For a long time the Transatlantic Banking Company, which I have
mentioned on several occasions, puzzled me. I wondered if it was truly
a big bank, and why it should hold an interest in Bulow and Company.
My suspicion was that it might figure in the matter at hand as it did
in Howard Byng's affairs fifteen years previously.
That point mystified me. It took a long time to reason it out,
although I was looking for the cloven-hoof in banks, and even
governments, and I did believe that the Kaiser had been planning a
world conquest ever since he tucked France's thousand millions into
his wallet and went away with his chest out.
I did believe that the Germans nourished and practiced morganatic
marriage, the well-spring of most all forms of concubinage and
degeneracy, liberally imported to New York and all other large cities
of the world--the tap-root of the social evil. The entire German royal
crowd are sexual degenerates. We allow the male as well as the female
of this species to enter respectable residential sections, social
clubs, and churches, there to rub elbows and even kiss with their
scarlet lips girls and boys, thus encouraging further acquaintance
with their kind of "morality."
We can see all that now, but I, like millions of others, didn't fall
for its enormity until actually struck by lightning, so to speak.
The Kaiser's coterie had started out to seduce the world, and came with
a clean, pink face. Kultur, music, art, science--frequently stolen--a
stab at literature, and a big display of substance--money--were used
as wedges. They began as the libertine always begins, by cloaking
themselves as respectable. Hell's reward is ashes, bitter, acrid,
scalding ashes, slow in coming and sometimes at the expense of blood
and millions. Adjectives, adverbs and qualifying phrases have lost
their power to convey a conception of the underground system of the
Hun.
While we dislike sermons and smile sometimes at our own moralizing,
and hate bristling, pregnant facts, nevertheless we have faced a wall
of them, and it remains to be seen whether we smash it, thereby
letting in the noonday sun, or shall walk cowardly around the truth to
further plague ourselves and generations to come.
I took the early train to Canby's place next morning, convinced that
Bulow and Company's cutter was going out on an expedition that meant
harm to the little girl's father, whom I had not met. I wondered
if his delightful daughter, whom I had learned to venerate, would
allow me to use a motorboat so I could go to her father. I found
myself thinking of her as an "oasis on a barren Key." Of how much
self-interest was concealed in that who shall be the judge? I mean
the possibility of excitement, lure of danger, of serving and making
a record with the Government which signed my vouchers. This child
would become a valuable witness. I recalled what the old judge had
said about the odor the papers gave off to him--white paper and ink
can give a terrible stench to our sixth sense if one has the nostrils
to detect it.
I walked through the store and came out on the big veranda, only to
see her hurrying in from among her flowers. Coal-black Don was sitting
on the wharf, bareheaded.
"Mr. Wood, I knew it must be you because the train never stops for
anyone else!" she exclaimed, naïvely, coming up and offering me a
delicate but firm little hand. "Is there something wrong? Are we going
to get the goods? Daddy was so glad I ordered them and is planning on
them.
"He started early for the Tortugas and will not come back till late. I
tried to keep him here, and out of the water, but I can't. I know he
is diving again. I can tell by his red eyes when he returns. He talks
about doing it so that I may go North to school, and makes me forget
how hard he is working by telling me how much fun it is, and how he
made a dummy man for the sharks to charge at. As soon as they bite at
it a torpedo goes off and kills them. He says that long before he gets
old he will really quit, and we will be so happy together."
"But I want to see your father this morning; in fact, it is
important," I insisted quietly.
"Is it very--very important?"
"Yes, it is very important." I'll admit I lacked courage to tell her
why, for it seemed a pity to disturb her delightful state of mind.
"I could take you out there in the _Titian_, but my father would be
displeased if it were not something very important. I never did that
before," she said, coming closer and eyeing me fearlessly.
"Your father would not be displeased. He would say you were the
bravest and best little girl in the world." She had apparently been
taught to obey and never thought to ask why I wanted to see him.
"Oh, I will gladly go. I love the water and the _Titian_ is so fast
and seems to love it, too," and with no more ado she called to Don to
bring the _Titian_ alongside the wharf and take off the cover.
The negro slid off, turtlelike, into the ebb tide and waded out to the
boat, which he soon made ready for the trip.
The girl felt for her shark knife, to be sure it was there, and went
into the store and got her rifle. "Daddy says for me never to go out
without a rifle and a shark knife, as I may need them any time," she
explained as I looked on wonderingly.
