Another two days had passed, during which the _Nadine_, instead
of swirling through the water at twenty knots, had been waddling
through it like a lame duck at eight.
Adelaide had professed the utmost wonder and concern at the accident,
and Miss Chrysie, who now knew rather more than she did, watched her
with unwinking steadiness from the time she came on deck in the
morning till the time she retired with her aunt at night. Madame de
Bourbon herself was completely in the dark as to everything that was
taking place, and simply looked upon the breakdown of the port engine
as one of the ordinary accidents of seafaring.
Adelaide had not slept for an hour continuously since she had seen the
guns being mounted. That had convinced her that Hardress, whose
suspicion she dreaded more than anything else, already suspected
something. Williams had kept faith, and had been detected, thanks to
the extraordinary precautions that had been taken in the engine-room,
precautions which, so her instinct told her, could not possibly have
been taken unless some design against the safety of the yacht had been
either discovered or very strongly suspected.
Still, as she told herself when she was lying awake in her berth the
night after the breakdown, to a certain extent, the plot had
succeeded. Williams had done the work he was paid to do, and the
_Nadine_ had come down from her greyhound speed to the limping crawl
of a wounded hare. The _Vlodoya_ would certainly overtake her
now--but, then, those guns!
She knew that the _Vlodoya_ was prepared to fight if necessary, and so
was the _Nadine_, and, now that the question of speed had been
disposed of, it would be a question of guns. But, after all, guns
would not be of much use without men to fire them or officers to
direct the operations. Manifestly the time had come for her to play
her part in the great game whose prize was to be, for her the man she
loved, and for her allies the lordship of earth.
The next day just before lunch she was strolling up and down the deck
with Hardress and Lady Olive, talking about all that they were going
to do when they got to Halifax, and she had turned the conversation
upon Canadian and American hotels and the difference between American
and European cooking, when she said:
"Ah, Monsieur le Viscomte, that reminds me. Will you allow me to give
you and also your poor men who have been working so hard at the broken
engine a little treat?"
"With the greatest of pleasure, my dear marquise," said Hardress. "And
what is it to be?"
"Oh, it is nothing very much," replied Adelaide, in her lightest and
gayest tone; "it is only that my aunt happened to mention last night
that she had found in her secretaire the authentic recipe of a
punch--what do you call it?--a punch of wines and liqueurs which they
used to drink at the suppers at Versailles and the Trianon in the days
of the Grand Monarque. Louis himself drank it, and so did that other
unhappy ancestor and his queen----"
"Who," laughed Lady Olive, "is at present reincarnate on board the
_Nadine_. I suppose you mean then to make up a punch some night
after this recipe; that would be delightful, if we only have the
proper ingredients on board."
"Oh, they are very simple," replied Adelaide; "it is certain that you
will have them, indeed it seems from the recipe that the excellence of
the punch does not depend so much on the variety of the ingredients as
the proportions and the skill in making it."
"Very well," said Hardress, "as long as we've got the things on board,
that is settled; and both ends of the ship shall drink to-night in the
punch _a le Grand Monarque_, to the health of his latest and fairest
descendant. M'Niven and his men really have been working like so many
niggers at that engine, and they've done splendidly. In fact, Captain
Burgess tells me we shall be ready for full speed ahead by daybreak
to-morrow."
"Ah," said Adelaide in her soul, "then it is all the more necessary
that we should have the punch _a le Grand Monarque_," and she went on
aloud, "Well then, Monsieur le Viscomte, that is arranged. If you will
tell your steward, your maitre d'hotel, as we call him on French
ships, to provide me with the ingredients, I will make it this
afternoon, and we will take it after dinner, eh?"
"Yes," said Lady Olive, "and I think, Shafto, under the circumstances,
you might invite Captain Burgess and Mr M'Niven to dine with us."
"Certainly," replied her brother, "that's a capital idea, Olive. We
will--in fact, we'll have Mr Vernon, too: he's worked just as hard as
anyone else, and it can be arranged for the second officer to take
charge of the bridge during dinner. And so, ma'm'selle," he went on,
turning to the marquise, "if you will take the trouble, you may brew
us two bowls, one for the cabin and a bigger one for the other end of
the ship, and the steward shall put the whole of the ship's liquid
stores at your disposal."
