive

me for keeping you waiting.”

For his own part, as the adventurer dropped passively into his chair,

Kirkwood stepped over Mulready and advanced to the middle of the cabin,

at the same time thrusting Calendar’s revolver into his own coat

pocket. The other, Mulready’s, he nursed significantly with both hands,

while he stood temporarily quiet, surveying the fleshy face of the

prime factor in the intrigue.

A quaint, grim smile played about the American’s lips, a smile a little

contemptuous, more than a little inscrutable. In its light Calendar

grew restive and lost something of his assurance. His feet shifted

uneasily beneath the table and his dark eyes wavered, evading

Kirkwood’s. At length he seemed to find the suspense unendurable.

“Well?” he demanded testily. “What d’you want of me?”

“I was just wondering at you, Calendar. In the last few days you’ve

given me enough cause to wonder, as you’ll admit.”

The adventurer plucked up spirit, deluded by Kirkwood’s pacific tone.

“I wonder at you, Mr. Kirkwood,” he retorted. “It was good of you to

save my life and—”

“I’m not so sure of that! Perhaps it had been more humane—”

Calendar owned the touch with a wry grimace. “But I’m damned if I

understand this high-handed attitude of yours!” he concluded heatedly.

“Don’t you?” Kirkwood’s humor became less apparent, the smile sobering.

“You will,” he told the man, adding abruptly: “Calendar, where’s your

daughter?”

The restless eyes sought the companionway.

“Dorothy,” the man lied spontaneously, without a tremor, “is with

friends in England. Why? Did you want to see her?”

“I rather expected to.”

“Well, I thought it best to leave her home, after all.”

“I’m glad to hear she’s in safe hands,” commented Kirkwood.

The adventurer’s glance analyzed his face. “Ah,” he said slowly, “I

see. You followed me on Dorothy’s account, Mr. Kirkwood?”

“Partly; partly on my own. Let me put it to you fairly. When you forced

yourself upon me, back there in London, you offered me some sort of

employment; when I rejected it, you used me to your advantage for the

furtherance of your purposes (which I confess I don’t understand), and

made me miss my steamer. Naturally, when I found myself penniless and

friendless in a strange country, I thought again of your offer; and

tried to find you, to accept it.”

“Despite the fact that you’re an honest man, Kirkwood?” The fat lips

twitched with premature enjoyment.

“I’m a desperate man to-night, whatever I may have been yesterday.” The

young man’s tone was both earnest and convincing. “I think I’ve shown

that by my pertinacity in hunting you down.”

“Well—yes.” Calendar’s thick fingers caressed his lips, trying to hide

the dawning smile.

“Is that offer still open?”

His nonchalance completely restored by the very naïveté of the

proposition, Calendar laughed openly and with a trace of irony. The

episode seemed to be turning out better than he had anticipated. Gently

his mottled fat fingers played about his mouth and chins as he looked

Kirkwood up and down.

“I’m sorry,” he replied, “that it isn’t—now. You’re too late, Kirkwood;

I’ve made other arrangements.”

“Too bad.” Kirkwood’s eyes narrowed. “You force me to harsher measures,

Calendar.”

Genuinely diverted, the adventurer laughed a second time, tipping back

in his chair, his huge frame shaking with ponderous enjoyment. “Don’t

do anything you’d be sorry for,” he parroted, sarcastical, the young

man’s recent admonition to the captain.

“No fear, Calendar. I’m just going to use my advantage, which you won’t

dispute,”—the pistol described an eloquent circle, gleaming in the

lamplight—“to levy on you a little legitimate blackmail. Don’t be

alarmed; I shan’t hit you any harder than I have to.”

“What?” stammered Calendar, astonished. “What in hell _are_ you driving

at?”

“Recompense for my time and trouble. You’ve cost me a pretty penny,

first and last, with your nasty little conspiracy—whatever it’s all

about. Now, needing the money, I purpose getting some of it back. I

shan’t precisely rob you, but this is a hold-up, all right....

Stryker,” reproachfully, “I don’t see my pearl pin.”

“I got it ’ere,” responded the sailor hastily, fumbling with his tie.

“Give it me, then.” Kirkwood held out his hand and received the

trinket. Then, moving over to the table, the young man, while abating

nothing of his watchfulness, sorted out his belongings from the mass of

odds and ends Stryker had disgorged. The tale of them was complete; the

captain had obeyed him faithfully. Kirkwood looked up, pleased.

“Now see here, Calendar; this collection of truck that I was robbed of

by this resurrected Joe Miller here, cost me upwards of a hundred and

fifty. I’m going to sell it to you at a bargain—say fifty dollars, two

hundred and fifty francs.”

“The juice you are!” Calendar’s eyes opened wide, partly in admiration.

“D’you realize that this is next door to highway robbery, my young

friend?”

“High-seas piracy, if you prefer,” assented Kirkwood with entire

equanimity. “I’m going to have the money, and you’re going to give it

up. The transaction by any name would smell no sweeter, Calendar.

Come—fork over!”

“And if I refuse?”

“I wouldn’t refuse, if I were you.”

“Why not?”

“The consequences would be too painful.”

“You mean you’d puncture me with that gun?”

“Not unless you attack or attempt to follow me. I mean to say that the

Belgian police are notoriously a most efficient body, and that I’ll

make it my duty and pleasure to introduce ’em to you, if you refuse.

But you won’t,” Kirkwood added soothingly, “will you, Calendar?”

“No.” The adventurer had become suddenly thoughtful. “No, I won’t.

’Glad to oblige you.”

He tilted his chair still farther back, straightening out his

elephantine legs, inserted one fat hand into his trouser pocket and

with some difficulty extracted a combined bill-fold and coin-purse, at

once heavy with gold and bulky with notes. Moistening thumb and

forefinger, “How’ll you have it?” he inquired with a lift of his

cunning eyes; and when Kirkwood had advised him, slowly counted out

four fifty-franc notes, placed them near the edge of the table, and

weighted them with five ten-franc pieces. And, “’That all?” he asked,

replacing the pocket-book.

“That will be about all. I leave you presently to your unholy devices,

you and that gay dog, over there.” The captain squirmed, reddening.

“Just by way of precaution, however, I’ll ask you to wait in here till

I’m off.” Kirkwood stepped backwards to the door of the captain’s room,

opened it and removed the key from the inside. “Please take Mulready in

with you,” he continued. “By the time you get out, I’ll be clear of

Antwerp. Please don’t think of refusing me,—I really mean it!”

The latter clause came sharply as Calendar seemed to hesitate, his

weary, wary eyes glimmering with doubt. Kirkwood, watching him as a cat

her prey, intercepted a lightning-swift sidelong glance that shifted

from his face to the port lockers, forward. But the fat adventurer was

evidently to a considerable degree deluded by the very child-like

simplicity of Kirkwood’s attitude. If the possibility that his

altercation with Mulready had been overheard, crossed his mind,

Calendar had little choice other than to accept the chance. Either way

he moved, the risk was great; if he refused to be locked in the

captain’s room, there was the danger of the police, to which Kirkwood

had convincingly drawn attention; if he accepted the temporary

imprisonment, he took a risk with the gladstone bag. On the other hand,

he had estimated Kirkwood’s honesty as thorough-going, from their first

interview; he had appraised him as a gentleman and a man of honor. And

he did not believe the young man knew, after all ... Perplexed, at

length he chose the smoother way, and with an indulgent lifting of

eyebrows and fat shoulders, rose and waddled over to Mulready.

“Oh, all right,” he conceded with deep toleration in his tone for the

idiosyncrasies of youth. “It’s all the same to me, beau.” He laughed a

nervous laugh. “Come along and lend us a hand, Stryker.”

The latter glanced timidly at Kirkwood, his eyes pleading for leave to

move; which Kirkwood accorded with an imperative nod and a fine

flourish of the revolver. Promptly the captain, sprang to Calendar’s

assistance; and between the two of them, the one taking Mulready’s

head, the other his feet, they lugged him quickly into the stuffy

little state-room. Kirkwood, watching and following to the threshold,

inserted the key.

“One word more,” he counseled, a hand on the knob. “Don’t forget I’ve

warned you what’ll happen if you try to break even with me.”

“Never fear, little one!” Calendar’s laugh was nervously cheerful. “The

Lord knows you’re welcome.”

“Thank you ’most to death,” responded Kirkwood politely. “Good-by—and

good-by to you, Stryker. ’Glad to have humored your desire to meet me

soon again.”

Kirkwood, turning the key in the lock, withdrew it and dropped it on

the cabin table; at the same time he swept into his pocket the money he

had extorted of Calendar. Then he paused an instant, listening; from

the captain’s room came a sound of murmurs and scuffling. He debated

what they were about in there—but time pressed. Not improbably they,

were crowding for place at the keyhole, he reflected, as he crossed to

the port locker forward.

He had its lid up in a twinkling, and in another had lifted out the

well-remembered black gladstone bag.

This seems to have been his first compound larceny.

As if stimulated by some such reflection he sprang for the

companionway, dropping the lid of the locker with a bang which must

have been excruciatingly edifying to the men in the captain’s room.