"He says, with a shark knife, rifle, some 'terrors,' an oxygen tank
and a good boat, there is little danger," she volunteered, somehow
thinking it necessary to reassure me as we walked to the power boat
now ready for us.
The boat evidenced a feminine touch. Painted, varnished, brass shining
spick and span, as would the engine room of an ocean liner. Perhaps
thirty-five feet over all without a cabin, though there were bunks for
two in the bow ahead of the steering wheel protected from the weather
by a cowl over which the little girl could just see when standing. The
shining, six-cylinder motor, with up-to-date starter and reverse
clutch, was in the center at the bottom of an open cockpit extending
clear astern, surrounded by seats under which was closed storage
space.
"You see," she said, placing the rifle in a convenient leather holster
under which hung binoculars, "we used this boat to sponge from for a
long time, but since Daddy got the _Sprite_ and gave the _Titian_ to
me I have changed it some--and painted it up to suit myself," she
added, as the motor sprang into life at her touch. The cutter moved
instantly toward the entrance of the little bay and out on the Gulf
into a slight head wind.
"Better come up here under the cowl, for she throws a spray after she
gets full headway, even if there is no sea," she warned, not moving
her eyes from her steering course and glancing occasionally at the
compass in the miniature binnacle.
I took a seat on the side opposite her, protected from the spray as
the _Titian_ eagerly reached ahead. The craft seemed vitalized by her
presence, and sped like the wind over the long swells now coming
head-on from somewhere out in the great Gulf.
She charmed me, standing there at the wheel, on the opposite side of
the cockpit, receiving the spray on her boyishly cropped hair--a
baptismal glory. She was a picture with her perfectly shaped, natural
feet, plump but sinuous legs bare to the knees, brown arms, remarkable
chest, chiseled nose and chin, and a wonderfully calm, seraphic face,
delighted with the exhilaration of motion and speed. Her great thought
was that she was performing some big service for the father she loved
so much. The picture will remain with me forever.
"How long will it take to get there?" I finally asked, thinking of the
possibilities in Bulow and Company's movements. My intuition had
flogged me to suspect certain happenings during the previous night,
after I had parted from Scotty. Notwithstanding a good night's sleep
my suspicions were even yet strong within me, and I actually prayed
that results would spare this child from a knowledge of the savagery
of the people with whom I was likely to deal.
I was positive that harm was meant to Canby, when and where was the
only question. But why did they want him?--why the warrants? Why their
visit to his warehouse?--and why their cannon and rifles, and other
paraphernalia?
The child finally seemed to come out of a delightful reverie. She
glanced back at the motor, whose every valve, spring and cylinder was
humanized--biting eagerly in answer to her will.
"If Daddy is where I think he is we will reach him in another half
hour; it's only about twenty-five miles from here and the _Titian_
behaves well. She knows she has a guest aboard," she added with a
smile.
I looked at my watch. We would arrive there a little after twelve. If
the little Scottish engineer had not failed we would be there in time,
and then I could have another laugh at my ominous premonition that
counseled such extreme haste and energy.
Finally I saw the little girl's hand leave the wheel, and reach. I
watched her take from the leather pocket a pair of glasses and raise
them to her eyes, meanwhile steering with the other hand.
I am willing to admit a thrill of relief when she exclaimed:
"There he is. I can see the _Sprite_ now, I know her, as far as I can
see--her lines are so different."
I arose hastily and peered in the direction she indicated. She handed
me the glasses. I could but faintly discern the boat, but we were
traveling so fast I soon made out a trim motor boat about as long as
the Boche cutter, evidently anchored to the leeward of one of the
straggling coral formations of the Tortugas group. I swept the sea,
but at that moment could see no other vessel. She must have noted my
relief as I returned the glasses.
"I was sure I could go straight to him. I haven't missed it much," she
said, clapping her hands delightedly. "You see I wasn't two points off
where he is anchored," she added, changing her course to bear directly
down upon him, the spot now easily visible to the naked eye.
Anticipation of the loving welcome she would receive beaming in her
happy face.
My exultation did not last long. I detected something moving in the
sea beyond the island. I reached for the glasses instantly to assure
myself that my imagination was not tricking me. Without a possible
doubt the Boche boat was coming up toward Canby's boat, shielded by
the little island.
Scotty's work had delayed them some, but not quite enough. Heavy
forebodings again possessed me as I watched the boat stealthily
approaching. Screened by the island between it and the Canby boat, it
dashed forward at express speed. The _Sprite_ was manifestly at anchor
with no signs of life aboard. No doubt Canby was diving and the Boche
had selected that moment in which to strike.