The paddles had already begun to churn in the water, and the vessel
to move slowly, but with a swift vibration in every plank of her which
promised speed when once she had gathered way. I was suspicious enough
already, though in so vague a fashion that I hardly guessed what I
suspected, and I recall the fact that I was not in the least surprised
when I heard a cry from Ruffiano's lips, and saw the old man struggling
in the arms of a big sailor who had clipped him by both elbows from
behind and held him in a position of the most serious disadvantage.
Without reflection, I sprang to his release. I felt a heavy blow between
the shoulders, which would in all probability have taken effect upon my
head but for my sudden movement, and in an instant I was in the middle
of as severe a rough-and-tumble fight as I could remember anywhere.
There were eight or ten people engaged in it, and the whole thing was
so rapid that I had not the faintest idea as to where my opponents came
from. I only know that within five seconds of the time at which I had
left the deck I was somehow back upon it, fighting, as it seemed to me
at the moment, for bare life, though I cannot think at this time of day
that any very serious personal violence was intended towards myself.
I was fighting like mad with half a dozen when we suddenly swerved
altogether against some part of the bulwark which had not been
properly secured, and was probably made to open to afford a gangway for
passengers, or for the unloading of baggage. The rail swung back, and I,
clutching desperately at one of the fellows with whom I was struggling,
fell overboard, and soused into the black water, with the bitter chill
of a rainy spring in it. I think I may say quite honestly that on land I
was a tolerably accomplished sportsman, but I was mainly inland bred as
a boy, and though I could swim, after a fashion, and could also, after
a fashion, handle a pair of sculls, I was a moderately poor creature in
the water. The man I had clutched went down with me, and we both came
up spouting the loathsome Thames water from our mouths and nostrils, and
still holding to each other. As good luck would have it for me at that
moment I came up on top, and a single blow disengaged me from my late
adversary. The vessel from which we had fallen was already at a distance
which seemed astonishing, and as I trod the water and looked about
me, all the twinkling lights of the river craft and the shore looked
alarmingly distant. I made for the nearest of them all, and swam,
dreadfully embarrassed by my boots and soaked clothing. The light
towards which I directed myself shone green over the black spaces of
the water, and concentrating all my observation upon it, I thought I
approached it at quite a royal pace. In a very little while, however, I
discovered that the light was bearing down on me at a much greater rate
than that at which I was approaching it, and finally I had some ado to
get out of the way of the boat which carried it, and was considerably
tossed and tumbled about in the long furrowing wake it made. I sang
out at my loudest, but I can only suppose that I was not heard, for the
craft, whatever it might have been, swept swiftly down the stream,
and in a few seconds was lost to me. I began to feel horribly cold and
hopeless. I have been in danger a good many times in my life, but almost
always when I could warm the sense of peril by action; but here I felt
for a moment as if my time had come, and as if nothing I could do could
avert it. The fancy fairly sickened me; and what with the chill of
immersion, the sickening taste of the nauseous water, and my own sense
of feebleness as a swimmer, I was on the edge of giving up; but all of
a sudden, as I have felt more than once in my time, a perfectly calm
and bright sensation succeeded to the panic, and I rolled over on to my
back, determined to make the best of things and to husband my strength
as far as possible. I had read scores of times, as everybody has, that
a man floating in the water has only to throw his head back, to keep his
hands down, and to rest quite still to be safe. I tried this promising
experiment, and whether from the weight of my wet clothes or the
irregularity of my breathing, I found that it would not answer, and that
I was compelled to keep in motion. I could feel that the current was
carrying me, and as I paddled along, most carefully husbanding my
strength, I saw that I was bearing gradually nearer to a light on shore,
whose position in reference to the various other lights determined
me that it was a fixed and not a moving object. I swam towards it,
carefully regulating my respiration and determined to avoid all flurry,
but I saw that in spite of my utmost efforts I was being hurried past
it. Then I drifted into a space where there was something of a little
broken, choppy sea, and got another fill of that beastly water, which
tasted of tar and sewage and all abominations, and sickened me again to
the very heart. Then, before I had fairly recovered from this, and while
I was only automatically keeping myself afloat, I saw the wet, rotting
piles of a wooden pier quite close to me, and swimming like a madman,
touched the surface, and tried to get a grip of it. I failed, and was
swept along, gripping and slipping in a most desperate endeavor, until
at last the finger-nails of my right hand stuck somewhere in a crack of
the water-soaked and slimy wood, and I held on, feeling that I was safe.