Whatever their emotions, the bang was mocked by a mighty kick, shaking

the door; which, Kirkwood reflected, opened outward and was held only

by the frailest kind of a lock: it would not hold long.

Spurred onward by a storm of curses, Stryker’s voice chanting

infuriated cacophony with Calendar’s, Kirkwood leapt up the

companionway even as the second tremendous kick threatened to shatter

the panels. Heart in mouth, a chill shiver of guilt running up and down

his spine, he gained the deck, cast loose the painter, drew in his

rowboat, and dropped over the side; then, the gladstone bag nestling

between his feet, sat down and bent to the oars.

And doubts assailed him, pressing close upon the ebb of his

excitement—doubts and fears innumerable.

There was no longer a distinction to be drawn between himself and

Calendar; no more could he esteem himself a better and more honest man

than that accomplished swindler. He was not advised as to the Belgian

code, but English law, he understood, made no allowance for the good

intent of those caught in possession of stolen property; though he was

acting with the most honorable motives in the world, the law, if he

came within its cognizance, would undoubtedly place him on Calendar’s

plane and judge him by the same standard. To all intents and purposes

he was a thief, and thief he would remain until the gladstone bag with

its contents should be restored to its rightful owner.

Voluntarily, then, he had stepped from the ranks of the hunters to

those of the hunted. He now feared police interference as abjectly as

did Calendar and his set of rogues; and Kirkwood felt wholly warranted

in assuming that the adventurer, with his keen intelligence, would not

handicap himself by ignoring this point. Indeed, if he were to be

judged by what Kirkwood had inferred of his character, Calendar would

let nothing whatever hinder him, neither fear of bodily hurt nor danger

of apprehension at the hands of the police, from making a determined

and savage play to regain possession of his booty.

Well! (Kirkwood set his mouth savagely) Calendar should have a run for

his money!

For the present he could compliment himself with the knowledge that he

had outwitted the rogues, had lifted the jewels and probably two-thirds

of their armament; he had also the start, the knowledge of their

criminal guilt and intent, and his own plans, to comfort him. As for

the latter, he did not believe that Calendar would immediately fathom

them; so he took heart of grace and tugged at the oars with a will,

pulling directly for the city and permitting the current to drift him

down-stream at its pleasure. There could be no more inexcusable folly

than to return to the _Quai Steen_ landing and (possibly) the arms of

the despoiled boat-owner.

At first he could hear crash after splintering crash sounding dully

muffled from the cabin of the _Alethea_: a veritable devil’s tattoo

beaten out by the feet of the prisoners. Evidently the fastening was

serving him better than he had dared hope. But as the black rushing

waters widened between boat and brigantine, the clamor aboard the

latter subsided, indicating that Calendar and Stryker had broken out or

been released by the crew. In ignorance as to whether he were seen or

being pursued, Kirkwood pulled on, winning in under the shadow of the

quais and permitting the boat to drift down to a lonely landing on the

edge of the dockyard quarter of Antwerp.

Here alighting, he made the boat fast and, soothing his conscience with

a surmise that its owner would find it there in the morning, strode

swiftly over to the train line that runs along the embankment, swung

aboard an adventitious car and broke his first ten-franc piece in order

to pay his fare.

The car made a leisurely progress up past the old Steen castle and the

Quai landing, Kirkwood sitting quietly, the gladstone bag under his

hand, a searching gaze sweeping the waterside. No sign of the

adventurers rewarded him, but it was now all chance, all hazard. He had

no more heart for confidence.

They passed the Hôtel du Commerce. Kirkwood stared up at its windows,

wondering....

A little farther on, a disengaged fiacre, its driver alert for possible

fares, turned a corner into the esplanade. At sight of it Kirkwood,

inspired, hopped nimbly off the tram-car and signaled the cabby. The

latter pulled up and Kirkwood started to charge him with instructions;

something which he did haltingly, hampered by a slight haziness of

purpose. While thus engaged, and at rest in the stark glare of the

street-lamps, with no chance of concealing himself, he was aware of a

rising tumult in the direction of the landing, and glancing round,

discovered a number of people running toward him. With no time to

wonder whether or no he was really the object of the hue-and-cry, he

tossed the driver three silver francs.

“Gare Centrale!” he cried. “And drive like the devil!”

Diving into the fiacre he shut the door and stuck his head out of the

window, taking observations. A ragged fringe of silly rabble was

bearing down upon them, with one or two gendarmes in the forefront, and

a giant, who might or might not be Stryker, a close second.

Furthermore, another cab seemed to have been requisitioned for the

chase. His heart misgave him momentarily; but his driver had taken him

at his word and generosity, and in a breath the fiacre had turned the

corner on two wheels, and the glittering reaches of the embankment,

drive and promenade, were blotted out, as if smudged with lamp-black,

by the obscurity of a narrow and tortuous side street.

He drew in his head the better to preserve his brains against further

emergencies.

After a block or two Kirkwood picked up the gladstone bag, gently

opened the door, and put a foot on the step, pausing to look back. The

other cab was pelting after him with all the enthusiasm of a hound on a

fresh trail. He reflected that this mad progress through the

thoroughfares of a civilized city would not long endure without police

intervention. So he waited, watching his opportunity. The fiacre

hurtled onward, the driver leaning forward from his box to urge the

horse with lash of whip and tongue, entirely unconscious of his fare’s

intentions.

Between two streets the mouth of a narrow and darksome byway flashed

into view. Kirkwood threw wide the door, and leaped, trusting to the

night to hide his stratagem, to luck to save his limbs. Neither failed

him; in a twinkling he was on all fours in the mouth of the alley, and

as he picked himself up, the second fiacre passed, Calendar himself

poking a round bald poll out of the window to incite his driver’s

cupidity with promises of redoubled fare.

Kirkwood mopped his dripping forehead and whistled low with dismay; it

seemed that from that instant on it was to be a vendetta with a

vengeance. Calendar, as he had foreseen, was stopping at nothing.

At a dog trot he sped down the alley to the next street, on which he

turned back—more sedately—toward the river, debouching on the esplanade

just one block from the Hôtel du Commerce. As he swung past the serried

tables of a café, whatever fears he had harbored were banished by the

discovery that the excitement occasioned by the chase had already

subsided. Beneath the garish awnings the crowd was laughing and

chattering, eating and sipping its bock with complete unconcern,

heedless altogether of the haggard and shabby young man carrying a

black hand-bag, with the black Shade of Care for company and a blacker

threat of disaster dogging his footsteps. Without attracting any

attention whatever, indeed, he mingled with the strolling crowds,

making his way toward the Hôtel du Commerce. Yet he was not at all at

ease; his uneasy conscience invested the gladstone bag with a magnetic

attraction for the public eye. To carry it unconcealed in his hand

furnished him with a sensation as disturbing as though its worn black

sides had been stenciled STOLEN! in letters of flame. He felt it

rendered him a cynosure of public interest, an object of suspicion to

the wide cold world, that the gaze which lit upon the bag traveled to

his face only to espy thereon the brand of guilt.

For ease of mind, presently, he turned into a convenient shop and spent

ten invaluable francs for a hand satchel big enough to hold the

gladstone bag.

With more courage, now that he had the hateful thing under cover, he

found and entered the Hôtel du Commerce.

In the little closet which served for an office, over a desk visibly

groaning with the weight of an enormous and grimy registry book, a

sleepy, fat, bland and good-natured woman of the Belgian _bourgeoisie_

presided, a benign and drowsy divinity of even-tempered courtesy. To

his misleading inquiry for Monsieur Calendar she returned a cheerful

permission to seek that gentleman for himself.

“Three flights, M’sieu’, in the front; suite seventeen it is. M’sieu’

does not mind walking up?” she inquired.

M’sieu’ did not in the least, though by no strain of the imagination

could it, be truthfully said that he walked up those steep and redolent

stairways of the Hôtel du Commerce d’Anvers. More literally, he flew

with winged feet, spurning each third padded step with a force that

raised a tiny cloud of fine white dust from the carpeting.

Breathless, at last he paused at the top of the third flight. His heart

was hammering, his pulses drumming like wild things; there was a queer

constriction in his throat, a fire of hope in his heart alternating

with the ice of doubt. Suppose she were not there! What if he were

mistaken, what if he had misunderstood, what if Mulready and Calendar

had referred to another lodging-house?

Pausing, he gripped the balustrade fiercely, forcing his self-control,

forcing himself to reflect that the girl (presuming, for the sake of

argument, he were presently to find her) could not be expected to

understand how ardently he had discounted this moment of meeting, or

how strangely it affected him. Indeed, he himself was more than a

little disturbed by the latter phenomenon, though he was no longer

blind to its cause. But he was not to let her see the evidences of his

agitation, lest she be frightened.

Slowly schooling himself to assume a masque of illuding self-possession

and composure, he passed down the corridor to the door whose panels

wore the painted legend, 17; and there knocked.

Believing that he overheard from within a sudden startled exclamation,

he smiled patiently, tolerant of her surprise.