"Monsieur le Viscomte, I could desire nothing better," she replied,
with her most dazzling smile, and more meanings than one.
The subject of the punch was mentioned during lunch, and during the
afternoon Miss Chrysie got her father up into the bows, and, after a
swift look round to see if anyone was within hearing distance, said:
"Poppa, are you going to take any of that punch to-night?"
"Why, certainly, Chrysie. Why not? What's the matter?"
"It may be matter or no matter," she replied, "but I'm not, and I
guess it would be healthier for you not to. I'm more than ever certain
that that Frenchwoman is in it. Yes; it's all very well looking like
that, poppa, but--you think I hate this woman because she's in love
with the viscount. Well, I suppose I do; and there'll most likely be
trouble between us sometime soon; but I haven't quite lost all my
senses because I happen to be in love with a man that another woman
wants to get. Don't you see, we're going to have that punch just a few
hours before we get the engines right and that other boat is to catch
us?"
"But, great sakes, Chrysie, you don't mean the marquise is going to
poison us?"
"It won't be poison," answered Chrysie, very curtly, "because she
knows that he'll drink it. I guess some drug's a good deal more
likely--something that'll make everybody at both ends of the ship
pretty sleepy and stupid when the time for a fight comes around. You
see, that's just the natural sequence to the plot to cripple the
engine. Anyhow, that's what I think it is."
"Well, if it's as bad as that," said her father, "why not warn the
viscount?"
"That wouldn't do much good," she replied, more curtly than before.
"You see, I'd have to make a definite accusation against her, and I've
nothing to go on except what he'd call mere suspicion and we call
logical deduction. I'd give her a tremendous handle against me,
especially with him; and if she had any suspicion that I suspected
her--why, she might call me down pretty badly by not putting anything
in the stuff at all. No, poppa, under the circumstances, we can't do
anything except not drink that punch. I'm going to have a headache
to-night and stop in my berth. You have some of your gastric trouble
and drink hot milk or something of that sort: and if you get a show I
think you might, as matters are coming to a head pretty quickly, just
give a hint to Captain Burgess and Mr M'Niven to drink as little of
that punch as they politely can."
"Well, Chrysie," replied her father, "you've been right so far, but I
do hope you're wrong this time. It's a pretty large order, you know,
drugging the whole ship's company."
"Yes; and a Frenchwoman with a lot to win is playing a game for pretty
big dollars. Of course, there may be nothing in it at all, and I may
be quite wrong, but I think this punch of hers has come along at the
wrong time, and we can't take any risks. There's one thing, she'll
have to drink some of it herself, and that old aunt of hers too.
Still, she's pretty useless, and doesn't matter; but if anything does
really happen, poppa, you'd better go straight and shake the viscount
up. I'll have the steward make some pretty strong coffee to-night for
me, and I'll keep it hot and you can give it him; and if the doctor
isn't dead, too, with the stuff, get a drop of prussic acid from him.
That'll bring him round."
"It strikes me, Chrysie," said her father, looking down admiringly on
her flushed and animated face, "as though you're getting ready to run
this ship in case of trouble."
"It's just that, poppa," she said, with an impatient little tap of her
foot on the deck; "that is, of course, with you. I don't say it's
altogether disinterested, because it isn't; but I'd do that and a lot
more to keep to windward of that Frenchwoman, and she knows it. You
can work your gun and I can work a Maxim, so if there's only the two
of us, we can do something with that Russian ship. And now I guess
we'd better go to the other end and show how friendly we can be with
our enemies."
"Chrysie," said her father, with a very tender note in a voice which
could be as hard as the ring of steel, "I don't want you to be a bit
different to what you are, but if you'd been a man you'd have been a
great one."
"I'd sooner be a good woman and get what I want than be the biggest
man on earth," laughed Chrysie. "When a woman gets all she wants she
doesn't want to envy big men anything."