I had not the faintest sensation of pain at the time, but I clung to the
slimy pillar of that pier so urgently with both hands that my nails
were half torn away, and for a fortnight later it was only with great
difficulty that I could handle a pen, or button or unbutton a collar,
or use a knife and fork. I tried to bottom the stream, but found I was
quite out of my depth, and so worked cautiously along with the current
from post to post until I came to the end of the structure, and then
feeling my way round it in grim darkness, found myself at last with my
feet embedded in soft mud. I held on there for a minute or two to take
breath, and then fought on again. In a little while I found myself on
dry land, but so used up by the pull and by the unwonted exertion that I
fell all in a heap at the water's edge, and lay there so prostrated that
I could move neither hand nor foot. At first the air was tenfold
colder than the water had been, but the natural heat reasserted itself
gradually, and my forces so far gathered themselves together that I
could stand upon my feet and walk. I went on blindly just at first, with
such lights as were visible dancing wildly all about me, and it must
only have been by sheer good fortune that I did not wander back into the
river from which I had so narrowly escaped. Sometimes I saw hundreds of
lights, green and red and dazzling white, which had no existence at all,
but in the midst of these I made out one which was stationary and real,
and I went towards it. When I reached it I found that it hung above the
door of that identical public-house at which we had found our boatman,
and there at the doorway, glass in hand, was the hackney driver who had
brought us down. The man looked amazed to see me, and was more surprised
still when I hailed him. He undertook immediately to drive me back to
town; helped me into the cab, wrapped me up from head to foot in a rough
oilcloth, got me a stiff glass of hot brandy-and-water, and drove away.
The journey down had been long, but the return seemed actually
interminable, and it seems so now in my recollection of it. I plead
guilty to a confusion of mind which for a while left me powerless to
think about anything. Notwithstanding the wraps with which the driver
had supplied me, the cold of the March night pierced me to the bone, and
the brandy I had taken seemed rather to stupify than to revive me; but
when at last I did get home, and Hinge had helped me to a scorching
rub-down with rough towels, and had assisted me to dress in dry raiment,
I felt more myself again, and sent downstairs for the cabman, who was
still waiting there for his fare. The man could tell me absolutely
nothing of any value, and I soon found out that the fellow was as much
surprised at the turn events had taken as I was myself. A servant girl,
it seemed, had come upon the street and had told him that he was wanted
a few doors off. He gave me correctly and with no unwillingness Brunow's
address, and told me that the gentleman who chartered him had bidden
him to drive first to the Italian restaurant, and then to our ultimate
destination. I took the man's number and dismissed him with a handsome
gratuity. Hinge at first wanted to insist on my immediate retirement to
bed, but with every moment that went by I felt better, and when I had
drunk a cup of his excellent coffee I was quite myself again, except in
so far as all the events of the night seemed to have a curiously unreal
and dreamlike feeling about them. The more I turned the thing over in my
mind the more I felt inclined to doubt Brunow's _bonafides_, and yet our
long acquaintance and the downright horrible character of the betrayal
which had really been committed made the doubt seem so criminal that
I tried to drive it away. The more I refused to harbor it the more
emphatically it came back again. I recalled Brunow at every instant at
which I had consciously or unconsciously observed him, and I _knew_ that
there had somehow been a burden on his mind. I could recall his cry when
he had said that we were aboard the wrong ship; and let me do what I
might, I could not rid myself of the belief that his voice and look at
that moment were artificial and theatrical. Once, in the middle of that
rough-and-tumble which ended in my involuntary plunge into the water,
I had caught sight of him in the gleam of a sickly oil-lamp which swung
above the deck. He was held, yet not restrained, by a burly seaman, and
the picture was burned into my mind as if by fire. The man was peering
over his shoulder, ten thousand times more interested in watching
the progress of the struggle than in guarding Brunow, and Brunow
was watching the struggle too, but not in the least with any look of
amazement, but only with one which I could not for the life of me help
construing into fear and shame and self-reproach. It was like a scene
beheld by lightning, divided and apart from everything else, and I found
it ineffaceable.