Burning with impatience as with a fever, he endured a long minute’s

wait.

Misgivings were prompting him to knock again and summon her by name,

when he heard footfalls on the other side of the door, followed by a

click of the lock. The door was opened grudgingly, a bare six inches.

Of the alarmed expression in the eyes that stared into his, he took no

account. His face lengthened a little as he stood there, dumb, panting,

staring; and his heart sank, down, deep down into a gulf of

disappointment, weighted sorely with chagrin.

Then, of the two the first to recover countenance, he doffed his cap

and bowed.

“Good evening, Mrs. Hallam,” he said with a rueful smile.

XV

REFUGEES

Now, if Kirkwood’s emotion was poignant, Mrs. Hallam’s astonishment

paralleled, and her relief transcended it. In order to understand this

it must be remembered that while Mr. Kirkwood was aware of the lady’s

presence in Antwerp, on her part she had known nothing of him since he

had so ungallantly fled her company in Sheerness. She seemed to

anticipate that either Calendar or one of his fellows would be

discovered at the door,—to have surmised it without any excessive

degree of pleasure.

Only briefly she hesitated, while her surprise swayed her; then with a

hardening of the eyes and a curt little nod, “I’m sorry,” she said with

decision, “but I am busy and can’t see you now, Mr. Kirkwood”; and

attempted to shut the door in his face.

Deftly Kirkwood forestalled her intention by inserting both a foot and

a corner of the newly purchased hand-bag between the door and the jamb.

He had dared too greatly to be thus dismissed. “Pardon me,” he

countered, unabashed, “but I wish to speak with Miss Calendar.”

“Dorothy,” returned the lady with spirit, “is engaged....”

She compressed her lips, knitted her brows, and with disconcerting

suddenness thrust one knee against the obstructing hand-bag; Kirkwood,

happily, anticipated the movement just in time to reinforce the bag

with his own knee; it remained in place, the door standing open.

The woman flushed angrily; their glances crossed, her eyes flashing

with indignation; but Kirkwood’s held them with a level and unyielding

stare.

“I intend,” he told her quietly, “to see Miss Calendar. It’s useless

your trying to hinder me. We may as well understand each other, Madam,

and I’ll tell you now that if you wish to avoid a scene—”

“Dorothy!” the woman called over her shoulder; “ring for the porter.”

“By all means,” assented Kirkwood agreeably. “I’ll send him for a

gendarme.”

“You insolent puppy!”

“Madam, your wit disarms me—”

“What is the matter, Mrs. Hallam?” interrupted a voice from the other

side of the door. “Who is it?” “Miss Calendar!” cried Kirkwood hastily,

raising his voice. “Mr. Kirkwood!” the reply came on the instant. She

knew his voice! “Please, Mrs. Hallam, I will see Mr. Kirkwood.”

“You have no time to waste with him, Dorothy,” said the woman coldly.

“I must insist—”

“But you don’t seem to understand; it is Mr. Kirkwood!” argued the

girl,—as if he were ample excuse for any imprudence!

Kirkwood’s scant store of patience was by this time rapidly becoming

exhausted. “I should advise you not to interfere any further, Mrs.

Hallam,” he told her in a tone low, but charged with meaning.

How much did he know? She eyed him an instant longer, in sullen

suspicion, then swung open the door, yielding with what grace she

could. “Won’t you come in, Mr. Kirkwood?” she inquired with acidulated

courtesy. “If you press me,” he returned winningly, “how can I refuse?

You are too good!”

His impertinence disconcerted even himself; he wondered that she did

not slap him as he passed her, entering the room; and felt that he

deserved it, despite her attitude. But such thoughts could not long

trouble one whose eyes were enchanted by the sight of Dorothy,

confronting him in the middle of the dingy room, her hands, bristling

dangerously with hat pins, busy with the adjustment of a small gray

toque atop the wonder that was her hair. So vivacious and charming she

seemed, so spirited and bright her welcoming smile, so foreign was she

altogether to the picture of her, worn and distraught, that he had

mentally conjured up, that he stopped in an extreme of disconcertion;

and dropped the hand-bag, smiling sheepishly enough under her ready

laugh—mirth irresistibly incited by the plainly-read play of expression

on his mobile countenance.

“You must forgive the unconventionally, Mr. Kirkwood,” she apologized,

needlessly enough, but to cover his embarrassment. “I am on the point

of going out with Mrs. Hallam—and of course you are the last person on

earth I expected to meet here!”

“It’s good to see you, Miss Calendar,” he said simply, remarking with

much satisfaction that her trim walking costume bore witness to her

statement that she was prepared for the street.

The girl glanced into a mirror, patted the small, bewitching hat an

infinitesimal fraction of an inch to one side, and turned to him again,

her hands free. One of them, small but cordial, rested in his grasp for

an instant all too brief, the while he gazed earnestly into her face,

noting with concern what the first glance had not shown him,—the almost

imperceptible shadows beneath her eyes and cheek-bones, pathetic

records of the hours the girl had spent, since last he had seen her, in

company with his own grim familiar, Care.

Not a little of care and distress of mind had seasoned her portion in

those two weary days. He saw and knew it; and his throat tightened

inexplicably, again, as it had out there in the corridor. Possibly the

change in her had passed unchallenged by any eyes other than his, but

even in the little time that he had spent in her society, the image of

her had become fixed so indelibly on his memory, that he could not now

be deceived. She was changed—a little, but changed; she had suffered,

and was suffering and, forced by suffering, her nascent womanhood was

stirring in the bud. The child that he had met in London, in Antwerp he

found grown to woman’s stature and slowly coming to comprehension of

the nature of the change in herself,—the wonder of it glowing softly in

her eyes....

The clear understanding of mankind that is an appanage of woman’s

estate, was now added to the intuitions of a girl’s untroubled heart.

She could not be blind to the mute adoration of his gaze; nor could she

resent it. Beneath it she colored and lowered her lashes.

“I was about to go out,” she repeated in confusion. “I—it’s pleasant to

see you, too.”

“Thank you,” he stammered ineptly; “I—I—”

“If Mr. Kirkwood will excuse us, Dorothy,” Mrs. Hallam’s sharp tones

struck in discordantly, “we shall be glad to see him when we return to

London.”

“I am infinitely complimented, Mrs. Hallam,” Kirkwood assured her; and

of the girl quickly: “You’re going back home?” he asked.

She nodded, with a faint, puzzled smile that included the woman. “After

a little—not immediately. Mrs. Hallam is so kind—”

“Pardon me,” he interrupted; “but tell me one thing, please: have you

any one in England to whom you can go without invitation and be

welcomed and cared for—any friends or relations?”

“Dorothy will be with me,” Mrs. Hallam answered for her, with cold

defiance.

Deliberately insolent, Kirkwood turned his back to the woman. “Miss

Calendar, will you answer my question for yourself?” he asked the girl

pointedly.

“Why—yes; several friends; none in London, but—”

“Dorothy—”

“One moment, Mrs. Hallam,” Kirkwood flung crisply over his shoulder.

“I’m going to ask you something rather odd, Miss Calendar,” he

continued, seeking the girl’s eyes. “I hope—”

“Dorothy, I—”

“If you please, Mrs. Hallam,” suggested the girl, with just the right

shade of independence. “I wish to listen to Mr. Kirkwood. He has been

very kind to me and has every right....” She turned to him again,

leaving the woman breathless and speechless with anger.

“You told me once,” Kirkwood continued quickly, and, he felt, brazenly,

“that you considered me kind, thoughtful and considerate. You know me

no better to-day than you did then, but I want to beg you to trust me a

little. Can you trust yourself to my protection until we reach your

friends in England?”

“Why, I—” the girl faltered, taken by surprise.

“Mr. Kirkwood!” cried Mrs. Hallam angrily, finding her voice.

Kirkwood turned to meet her onslaught with a mien grave, determined,

unflinching. “Please do not interfere, Madam,” he said quietly.

“You are impertinent, sir! Dorothy, I forbid you to listen to this

person!”

The girl flushed, lifting her chin a trifle. “Forbid?” she repeated

wonderingly.

Kirkwood was quick to take advantage of her resentment. “Mrs. Hallam is

not fitted to advise you,” he insisted, “nor can she control your

actions. It must already have occurred to you that you’re rather out of

place in the present circumstances. The men who have brought you

hither, I believe you already see through, to some extent. Forgive my

speaking plainly ... But that is why you have accepted Mrs. Hallam’s

offer of protection. Will you take my word for it, when I tell you she

has not your right interests at heart, but the reverse? I happen to

know, Miss Calendar, and I—”

“How dare you, sir?”

Flaming with rage, Mrs. Hallam put herself bodily between them,

confronting Kirkwood in white-lipped desperation, her small, gloved

hands clenched and quivering at her sides, her green eyes dangerous.

But Kirkwood could silence her; and he did. “Do you wish me to speak

frankly, Madam? Do you wish me to tell what I know—and all I know—,”

with rising emphasis,—“of your social status and your relations with

Calendar and Mulready? I promise you that if you wish it, or force me

to it....”