And with that they went aft and subsided into deck-chairs in a sort of
irregular circle, in which Lord Orrel was fast asleep, Madame de
Bourbon rapidly subsiding, and the marquise and Lady Olive making a
pretence of reading with drooping eyelids.
The punch _a le Grand Monarque_ was a great success that evening
after dinner. It was delicious; and every one regretted that the
president's attack of gastritis and Miss Chrysie's headache prevented
them from sharing in its delights.
The marquise brewed a little pot of her aunt's special Russian tea for
them, which the president declined with many apologies, and which Miss
Chrysie, after accepting a cup from the hands of Felice, emptied out
of the port-hole as soon as her ladyship's lady had left the cabin.
Captain Burgess and the chief had taken the president's hint almost as
though they expected it, and the Scotsman had said significantly:
"I'm obliged to you, Mr Vandel, though I hope there's nothing in your
suspicions; still, this is no time for us to be drinking foreign mixed
drinks when I've got to keep my eyes open, looking, as you may say,
out of both sides of my head. A drop of good old Scotch whisky is as
good nourishment as a man can need. What I'm thinking about is the
men. We can't forbid them to take it without either insulting his
lordship or telling him all the suspicions, which, you say, can't be
told him."
"No," added the captain; "but I'll see they have a pretty good shaking
up at four o'clock, and the cook shall have plenty of strong coffee
ready in case of accidents."
But for all that, the accident happened, almost, if not quite as well
as the originator of it could have hoped. By eleven o'clock everyone
who had drunk even a single glass of the marquise's punch, including
herself and Madame de Bourbon, were dead asleep. Even the captain and
the chief engineer, who had taken somewhat drastic measures to
counteract the possible effects, did not wake until daybreak, and even
then, strong as they were, they were both mentally and physically
incapable for the time being of attending to the work of the ship. The
sailors and engine-room hands, who had indulged rather more freely,
were all sleeping like logs when the watch was called at four in the
morning, and nothing could wake them until Mr Vernon, the chief
officer, who never under any circumstances drank anything stronger
than coffee, and who therefore escaped the general paralysis, with the
help of the president and the two quartermasters, who had been
forbidden to touch anything in the way of liquor during the night,
brought them up on deck and turned the hose on them. This revived the
majority of them sufficiently to enable them to drink a copious
allowance of strong coffee, after which they were very ill, and then
much better.
The captain and the chief engineer were then carried to bathrooms and
treated in somewhat the same fashion, after which they were taken back
to their rooms and given a good stiff brandy-and-soda.
"Ay, man!" said the chief engineer, as he began to get back his grip
on things, "whatever was in that stuff it was deadly. No more of your
foreign drinks for me. After that, good Scotch whisky is going to be
good enough for me. It's a mercy she didn't poison the whole ship's
crew. Captain, if there's any of the men anything like fit for duty
you might give them a good strong tot, and let's get to work on that
shaft. There's just the bearings and the thrust-blocks to adjust and
oil, and then we'll be ready for full speed ahead in three hours."
"I'm afraid that would be a bit too late, sir," said Miss Chrysie, who
had been sweeping the eastern horizon with her glasses. "Look yonder,"
she went on; "there's a steamer down yonder steaming for all she's
worth, and I reckon she's a lot more likely to be the _Vlodoya_ than
an east-bound liner."
The chief took the glasses she offered him, and had a long look at the
cloud of smoke that was rising from the ship.
"I'm afraid you're right, miss," he said, handing the glasses back.
"That's no liner; she's not half big enough; she's a yacht. Still, her
stern chase is a long one, even if we are like a seal with one
flipper, and we may be ready for her even yet."
"I think we shall be able to dodge him, Miss Vandel," said the
captain, who had just come out of his room, still looking pale and
somewhat dazed. "Put every possible hand on to the shaft, M'Niven.
Steam's up, and we can start the moment you're ready."
"And," added the president, "I'll see to the guns. If that's the
_Vlodoya_ they're not going to overtake us before we are ready."