It seemed to me obvious that the first thing to be done was to
communicate with Ruffiano's friends, for whether he had been spirited
away by design or not, it was undeniable that he was in a strange
predicament. I set out at once for our ordinary meeting-place, taking
Hinge with me, and a brisk walk of a quarter of an hour brought me to
the spot. The room in which we held our meetings was approached by an
entrance which ran beside the lower room of the restaurant. I left Hinge
in this narrow passage, and mounted the stairs rapidly. Before I reached
the room I heard the hum of excited voices, and when I tried the door I
found that it was locked; I gave the signal known to every member of our
fraternity, and the door was opened. The man who opened it, a swarthy
Neapolitan whom I barely knew by name, started with amazement as he saw
me, and gave vent to an ejaculation. There were perhaps a score of men
in the room, and as I stepped forward they all started to their feet
and began to press about me with questionings, of which I could barely
understand a phrase. One man only hung aloof, and that man was Brunow. I
was so amazed to see him there, and so bewildered by the din of welcome
and inquiry, that I had no opportunity for a real observation of
anything; but I am a mistaken man indeed if Brunow were not to the full
as much amazed at seeing me as I at seeing him.
“My good friends,” I called out at last, “let me have silence for a
minute. Where is Count Ruffiano?”
Every one pointed at once to Brunow. He advanced, and I read treason in
his face.
“My dear Fyffe,” he cried, holding out his hand to me, “I had never
hoped to see you alive again.”
This time it was I who refused to see Brunow's hand, as he, only a few
hours ago, had declined to see mine. If I had laid bare his villainy
there and then, I have no shadow of doubt that there would have been
murder done. If I had even hinted at suspicion, his life would have
been barely worth a minute's purchase. If my associates had a fault with
which both foes and friends alike would have credited them, it was that
they were dangerously prone to act first and to argue afterwards.
There had been treason in the camp already; when was ever a revolution
conducted without it? But I could not make it my business to denounce
a fellow-countryman, and a man who had once called himself my friend,
unless I could proceed on actual certainty. It took an hour of excited
talk to do it, and I had to describe my own share in the adventure twice
or thrice; but I got Brunow away at last, and as we went down the stairs
together I slipped my arm through his and held him with a grip which I
dare say he found significant.
“You will come to my rooms,” I said. He made no answer, and I walked
along with him, Hinge following at a distance of a yard or two, and so
far, of course, suspecting nothing. Not a word was spoken by the way,
and Brunow walked like a man who was going to the scaffold. When we came
to iny own rooms I locked the door and faced him.
“What have you done with Ruffiano?” I asked him, sternly.
“God only knows what has become of him,” cried Brunow, casting his hands
abroad with a gesture which was meant to convey at once irritation
and wonder. “I made my way straight back to tell the story of the
extraordinary incident of to-night, and I have told it. The men we have
just left can confirm me in the statement that I did not lose a minute.”
He was defending himself already, though no accusation had been brought
against him.
“You escaped from the ship?” I asked him, curtly.
“Yes,” he answered, with a gasp; “I escaped from the ship.”
“How?” I asked.
“I followed your example,” he returned, “and leaped overboard.”
“To arrive here,” I said, “in dry clothes, having made no change?”
He gave a sudden start at this, and cast a hurried glance at his own
figure. Then he looked at me with an expression I shall not readily
forget. It was that of a hunted creature trapped, and recognizing the
fact that he was caught.