But he had need to say nothing further; the woman’s eyes wavered before

his and a little sob of terror forced itself between her shut teeth.

Kirkwood smiled grimly, with a face of brass, impenetrable, inflexible.

And suddenly she turned from him with indifferent bravado. “As Mr.

Kirkwood says, Dorothy,” she said in her high, metallic voice, “I have

no authority over you. But if you’re silly enough to consider for a

moment this fellow’s insulting suggestion, if you’re fool enough to go

with him, unchaperoned through Europe and imperil your—”

“Mrs. Hallam!” Kirkwood cut her short with a menacing tone.

“Why, then, I wash my hands of you,” concluded the woman defiantly.

“Make your choice, my child,” she added with a meaning laugh and moved

away, humming a snatch from a French _chanson_ which brought the hot

blood to Kirkwood’s face.

But the girl did not understand; and he was glad of that. “You may

judge between us,” he appealed to her directly, once more. “I can only

offer you my word of honor as an American gentleman that you shall be

landed in England, safe and sound, by the first available steamer—”

“There’s no need to say more, Mr. Kirkwood,” Dorothy informed him

quietly. “I have already decided. I think I begin to understand some

things clearly, now.... If you’re ready, we will go.”

From the window, where she stood, holding the curtains back and staring

out, Mrs. Hallam turned with a curling lip.

[Illustration: From the window, Mrs. Hallam turned with a curling lip.]

“‘The honor of an American gentleman,’” she quoted with a stinging

sneer; “I’m sure I wish you comfort of it, child!”

“We must make haste, Miss Calendar,” said Kirkwood, ignoring the

implication. “Have you a traveling-bag?”

She silently indicated a small valise, closed and strapped, on a table

by the bed, and immediately passed out into the hall. Kirkwood took the

case containing the gladstone bag in one hand, the girl’s valise in the

other, and followed.

As he turned the head of the stairs he looked back. Mrs. Hallam was

still at the window, her back turned. From her very passiveness he

received an impression of something ominous and forbidding; if she had

lost a trick or two of the game she played, she still held cards, was

not at the end of her resources. She stuck in his imagination for many

an hour as a force to be reckoned with.

For the present he understood that she was waiting to apprise Calendar

and Mulready of their flight. With the more haste, then, he followed

Dorothy down the three flights, through the tiny office, where Madam

sat sound asleep at her over-burdened desk, and out.

Opposite the door they were fortunate enough to find a fiacre drawn up

in waiting at the curb. Kirkwood opened the door for the girl to enter.

“Gare du Sud,” he directed the driver. “Drive your fastest—double fare

for quick time!”

The driver awoke with a start from profound reverie, looked Kirkwood

over, and bowed with gesticulative palms.

“M’sieu’, I am desolated, but engaged!” he protested.

“Precisely.” Kirkwood deposited the two bags on the forward seat of the

conveyance, and stood back to convince the man. “Precisely,” said he,

undismayed. “The lady who engaged you is remaining for a time; I will

settle her bill.”

“Very well, M’sieu’!” The driver disclaimed responsibility and accepted

the favor of the gods with a speaking shrug. “M’sieu’ said the Gare du

Sud? _En voiture_!”

Kirkwood jumped in and shut the door; the vehicle drew slowly away from

the curb, then with gratifying speed hammered up-stream on the

embankment. Bending forward, elbows on knees, Kirkwood watched the

sidewalks narrowly, partly to cover the girl’s constraint, due to Mrs.

Hallam’s attitude, partly on the lookout for Calendar and his

confederates. In a few moments they passed a public clock.

“We’ve missed the Flushing boat,” he announced. “I’m making a try for

the Hoek van Holland line. We may possibly make it. I know that it

leaves by the Sud Quai, and that’s all I do know,” he concluded with an

apologetic laugh.

“And if we miss that?” asked the girl, breaking silence for the first

time since they had left the hotel.

“We’ll take the first train out of Antwerp.”

“Where to?”

“Wherever the first train goes, Miss Calendar.... The main point is to

get away to-night. That we must do, no matter where we land, or how we

get there. To-morrow we can plan with more certainty.”

“Yes...” Her assent was more a sigh than a word.

The cab, dashing down the Rue Leopold de Wael, swung into the Place du

Sud, before the station. Kirkwood, acutely watchful, suddenly thrust

head and shoulders out of his window (fortunately it was the one away

from the depot), and called up to the driver.

“Don’t stop! Gare Centrale now—and treble fare!”

“_Oui, M’sieu’! Allons!_”

The whip cracked and the horse swerved sharply round the corner into

the Avenue du Sud. The young man, with a hushed exclamation, turned in

his seat, lifting the flap over the little peephole in the back of the

carriage.

He had not been mistaken. Calendar was standing in front of the

station; and it was plain to be seen, from his pose, that the madly

careering fiacre interested him more than slightly. Irresolute,

perturbed, the man took a step or two after it, changed his mind, and

returned to his post of observation.

Kirkwood dropped the flap and turned back to find the girl’s wide eyes

searching his face. He said nothing.

“What was that?” she asked after a patient moment.

“Your father, Miss Calendar,” he returned uncomfortably.

There fell a short pause; then: “Why—will you tell me—is it necessary

to run away from my father, Mr. Kirkwood?” she demanded, with a moving

little break in her voice.

Kirkwood hesitated. It were unfeeling to tell her why; yet it was

essential that she should know, however painful the knowledge might

prove to her.

And she was insistent; he might not dodge the issue. “Why?” she

repeated as he paused.

“I wish you wouldn’t press me for an answer just now, Miss Calendar.”

“Don’t you think I had better know?”

Instinctively he inclined his head in assent.

“Then why—?”

Kirkwood bent forward and patted the flank of the satchel that held the

gladstone bag.

“What does that mean, Mr. Kirkwood?”

“That I have the jewels,” he told her tersely, looking straight ahead.

At his shoulder he heard a low gasp of amazement and incredulity

commingled.

“But—! How did you get them? My father deposited them in bank this

morning?”

“He must have taken them out again.... I got them on board the Alethea,

where your father was conferring with Mulready and Captain Stryker.”

“The Alethea!”

“Yes.”

“You took them from those men?—you!... But didn’t my father—?”

“I had to persuade him,” said Kirkwood simply.

“But there were three of them against you!”

“Mulready wasn’t—ah—feeling very well, and Stryker’s a coward. They

gave me no trouble. I locked them in Stryker’s room, lifted the bag of

jewels, and came away.... I ought to tell you that they were discussing

the advisability of sailing away without you—leaving you here,

friendless and without means. That’s why I considered it my duty to

take a hand.... I don’t like to tell you this so brutally, but you

ought to know, and I can’t see how to tone it down,” he concluded

awkwardly.

“I understand....”

But for some moments she did not speak. He avoided looking at her.

The fiacre, rolling at top speed but smoothly on the broad avenues that

encircle the ancient city, turned into the Avenue de Keyser, bringing

into sight the Gare Centrale.

“You don’t—k-know—” began the girl without warning, in a voice gusty

with sobs.

“Steady on!” said Kirkwood gently. “I do know, but don’t let’s talk

about it now. We’ll be at the station in a minute, and I’ll get out and

see what’s to be done about a train, if neither Mulready or Stryker are

about. You stay in the carriage.... No!” He changed his mind suddenly.

“I’ll not risk losing you again. It’s a risk we’ll have to run in

company.”

“Please!” she agreed brokenly.

The fiacre slowed up and stopped.

“Are you all right, Miss Calendar?” Kirkwood asked.

The girl sat up, lifting her head proudly. “I am quite ready,” she

said, steadying her voice.

Kirkwood reconnoitered through the window, while the driver was

descending.

“Gare Centrale, M’sieu’,” he said, opening the door.

“No one in sight,” Kirkwood told the girl. “Come, please.”

He got out and gave her his hand, then paid the driver, picked up the

two bags, and hurried with Dorothy into the station, to find in waiting

a string of cars into which people were moving at leisurely rate. His

inquiries at the ticket-window developed the fact that it was the 22:26

for Brussels, the last train leaving the Gare Centrale that night, and

due to start in ten minutes.

The information settled their plans for once and all; Kirkwood promptly

secured through tickets, also purchasing “Reserve” supplementary

tickets which entitled them to the use of those modern corridor coaches

which take the place of first-class compartments on the Belgian state

railways.

“It’s a pleasure,” said Kirkwood lightly, as he followed the girl into

one of these, “to find one’s self in a common-sense sort of a train

again. ’Feels like home.” He put their luggage in one of the racks and

sat down beside her, chattering with simulated cheerfulness in a vain

endeavor to lighten her evident depression of spirit. “I always feel

like a traveling anachronism in one of your English trains,” he said.

“You can’t appreciate—”

The girl smiled bravely.... “And after Brussels?” she inquired.

“First train for the coast,” he said promptly. “Dover, Ostend,

Boulogne,—whichever proves handiest, no matter which, so long as it

gets us on English soil without undue delay.”

She said “Yes” abstractedly, resting an elbow on the window-sill and

her chin in her palm, to stare with serious, sweet brown eyes out into

the arc-smitten night that hung beneath the echoing roof.

Kirkwood fidgeted in despite of the constraint he placed himself under,

to be still and not disturb her needlessly. Impatience and apprehension

of misfortune obsessed his mental processes in equal degree. The ten

minutes seemed interminable that elapsed ere the grinding couplings

advertised the imminence of their start.

The guards began to bawl, the doors to slam, belated travelers to dash

madly for the coaches. The train gave a preliminary lurch ere settling

down to its league-long inland dash.

Kirkwood, in a fever of hope and an ague of fear, saw a man sprint

furiously across the platform and throw himself on the forward steps of

their coach, on the very instant of the start.

Presently he entered by the forward door and walked slowly through,

narrowly inspecting the various passengers. As he approached the seats

occupied by Kirkwood and Dorothy Calendar, his eyes encountered the

young man’s, and he leered evilly. Kirkwood met the look with one that

was like a kick, and the fellow passed with some haste into the car

behind.

“Who was that?” demanded the girl, without moving her head.

“How did you know?” he asked, astonished. “You didn’t look—”

“I saw your knuckles whiten beneath the skin.... Who was it?”

“Hobbs,” he acknowledged bitterly; “the mate of the _Alethea_.”

“I know.... And you think—?”

“Yes. He must have been ashore when I was on board the brigantine; he

certainly wasn’t in the cabin. Evidently they hunted him up, or ran

across him, and pressed him into service.... You see, they’re watching

every outlet.... But we’ll win through, never fear!”

XVI

TRAVELS WITH A CHAPERON

The train, escaping the outskirts of the city, remarked the event with

an exultant shriek, then settled down, droning steadily, to

night-devouring flight. In the corridor-car the few passengers disposed

themselves to drowse away the coming hour—the short hour’s ride that,

in these piping days of frantic traveling, separates Antwerp from the

capital city of Belgium.

A guard, slamming gustily in through the front door, reeled unsteadily

down the aisle. Kirkwood, rousing from a profound reverie, detained him

with a gesture and began to interrogate him in French. When he departed

presently it transpired that the girl was unaquainted with that tongue.

“I didn’t understand, you know,” she told him with a slow, shy smile.

“I was merely questioning him about the trains from Brussels to-night.

We daren’t stop, you see; we must go on,—keep Hobbs on the jump and

lose him, if possible. There’s where our advantage lies—in having only

Hobbs to deal with. He’s not particularly intellectual; and we’ve two

heads to his one, besides. If we can prevent him from guessing our

destination and wiring back to Antwerp, we may win away. You

understand?”

“Perfectly,” she said, brightening. “And what do you purpose doing

now?”

“I can’t tell yet. The guard’s gone to get me some information about

the night trains on other lines. In the meantime, don’t fret about

Hobbs; I’ll answer for Hobbs.”

“I shan’t be worried,” she said simply, “with you here....”

Whatever answer he would have made he was obliged to postpone because

of the return of the guard, with a handful of time-tables; and when,

rewarded with a modest gratuity, the man had gone his way, and Kirkwood

turned again to the girl, she had withdrawn her attention for the time.

Unconscious of his bold regard, she was dreaming, her thoughts at

loose-ends, her eyes studying the incalculable depths of blue-black

night that swirled and eddied beyond the window-glass. The most shadowy

of smiles touched her lips, the faintest shade of deepened color rested

on her cheeks.... She was thinking of—him? As long as he dared, the

young man, his heart in his own eyes, watched her greedily, taking a

miser’s joy of her youthful beauty, striving with all his soul to

analyze the enigma of that most inscrutable smile.

It baffled him. He could not say of what she thought; and told himself

bitterly that it was not for him, a pauper, to presume a place in her

meditations. He must not forget his circumstances, nor let her

tolerance render him oblivious to his place, which must be a servant’s,

not a lover’s.

The better to convince himself of this, he plunged desperately into a

forlorn attempt to make head or tail of Belgian railway schedule,

complicated as these of necessity are by the alternation from normal

time notation to the abnormal system sanctioned by the government, and

_vice-versa_, with every train that crosses a boundary line of the

state.

So preoccupied did he become in this pursuit that he was subconsciously

impressed that the girl had spoken twice, ere he could detach his

interest from the exasperatingly inconclusive and incoherent cohorts of

ranked figures.

“Can’t you find out anything?” Dorothy was asking.

“Precious little,” he grumbled. “I’d give my head for a Bradshaw! Only

it wouldn’t be a fair exchange.... There seems to be an express for

Bruges leaving the Gare du Nord, Brussels, at fifty-five minutes after

twenty-three o’clock; and if I’m not mistaken, that’s the latest train

out of Brussels and the earliest we can catch,... if we _can_ catch it.

I’ve never been in Brussels, and Heaven only knows how long it would

take us to cab it from the Gare du Midi to the Nord.”

In this statement, however, Mr. Kirkwood was fortunately mistaken; not

only Heaven, it appeared, had cognizance of the distance between the

two stations. While Kirkwood was still debating the question, with

pessimistic tendencies, the friendly guard had occasion to pass through

the coach; and, being tapped, yielded the desired information with

entire tractability.

It would be a cab-ride of perhaps ten minutes. Monsieur, however, would

serve himself well if he offered the driver an advance tip as an

incentive to speedy driving. Why? Why because (here the guard consulted

his watch; and Kirkwood very keenly regretted the loss of his

own)—because this train, announced to arrive in Brussels some twenty

minutes prior to the departure of that other, was already late. But

yes—a matter of some ten minutes. Could that not be made up? Ah,

Monsieur, but who should say?

The guard departed, doubtless with private views as to the madness of

all English-speaking travelers.

“And there we are!” commented Kirkwood in factitious resignation. “If

we’re obliged to stop overnight in Brussels, our friends will be on our

back before we can get out in the morning, if they have to come by

motor-car.” He reflected bitterly on the fact that with but a little

more money at his disposal, he too could hire a motor-car and cry

defiance to their persecutors. “However,” he amended, with rising

spirits, “so much the better our chance of losing Mr. Hobbs. We must be

ready to drop off the instant the train stops.”

He began to unfold another time-table, threatening again to lose

himself completely; and was thrown into the utmost confusion by the

touch of the girl’s hand, in appeal placed lightly on his own. And had

she been observant, she might have seen a second time his knuckles

whiten beneath the skin as he asserted his self-control—though this

time not over his temper.

His eyes, dumbly eloquent, turned to meet hers. She was smiling.

“Please!” she iterated, with the least imperative pressure on his hand,

pushing the folder aside.

“I beg pardon?” he muttered blankly.

“Is it quite necessary, now, to study those schedules? Haven’t you

decided to try for the Bruges express?”

“Why yes, but—”

“Then please don’t leave me to my thoughts all the time, Mr. Kirkwood.”

There was a tremor of laughter in her voice, but her eyes were grave

and earnest. “I’m very weary of thinking round in a circle—and that,”

she concluded, with a nervous little laugh, “is all I’ve had to do for

days!”

“I’m afraid I’m very stupid,” he humored her. “This is the second time,

you know, in the course of a very brief acquaintance, that you have

found it necessary to remind me to talk to you.”

“Oh-h!” She brightened. “That night, at the Pless? But that was _ages_

ago!”

“It seems so,” he admitted.

“So much has happened!”

“Yes,” he assented vaguely.

She watched him, a little piqued by his absent-minded mood, for a

moment; then, and not without a trace of malice: “Must I tell you again

what to talk about?” she asked.

“Forgive me. I was thinking about, if not talking to, you.... I’ve been

wondering just why it was that you left the _Alethea_ at Queensborough,

to go on by steamer.”

And immediately he was sorry that his tactless query had swung the

conversation to bear upon her father, the thought of whom could not but

prove painful to her. But it was too late to mend matters; already her

evanescent flush of amusement had given place to remembrance.

“It was on my father’s account,” she told him in a steady voice, but

with averted eyes; “he is a very poor sailor, and the promise of a

rough passage terrified him. I believe there was a difference of

opinion about it, he disputing with Mr. Mulready and Captain Stryker.

That was just after we had left the anchorage. They both insisted that

it was safer to continue by the _Alethea_, but he wouldn’t listen to

them, and in the end had his way. Captain Stryker ran the brigantine

into the mouth of the Medway and put us ashore just in time to catch

the steamer.”

“Were you sorry for the change?”

“I?” She shuddered slightly. “Hardly! I think I hated the ship from the

moment I set foot on board her. It was a dreadful place; it was all

night-marish, that night, but it seemed most terrible on the _Alethea_

with Captain Stryker and that abominable Mr. Hobbs. I think that my

unhappiness had as much to do with my father’s insistence on the

change, as anything. He ... he was very thoughtful, most of the time.”

Kirkwood shut his teeth on what he knew of the blackguard.

“I don’t know why,” she continued, wholly without affectation, “but I

was wretched from the moment you left me in the cab, to wait while you

went in to see Mrs. Hallam. And when we left you, at Bermondsey Old

Stairs, after what you had said to me, I felt—I hardly know what to

say—abandoned, in a way.”