“I swam ashore,” he said, “and I have changed my clothes at home.”
I moved without a word to the door, and, opening it, called out to
Hinge, who stood waiting for me in the darkening passage, bidding him to
mount. He came and stood at attention.
“Mr. Brunow,” I said, “will give you the key of his rooms, and you will
go from here to there, and by his orders will bring back to me a soaked
suit of clothes which you will find there. Oblige me by handing my man
your key,” I added, turning again on Brunow.
He shot a whisper at me.
“Do you wish to have me murdered?”
“I wish to know,” I answered, “and I mean to know, the truth. What have
you done with Ruffiano?”
“I tell you,” he cried, desperately, “I have done nothing! I know
nothing! You were there yourself, and you can tell as well as I that
the whole thing was a surprise. How was I to know we were being carried
aboard an Austrian craft? How could I suspect the man who came to me of
treachery?”
“You swam ashore?” I asked. “I am not to be charged with hunting you to
death because I ask for a sight of the clothes you swam in. Give Hinge
your key!”
“He's quite welcome to it,” he answered, turning his white, defiant face
on me, and fumbling in his pocket with a hand so unnerved that he could
grasp nothing with it for a minute. “There you are,” he said at last,
drawing out his latch-key and handing it to Hinge. “Do as you are told.”
Hinge accepted the key, and, saluting, left the room without a word,
though with a curious look both at Brunow and myself. When he had gone
Brunow threw himself into a chair and drew out a cigar-case. He opened
it, and selected and lit a cigar, though he shook so that he only
succeeded with an expenditure of some half a dozen matches. When he
had got a light at last he threw himself back and puffed away with
as complete an expression of _insouciance_ as he could command. I, of
course, had nothing to say until Hinge returned, though I knew perfectly
well beforehand what the result of his errand would be. He came back
at last, and when his step was heard upon the stair Brunow looked more
ghastly than ever as he turned his face towards me. When Hinge came in
empty-handed the poor detected wretch rose with a pretence of bluster
which was miserable to see.
“Why the devil,” he cried, “haven't you done what you were told to do?
This is a pretty servant of yours. Why hasn't he brought the things back
as he was told to do?”
Hinge said nothing, but looked from me to my visitor in some
bewilderment.
“You hear!” cried Brunow, rising and throwing the stump of his cigar
into the grate with a sickly pretence of anger.
“Beg your pardon, sir,” said Hinge; “there's Mr. Brunow's key, sir.
Seems to me I've been sent on a fool's errand. Mr. Brunow's man wants to
know what I mean by coming with a message like that. He says Mr. Brunow
hasn't been at home since half-past six this evening. Mr. Brunow's man,
sir,” Hinge pursued, “seemed to think I was trying to make a fool of
him.”
“That will do,” I answered. “You have obeyed your orders, and that is
all you have to think about. Go and wait outside.”
He went, but I could see that he nursed a little sense of injury. I
turned to Brunow and asked him: “Is the game played out yet, or have you
any other shift to show me?”
He made no answer at the minute, but fumbled in his pocket again for
his cigar-case, with the same shaky and uncertain motion as before. He
avoided my eyes, though every now and then he looked towards me as if in
spite of himself. For my own part, I could not look away from him, and
I do not know now whether I felt more rage or more contempt or more pity
for him. I had not thought him so cowardly as he showed himself to be.
“It is for you,” I told him at last, “to explain your actions of
to-night. You know what the situation means. I charge you here with
having betrayed a comrade whom you had sworn, in common with the rest of
us, to stand by to the last. If I had brought the charge I am making now
against you a little more than half an hour ago it would have gone hard
with you. You are as well aware of that fact as I am, and you know that
nothing could have saved you from my just renunciation but the memory of
an old friendship, of which you have proved yourself utterly unworthy.”
“I know you're talking nonsense,” he responded, trying to brave it out
still. “What should I want to betray old Ruffiano for?”