“But you were with your father, in his care—”

“I know, but I was getting confused. Until then the excitement had kept

me from thinking. But you made me think. I began to wonder, to question

... But what could I do?” She signified her helplessness with a quick

and dainty movement of her hands. “He is my father; and I’m not yet of

age, you know.”

“I thought so,” he confessed, troubled. “It’s very inconsiderate of

you, you must admit.”

“I don’t understand...”

“Because of the legal complication. I’ve no doubt your father can ‘have

the law on me’”—Kirkwood laughed uneasily—“for taking you from his

protection.”

“Protection!” she echoed warmly. “If you call it that!”

“Kidnapping,” he said thoughtfully: “I presume that’d be the charge.”

“Oh!” She laughed the notion to scorn. “Besides, they must catch us

first, mustn’t they?”

“Of course; and”—with a simulation of confidence sadly deceitful—“they

shan’t, Mr. Hobbs to the contrary notwithstanding.”

“You make me share your confidence, against my better judgment.”

“I wish your better judgment would counsel you to share your confidence

with me,” he caught her up. “If you would only tell me what it’s all

about, as far as you know, I’d be better able to figure out what we

ought to do.”

Briefly the girl sat silent, staring before her with sweet somber eyes.

Then, “In the very beginning,” she told him with a conscious

laugh,—“this sounds very story-bookish, I know—in the very beginning,

George Burgoyne Calendar, an American, married his cousin a dozen times

removed, and an Englishwoman, Alice Burgoyne Hallam.”

“Hallam!”

“Wait, please.” She sat up, bending forward and frowning down upon her

interlacing, gloved fingers; she was finding it difficult to say what

she must. Kirkwood, watching hungrily the fair drooping head, the

flawless profile clear and radiant against the night-blackened window,

saw hot signals of shame burning on her cheek and throat and forehead.

“But never mind,” he began awkwardly.

“No,” she told him with decision. “Please let me go on....” She

continued, stumbling, trusting to his sympathy to bridge the gaps in

her narrative. “My father ... There was trouble of some sort.... At all

events, he disappeared when I was a baby. My mother ... died. I was

brought up in the home of my great-uncle, Colonel George Burgoyne, of

the Indian Army—retired. My mother had been his favorite niece, they

say; I presume that was why he cared for me. I grew up in his home in

Cornwall; it was my home, just as he was my father in everything but

fact.

“A year ago he died, leaving me everything,—the town house in Frognall

Street, his estate in Cornwall: everything was willed to me on

condition that I must never live with my father, nor in any way

contribute to his support. If I disobeyed, the entire estate without

reserve was to go to his nearest of kin.... Colonel Burgoyne was

unmarried and had no children.”

The girl paused, lifting to Kirkwood’s face her eyes, clear, fearless,

truthful. “I never was given to understand that there was anybody who

might have inherited, other than myself,” she declared.

“I see... Last week I received a letter, signed with my father’s name,

begging me to appoint an interview with him in London. I did so,—guess

how gladly! I was alone in the world, and he, my father, whom I had

never thought to see.... We met at his hotel, the Pless. He wanted me

to come and live with him,—said that he was growing old and lonely and

needed a daughter’s love and care. He told me that he had made a

fortune in America and was amply able to provide for us both. As for my

inheritance, he persuaded me that it was by rights the property of

Frederick Hallam, Mrs. Hallam’s son.”

“I have met the young gentleman,” interpolated Kirkwood.

“His name was new to me, but my father assured me that he was the next

of kin mentioned in Colonel Burgoyne’s will, and convinced me that I

had no real right to the property.... After all, he was my father; I

agreed; I could not bear the thought of wronging anybody. I was to give

up everything but my mother’s jewels. It seems,—my father said,—I

don’t—I can’t believe it now—”

She choked on a little, dry sob. It was some time before she seemed

able to continue.

“I was told that my great-uncle’s collection of jewels had been my

mother’s property. He had in life a passion for collecting jewels, and

it had been his whim to carry them with him, wherever he went. When he

died in Frognall Street, they were in the safe by the head of his bed.

I, in my grief, at first forgot them, and then afterwards carelessly

put off removing them.

“To come back to my father: Night before last we were to call on Mrs.

Hallam. It was to be our last night in England; we were to sail for the

Continent on the private yacht of a friend of my father’s, the next

morning.... This is what I was told—and believed, you understand.

“That night Mrs. Hallam was dining at another table at the Pless, it

seems. I did not then know her. When leaving, she put a note on our

table, by my father’s elbow. I was astonished beyond words.... He

seemed much agitated, told me that he was called away on urgent

business, a matter of life and death, and begged me to go alone to

Frognall Street, get the jewels and meet him at Mrs. Hallam’s later....

I wasn’t altogether a fool, for I began dimly to suspect, then, that

something was wrong; but I was a fool, for I consented to do as he

desired. You understand—you know—?”

“I do, indeed,” replied Kirkwood grimly. “I understand a lot of things

now that I didn’t five minutes ago. Please let me think...”

But the time he took for deliberation was short. He had hoped to find a

way to spare her, by sparing Calendar; but momentarily he was becoming

more impressed with the futility of dealing with her save in terms of

candor, merciful though they might seem harsh.

“I must tell you,” he said, “that you have been outrageously misled,

swindled and deceived. I have heard from your father’s own lips that

Mrs. Hallam was to pay him two thousand pounds for keeping you out of

England and losing you your inheritance. I’m inclined to question,

furthermore, the assertion that these jewels were your mother’s.

Frederick Hallam was the man who followed you into the Frognall Street

house and attacked me on the stairs; Mrs. Hallam admits that he went

there to get the jewels. But he didn’t want anybody to know it.”

“But that doesn’t prove—”

“Just a minute.” Rapidly and concisely Kirkwood recounted the events

wherein he had played a part, subsequent to the adventure of Bermondsey

Old Stairs. He was guilty of but one evasion; on one point only did he

slur the truth: he conceived it his honorable duty to keep the girl in

ignorance of his straitened circumstances; she was not to be distressed

by knowledge of his distress, nor could he tolerate the suggestion of

seeming to play for her sympathy. It was necessary, then, to invent a

motive to excuse his return to 9, Frognall Street. I believe he chose

to exaggerate the inquisitiveness of his nature and threw in for good

measure a desire to recover a prized trinket of no particular moment,

esteemed for its associations, and so forth. But whatever the

fabrication, it passed muster; to the girl his motives seemed less

important than the discoveries that resulted from them.

“I am afraid,” he concluded the summary of the confabulation he had

overheard at the skylight of the Alethea’s cabin, “you’d best make up

your mind that your father—”

“Yes,” whispered the girl huskily; and turned her face to the window, a

quivering muscle in the firm young throat alone betraying her emotion.

“It’s a bad business,” he pursued relentlessly: “bad all round.

Mulready, in your father’s pay, tries to have him arrested, the better

to rob him. Mrs. Hallam, to secure your property for that precious pet,

Freddie, connives at, if she doesn’t instigate, a kidnapping. Your

father takes her money to deprive you of yours,—which could profit him

nothing so long as you remained in lawful possession of it; and at the

same time he conspires to rob, through you, the rightful owners—if they

are rightful owners. And if they are, why does Freddie Hallam go like a

thief in the night to secure property that’s his beyond dispute?... I

don’t really think you owe your father any further consideration.”

He waited patiently. Eventually, “No-o,” the girl sobbed assent.

“It’s this way: Calendar, counting on your sparing him in the end, is

going to hound us. He’s doing it now: there’s Hobbs in the next car,

for proof. Until these jewels are returned, whether to Frognall Street

or to young Hallam, we’re both in danger, both thieves in the sight of

the law. And your father knows that, too. There’s no profit to be had

by discounting the temper of these people; they’re as desperate a gang

of swindlers as ever lived. They’ll have those jewels if they have to

go as far as murder—”

“Mr. Kirkwood!” she deprecated, in horror.

He wagged his head stubbornly, ominously. “I’ve seen them in the raw.

They’re hot on our trail now; ten to one, they’ll be on our backs

before we can get across the Channel. Once in England we will be

comparatively safe. Until then ... But I’m a brute—I’m frightening

you!”

“You are, dreadfully,” she confessed in a tremulous voice.

“Forgive me. If you look at the dark side first, the other seems all

the brighter. Please don’t worry; we’ll pull through with flying

colors, or my name’s not Philip Kirkwood!”

“I have every faith in you,” she informed him, flawlessly sincere.

“When I think of all you’ve done and dared for me, on the mere

suspicion that I needed your help—”

“We’d best be getting ready,” he interrupted hastily. “Here’s

Brussels.”

It was so. Lights, in little clusters and long, wheeling lines, were

leaping out of the darkness and flashing back as the train rumbled

through the suburbs of the little Paris of the North. Already the other

passengers were bestirring themselves, gathering together wraps and

hand luggage, and preparing for the journey’s end.

Rising, Kirkwood took down their two satchels from the overhead rack,

and waited, in grim abstraction planning and counterplanning against

the machinations in whose wiles they two had become so perilously

entangled.

Primarily, there was Hobbs to be dealt with; no easy task, for Kirkwood

dared not resort to violence nor in any way invite the attention of the

authorities; and threats would be an idle waste of breath, in the case

of that corrupt and malignant, little cockney, himself as keen as any

needle, adept in all the artful resources of the underworld whence he

had sprung, and further primed for action by that master rogue,

Calendar.

The train was pulling slowly into the station when he reluctantly

abandoned his latest unfeasible scheme for shaking off the little

Englishman, and concluded that their salvation was only to be worked

out through everlasting vigilance, incessant movement, and the favor of

the blind goddess, Fortune. There was comfort of a sort in the

reflection that the divinity of chance is at least blind; her favors

are impartially distributed; the swing of the wheel of the world is not

always to the advantage of the wrongdoer and the scamp.

He saw nothing of Hobbs as they alighted and hastened from the station,

and hardly had time to waste looking for him, since their train had

failed to make up the precious ten minutes. Consequently he dismissed

the fellow from his thoughts until—with Brussels lingering in their

memories a garish vision of brilliant streets and glowing cafés,

glimpsed furtively from their cab windows during its wild dash over the

broad mid-city, boulevards—at midnight they settled themselves in a

carriage of the Bruges express. They were speeding along through the

open country with a noisy clatter; then a minute’s investigation

sufficed to discover the mate of the _Alethea_ serenely ensconced in

the coach behind.

The little man seemed rarely complacent, and impudently greeted

Kirkwood’s scowling visage, as the latter peered through the window in

the coach-door, with a smirk and a waggish wave of his hand. The

American by main strength of will-power mastered an impulse to enter

and wring his neck, and returned to the girl, more disturbed than he

cared to let her know.

There resulted from his review of the case but one plan for outwitting

Mr. Hobbs, and that lay in trusting to his confidence that Kirkwood and

Dorothy Calendar would proceed as far toward Ostend as the train would

take them—namely, to the limit of the run, Bruges.

Thus inspired, Kirkwood took counsel with the girl, and when the train

paused at Ghent, they made an unostentatious exit from their coach,

finding themselves, when the express had rolled on into the west, upon

a station platform in a foreign city at nine minutes past one o’clock

in the morning—but at length without their shadow. Mr. Hobbs had gone

on to Bruges.

Kirkwood sped his journeyings with an unspoken malediction, and

collected himself to cope with a situation which was to prove hardly

more happy for them than the espionage they had just eluded. The primal

flush of triumph which had saturated the American’s humor on this

signal success, proved but fictive and transitory when inquiry of the

station attendants educed the information that the two earliest trains

to be obtained were the 5:09 for Dunkerque and the 5:37 for Ostend. A

minimum delay of four hours was to be endured in the face of many

contingent features singularly unpleasant to contemplate. The station

waiting-room was on the point of closing for the night, and Kirkwood,

already alarmed by the rapid ebb of the money he had had of Calendar,

dared not subject his finances to the strain of a night’s lodging at

one of Ghent’s hotels. He found himself forced to be cruel to be kind

to the girl, and Dorothy’s cheerful acquiescence to their sole

alternative of tramping the street until daybreak did nothing to

alleviate Kirkwood’s exasperation.

It was permitted them to occupy a bench outside the station. There the

girl, her head pillowed on the treasure bag, napped uneasily, while

Kirkwood plodded restlessly to and fro, up and down the platform,

communing with the Shade of Care and addling his poor, weary wits with

the problem of the future,—not so much his own as the future of the

unhappy child for whose welfare he had assumed responsibility. Dark for

both of them, in his understanding To-morrow loomed darkest for her.

Not until the gray, formless light of the dawn-dusk was wavering over

the land, did he cease his perambulations. Then a gradual stir of life

in the city streets, together with the appearance of a station porter

or two, opening the waiting-rooms and preparing them against the

traffic of the day, warned him that he must rouse his charge. He paused

and stood over her, reluctant to disturb her rest, such as it was, his

heart torn with compassion for her, his soul embittered by the cruel

irony of their estate.

If what he understood were true, a king’s ransom was secreted within

the cheap, imitation-leather satchel which served her for a pillow. But

it availed her nothing for her comfort. If what he believed were true,

she was absolute mistress of that treasure of jewels; yet that night

she had been forced to sleep on a hard, uncushioned bench, in the open

air, and this morning he must waken her to the life of a hunted thing.

A week ago she had had at her command every luxury known to the

civilized world; to-day she was friendless, but for his inefficient,

worthless self, and in a strange land. A week ago,—had he known her

then,—he had been free to tell her of his love, to offer her the

protection of his name as well as his devotion; to-day he was an all

but penniless vagabond, and there could be no dishonor deeper than to

let her know the nature of his heart’s desire.

Was ever lover hedged from a declaration to his mistress by

circumstances so hateful, so untoward! He could have raged and railed

against his fate like any madman. For he desired her greatly, and she

was very lovely in his sight. If her night’s rest had been broken and

but a mockery, she showed few signs of it; the faint, wan complexion of

fatigue seemed only to enhance the beauty of her maidenhood; her lips

were as fresh and desirous as the dewy petals of a crimson rose;

beneath her eyes soft shadows lurked where her lashes lay tremulous

upon her cheeks of satin.... She was to him of all created things the

most wonderful, the most desirable.

The temptation of his longing seemed more than he could long withstand.

But resist he must, or part for ever with any title to her

consideration—or his own. He shut his teeth and knotted his brows in a

transport of desire to touch, if only with his finger-tips, the woven

wonder of her hair.

And thus she saw him, when, without warning, she awoke.

Bewilderment at first informed the wide brown eyes; then, as their

drowsiness vanished, a little laughter, a little tender mirth.

“Good morning, Sir Knight of the Somber Countenance!” she cried,

standing up. “Am I so utterly disreputable that you find it necessary

to frown on me so darkly?”

He shook his head, smiling.

“I know I’m a fright,” she asserted vigorously, shaking out the folds

of her pleated skirt. “And as for my hat, it will never be on

straight—but then _you_ wouldn’t know.”

“It seems all right,” he replied vacantly.

“Then please to try to look a little happier, since you find me quite

presentable.”

“I do...”

Without lifting her bended head, she looked up, laughing, not

ill-pleased. “_You’d_ say so... really?”

Commonplace enough, this banter, this pitiful endeavor to be oblivious

of their common misery; but like the look she gave him, her words rang

in his head like potent fumes of wine. He turned away, utterly

disconcerted for the time, knowing only that he must overcome his

weakness.

Far down the railway tracks there rose a murmuring, that waxed to a

rumbling roar. A passing porter answered Kirkwood’s inquiry: it was the

night boat-train from Ostend. He picked up their bags and drew the girl

into the waiting-room, troubled by a sickening foreboding.

Through the window they watched the train roll in and stop.

Among others, alighted, smirking, the unspeakable Hobbs.

He lifted his hat and bowed jauntily to the waiting-room window, making

it plain that his keen eyes had discovered them instantly.

Kirkwood’s heart sank with the hopelessness of it all. If the railway

directorates of Europe conspired against them, what chance had they? If

the night boat-train from Ostend had only had the decency to be

twenty-five minutes late, instead of arriving promptly on the minute of

4:45 they two might have escaped by the 5:09 for Dunkerque and Calais.

There remained but a single untried ruse in his bag of tricks;

mercifully it might suffice.

“Miss Calendar,” said Kirkwood from his heart, “just as soon as I get

you home, safe and sound, I am going to take a day off, hunt up that

little villain, and flay him alive. In the meantime, I forgot to dine

last night, and am reminded that we had better forage for breakfast.”

Hobbs dogged them at a safe distance while they sallied forth and in a

neighboring street discovered an early-bird bakery. Here they were able

to purchase rolls steaming from the oven, fresh pats of golden butter

wrapped in clean lettuce leaves, and milk in twin bottles; all of which

they prosaically carried with them back to the station, lacking leisure

as they did to partake of the food before train-time.

Without attempting concealment (Hobbs, he knew, was eavesdropping round

the corner of the door) Kirkwood purchased at the ticket-window

passages on the Dunkerque train. Mr. Hobbs promptly flattered him by

imitation; and so jealous of his luck was Kirkwood by this time grown,

through continual disappointment, that he did not even let the girl

into his plans until they were aboard the 5:09, in a compartment all to

themselves. Then, having with his own eyes seen Mr. Hobbs dodge into

the third compartment in the rear of the same carriage, Kirkwood

astonished the girl by requesting her to follow him; and together they

left by the door opposite that by which they had entered.

The engine was running up and down a scale of staccato snorts, in

preparation for the race, and the cars were on the edge of moving,

couplings clanking, wheels a-groan, ere Mr. Hobbs condescended to join

them between the tracks.