A sudden gust of wrath swept through me, and blew away before it the
last sense of compunction in my mind.
“Understand,” I said, “that I am in earnest in this matter, and that I
mean to carry out my threat at once. Unless I receive from you a full
confession of this night's infamy, I shall detain you here, and shall
send Hinge to summon a meeting here; and at that meeting I shall
denounce you as a traitor to the cause you have sworn to forward. I
shall bring my proofs, and I shall leave you to justify yourself as best
you may. What the consequence of that step may be it is for you and not
for me to calculate. I will give you five minutes in which to make up
your mind.”
“You can do what the devil you please,” he said; and I rang the bell.
Hinge came in, and I bade him go out and call a cab. He obeyed, and
taking a seat at the table I began to write out a series of addresses.
I read them aloud to Brunow when I had finished, and he recognized the
names of half a dozen of the most resolute of our leaders.
“You are playing with your own life!” I cried. “You have only to tell
the truth to have a chance for it. You have only to go on lying in this
futile way to throw your last chance into the gutter. I will palter with
you no longer, and unless by the time at which Hinge returns you have
made a clean breast of it, I shall send for the men whose names
are here, I shall bring my charge, and you will have to stand the
consequences.”
“You can commit any folly you please,” he answered. “I've nothing to say
to you; and if you choose to excite the suspicions of a lot of foreign
scum like that, you can do it, and take the responsibility.”
“Very well,” I said, and the room was dead still for a space of, I
should say, four or five minutes; then the rumble of a cab was heard in
the street and a step upon the stairs. It was a dreadful minute alike
for Brunow and myself, and, looking at him, I felt a resurrection of
pity in me.
“Is this bravado worth while any longer, Brunow?” I asked him. “I have
no resource but to keep my word. If my man enters the room before you
have spoken, he shall go on his errand, and then may Heaven have mercy
on the soul of a traitor!”
Hinge's footstep came nearer, and his key touched the lock with a smart
click. Brunow rose to his feet as if without any volition of his own,
and made a sign with his hand against the door.
“You wish him to remain outside?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, and, falling back into the chair from which he had
arisen, covered his white face with both hands. He had allowed his
burning cigar to fall upon the carpet, and, a faint odor of acrid smoke
reaching my nostrils, I looked for it, found it, and threw it into the
empty grate. This trivial action seemed as important at the moment as
anything else.
Hinge knocked at the door, but I told him to go down-stairs, and to
detain the cab until I should call him. I heard the closing of the outer
door, and heard every step of Hinge's feet until he reached the bottom
of the stairs. Then the silence was so intense that I could hear
Brunow's watch quite distinctly as it ticked in his pocket, and my own
kept time to it.
“You have decided wisely,” I said at last; “and when you have told me
the truth you shall have your chance.” He was silent for so long a time
that I had to urge him. “I shall not wait forever.”
“Well,” he said, desperately, looking up at me for a mere instant, and
then, burying his face in his hands again, “tell me what you want to
know.”
“I want,” I told him, “to know the truth about the whole of this
miserable business. Who employed you here?”
“Employed me!” he responded.
“Who paid you for this act of treachery?”
“You know all you want to know, it seems, already,” he answered,
sullenly, and at that I lost patience with him wholly.
“If I am not answered at once and without reserve,” I said, “I will keep
my part of the bargain, and leave you to your chance. Who paid you?”
“You can do what you like,” he answered, rising. “I'm not going to
betray a lady, anyhow.”
“Thank you,” I answered, with a more bitter disdain than I can easily
express in words. “If you choose to make your confession in that form,
it is as useful to me as it would be in any other. You were paid for
this by a lady. Who was she? You will find it agreeable to have a little
force exerted for the satisfaction of your own conscience, if that is
the name you give it. Who was the lady?”
“I don't know that I'm bound to risk my life for her,” he answered.
“It's in her way of business, and she's paid for it.”
“And who is she?” I demanded once again.
“The Baroness Bonnar,” said Brunow.