Wearily, disheartened, Kirkwood reopened the door, flung the bags in,

and helped the girl back into their despised compartment; the quicker

route to England via Ostend was now out of the question. As for

himself, he waited for a brace of seconds, eying wickedly the

ubiquitous Hobbs, who had popped back into his compartment, but stood

ready to pop out again on the least encouragement. In the meantime he

was pleased to shake a friendly foot at Mr. Kirkwood, thrusting that

member out through the half-open door.

Only the timely departure of the train, compelling him to rejoin

Dorothy at once, if at all, prevented the American from adding murder

to the already noteworthy catalogue of his high crimes and

misdemeanors.

Their simple meal, consumed to the ultimate drop and crumb while the

Dunkerque train meandered serenely through a sunny, smiling Flemish

countryside, somewhat revived their jaded spirits. After all, they were

young, enviably dowered with youth’s exuberant elasticity of mood; the

world was bright in the dawning, the night had fled leaving naught but

an evil memory; best of all things, they were together: tacitly they

were agreed that somehow the future would take care of itself and all

be well with them.

For a time they laughed and chattered, pretending that the present held

no cares or troubles; but soon the girl, nestling her head in a corner

of the dingy cushions, was smiling ever more drowsily on Kirkwood; and

presently she slept in good earnest, the warm blood ebbing and flowing

beneath the exquisite texture of her cheeks, the ghost of an

unconscious smile quivering about the sensitive scarlet mouth, the

breeze through the open window at her side wantoning at will in the

sunlit witchery of her hair. And Kirkwood, worn with sleepless

watching, dwelt in longing upon the dear innocent allure of her until

the ache in his heart had grown well-nigh insupportable; then

instinctively turned his gaze upwards, searching his heart, reading the

faith and desire of it, so that at length knowledge and understanding

came to him, of his weakness and strength and the clean love that he

bore for her, and gladdened he sat dreaming in waking the same clear

dreams that modeled her unconscious lips secretly for laughter and the

joy of living.

When Dunkerque halted their progress, they were obliged to alight and

change cars,—Hobbs a discreetly sinister shadow at the end of the

platform.

By schedule they were to arrive in Calais about the middle of the

forenoon, with a wait of three hours to be bridged before the departure

of the Dover packet. That would be an anxious time; the prospect of it

rendered both Dorothy and Kirkwood doubly anxious throughout this final

stage of their flight. In three hours anything could happen, or be

brought about. Neither could forget that it was quite within the bounds

of possibilities for Calendar to be awaiting them in Calais. Presuming

that Hobbs had been acute enough to guess their plans and advise his

employer by telegraph, the latter could readily have anticipated their

arrival, whether by sea in the brigantine, or by land, taking the

direct route via Brussels and Lille. If such proved to be the case, it

were scarcely sensible to count upon the arch-adventurer contenting

himself with a waiting rôle like Hobbs’.

With such unhappy apprehensions for a stimulant, between them the man

and the girl contrived a make-shift counter-stratagem; or it were more

accurate to say that Kirkwood proposed it, while Dorothy rejected,

disputed, and at length accepted it, albeit with sad misgivings. For it

involved a separation that might not prove temporary.

Together they could never escape the surveillance of Mr. Hobbs; parted,

he would be obliged to follow one or the other. The task of misleading

the _Alethea’s_ mate, Kirkwood undertook, delegating to the girl the

duty of escaping when he could provide her the opportunity, of keeping

under cover until the hour of sailing, and then proceeding to England,

with the gladstone bag, alone if Kirkwood was unable, or thought it

inadvisable, to join her on the boat.

In furtherance of this design, a majority of the girl’s belongings were

transferred from her traveling bag to Kirkwood’s, the gladstone taking

their place; and the young man provided her with voluminous

instructions, a revolver which she did not know how to handle and

declared she would never use for any consideration, and enough money to

pay for her accommodation at the Terminus Hôtel, near the pier, and for

two passages to London. It was agreed that she should secure the

steamer booking, lest Kirkwood be delayed until the last moment.

These arrangements concluded, the pair of blessed idiots sat steeped in

melancholy silence, avoiding each other’s eyes, until the train drew in

at the Gare Centrale, Calais.

In profound silence, too, they left their compartment and passed

through the station, into the quiet, sun-drenched streets of the

seaport,—Hobbs hovering solicitously in the offing.

Without comment or visible relief of mind they were aware that their

fears had been without apparent foundation; they saw no sign of

Calendar, Stryker or Mulready. The circumstance, however, counted for

nothing; one or all of the adventurers might arrive in Calais at any

minute.

Momentarily more miserable as the time of parting drew nearer, dumb

with unhappiness, they turned aside from the main thoroughfares of the

city, leaving the business section, and gained the sleepier side

streets, bordered by the residences of the proletariat, where for

blocks none but children were to be seen, and of them but few—quaint,

sober little bodies playing almost noiselessly in their dooryards.

At length Kirkwood spoke.

“Let’s make it the corner,” he said, without looking at the girl. “It’s

a short block to the next street. You hurry to the Terminus and lock

yourself in your room. Have the management book both passages; don’t

run the risk of going to the pier yourself. I’ll make things

interesting for Mr. Hobbs, and join you as soon as I can, _if_ I can.”

“You must,” replied the girl. “I shan’t go without you.”

“But, Dor—Miss Calendar!” he exclaimed, aghast.

“I don’t care—I know I agreed,” she declared mutinously. “But I won’t—I

can’t. Remember I shall wait for you.”

“But—but perhaps—”

“If you have to stay, it will be because there’s danger—won’t it? And

what would you think of me if I deserted you then, af-after all

y-you’ve done?... Please don’t waste time arguing. Whether you come at

one to-day, to-morrow, or a week from to-morrow, I shall be waiting....

You may be sure. Good-by.”

They had turned the corner, walking slowly, side by side; Hobbs, for

the first time caught off his guard, had dropped behind more than half

a long block. But now Kirkwood’s quick sidelong glance discovered the

mate in the act of taking alarm and quickening his pace. None the less

the American was at the time barely conscious of anything other than a

wholly unexpected furtive pressure of the girl’s gloved fingers on his

own.

“Good-by,” she whispered.

He caught at her hand, protesting. “Dorothy—!”

“Good-by,” she repeated breathlessly, with a queer little catch in her

voice. “God be with you, Philip, and—and send you safely back to

me....”

And she was running away.

Dumfounded with dismay, seeing in a flash how all his plans might be

set at naught by this her unforeseen insubordination, he took a step or

two after her; but she was fleet of foot, and, remembering Hobbs, he

halted.

By this time the mate, too, was running; Kirkwood could hear the heavy

pounding of his clumsy feet. Already Dorothy had almost gained the

farther corner; as she whisked round it with a flutter of skirts,

Kirkwood dodged hastily behind a gate-post. A thought later, Hobbs

appeared, head down, chest out, eyes straining for sight of his quarry,

pelting along for dear life.

As, rounding the corner, he stretched out in swifter stride, Kirkwood

was inspired to put a spoke in his wheel; and a foot thrust suddenly

out from behind the gate-post accomplished his purpose with more

success than he had dared anticipate. Stumbling, the mate plunged

headlong, arms and legs a-sprawl; and the momentum of his pace, though

checked, carried him along the sidewalk, face downwards, a full yard

ere he could stay himself.

Kirkwood stepped out of the gateway and sheered off as Hobbs picked

himself up; something which he did rather slowly, as if in a daze,

without comprehension of the cause of his misfortune. And for a moment

he stood pulling his wits together and swaying as though on the point

of resuming his rudely interrupted chase; when the noise of Kirkwood’s

heels brought him about face in a twinkling.

“Ow, it’s you, eh!” he snarled in a temper as vicious as his

countenance; and both of these were much the worse for wear and tear.

“Myself,” admitted Kirkwood fairly; and then, in a gleam of humor:

“Weren’t you looking for me?”

His rage seemed to take the little Cockney and shake him by the throat;

he trembled from head to foot, his face shockingly congested, and spat

out dust and fragments of lurid blasphemy like an infuriated cat.

Of a sudden, “W’ere’s the gel?” he sputtered thickly as his quick

shifting eyes for the first time noted Dorothy’s absence.

“Miss Calendar has other business—none with you. I’ve taken the liberty

of stopping you because I have a word or two—”

“Ow, you ’ave, ’ave you? Gawd strike me blind, but I’ve a word for you,

too!... ’And over that bag—and look nippy, or I’ll myke you pye for

w’at you’ve done to me ... I’ll myke you pye!” he iterated hoarsely,

edging closer. “’And it over or—”

“You’ve got another guess—” Kirkwood began, but saved his breath in

deference to an imperative demand on him for instant defensive action.

To some extent he had underestimated the brute courage of the fellow,

the violent, desperate courage that is distilled of anger in men of his

kind. Despising him, deeming him incapable of any overt act of

villainy, Kirkwood had been a little less wary than he would have been

with Calendar or Mulready. Hobbs had seemed more of the craven type

which Stryker graced so conspicuously. But now the American was to be

taught discrimination, to learn that if Stryker’s nature was like a

snake’s for low cunning and deviousness, Hobbs’ soul was the soul of a

viper.