THE UNWILLING GUEST
After the light of dawn went out upon the cliffs of Rhuda Mor, Doris
Mather hung for a long while upon the brink of an abyss, below her
darkness, above her light. She strove upward, but in the dim moments
of half-consciousness was aware of a force restraining her and a
recurrence of the odor in which the darkness had first come. She had
a sense of motion and of jolting, the feeling of arms about her, a
descent, the sound of water and the rocking of a boat. Brief glimpses
she had of sunlight, which revealed outlines dimly, like the glow
of summer lightning upon familiar objects, making them curiously
unfamiliar. John Rizzio’s face persisted in these visions, a fantastic
Rizzio, much larger than the man she knew, deferential and punctilious
as ever, and strangely grave. A stout man with a swarthy face in a cap
and brass buttons, just above her, darkly outlined against white clouds
which seemed to be whirling rapidly past him. Dully she found herself
wondering where the clouds were going so rapidly and why they didn’t
come back.... Later, darkness and peace, where there were no visions
and the sky no longer whirled ... a steady vibration which soothed her,
and she blissfully slept.
When she awoke the visions were gone, and as her senses returned she
started up, but her head swam and she sank back again. As she had risen
a woman emerged from the shadows of the room and came forward. And
then slowly, as full consciousness returned, the girl realized that she
was on an ocean-going vessel in a cabin or stateroom very beautifully
appointed. She started up in her bed and looked out of the port-hole to
see the amber crests of waves leaping rapidly past. Then she heard the
woman’s voice speaking.
“You are feeling better?”
Doris turned and looked at her, a woman of middle age, with a kindly
face, dressed in white linen.
“What yacht is this?” she asked.
“The _Sylph_, miss--Mr. Rizzio’s,” she replied.
Doris thought for a moment. The last thing her waking consciousness
remembered were the cliffs of Rhuda Mor.
“How did I come here?” she asked again.
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know, miss.”
Her manner was kind and most respectful but her tone was decisive. She
was obeying instructions.
“Is Mr. Rizzio aboard?” Doris asked again.
“Yes, miss. And he asked me to tell you that when you felt sufficiently
recovered he would be glad to wait upon you in the saloon.”
“Oh, I understand.”
When Doris rose and put her feet to the swaying deck, nausea overcame
her. But the woman, who was prepared for this emergency, offered a
glass filled with cloudy liquid.
“Drink this,” she said. “It will make you feel better.”
Doris looked into the woman’s face, and recognizing the aromatic odor,
took the draught.
The nausea passed after a moment and she managed to get up and make her
way to the bathroom. As she bathed her face, memory returned, full
memory of the events of the previous night, the scene upon the cliffs,
with Cyril, the destroyer, Rizzio, Stryker, Rudha Mor, the Yellow
Dove and then unconsciousness. Chloroform! There were vestiges of it
upon her clothing still. They had drugged her. When she took off her
shirtwaist something fell to the floor. A paper. She picked it up and
looked at it. It was Rizzio’s note to her at Kilmorack House asking
her to come to Ben-a-Chielt--so that he might make her prisoner! She
remembered now that she had thrust it into her waist when she went out.
She folded the letter carefully and put it in her stays. After the
other indignity she had suffered, it seemed strange that they had not
searched her, too. She would keep the letter. Perhaps later she would
find use for it.
John Rizzio! It was difficult for her mind to associate him with the
villainy of abduction. And yet, as her brain grew clearer, she became
quite sure that there was no other answer to the problem. Indeed, from
the replies of the stewardess she knew that John Rizzio had chosen that
she should know it was to be a problem no longer. The _Sylph_, that was
his yacht. She had been on the boat before, two years ago, during the
races in the Solent. Abduction! He had dared! She was not frightened
yet. Fury at his temerity blinded her to all sense of danger. A phrase
of Cyril’s came back to her, illuminating the chaos of her thoughts.
“You know too much--too much for your own good--or mine.” Cyril’s
cigarette papers! She was the only one beside Cyril who had read their
contents! Rizzio had carried her off, had brought her to the _Sylph_,
which was out of sight of land, speeding for--Germany! What was he
going to do with her?
Fury passed and weakness followed. She did not know what time of
day it was, but she was aware that it had been long since she had
eaten. In the cabin she found a tray set with food and coffee which
the stewardess insisted upon serving her. She sank into an armchair,
refusing to eat, but the woman persisted and the odor of the coffee
was tempting. It was luncheon, she found, and remembered that she had
had no appetite for dinner at Lady Heathcote’s and that it must be
quite twenty-four hours since she had broken bread. The coffee gave her
courage, and in spite of herself she found that she was eating heartily
with a genuine relish. She was a good sailor and the nausea, which
she now knew was the effect of the drug, had passed. The stewardess
stood beside her and to the other questions Doris put to her answered
politely, but volunteered nothing further than she had already told.
In spite of the woman’s care and attention the girl could not get rid
of the idea that the stewardess had been sent as a guardian as well as
a maid. She was a prisoner of John Rizzio, of Germany, whither he was
bringing her as fast as the yacht could take them.
Finding at last that her attempts to extract information from her
stolid servitress were fruitless, and feeling strengthened by the food
she had taken, she got up and told the woman that she was going on
deck, asking that Mr. Rizzio be informed that she would see him. As
she emerged upon deck the crisp wintry air sent the color slowly into
her pallid cheeks. The yacht was bowling along with the wind and sea
quartering and the foam-crests leaped alongside, sending an occasional
spurt of spray into the air, where the wind caught it and blew it
across the decks in a feathery mist of rainbows. The sunlight glinted
on polished wood and brasswork and at the stern caught in the cross of
St. George where the flag of England flapped in the breeze. The flag
of England sheltering John Rizzio! She scanned the horizon anxiously.
Perhaps an English cruiser or destroyer might come to whom she might be
able to tell the real character of the owner of the vessel. But there
was no vessel in sight. A sailor passed her and touched his cap. The
deference encouraged her. It reminded her that this was the same deck
upon which she had stood when John Rizzio was suing for her hand, an
honorable host when she had been an honored guest. A loud crackling
came to her ears from the wireless room. He was there, already in
communication with his employers in Germany. Even now, with Cyril’s
words still ringing in her ears, she found it difficult to believe
that John Rizzio was England’s enemy; and the price of his treachery
a picture, “The Descent from the Cross”! What a mockery that a man
who would stoop to such dishonor could make its price a picture which
typified the conquest of sublime virtue even over death!
The wind was searching and the maid brought a heavy coat with brass
buttons from below and put it on her with the word that Mr. Rizzio
had sent it and would come to her in a few moments. She sat in a
deckchair in the lee of the deckhouse, her lips firmly compressed,
trying to think what his ulterior purpose might be, planning a defense
which might make her invulnerable, an attack which might search his
intentions and discover the true relation that was to exist between
them.
He came toward her from forward, muffled in a greatcoat, and carrying
a rug. He took off his cap with an air of deference, which answered at
once some of her questions. She rose and faced him, her color high.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked, trying to keep her lips
from trembling.
He smiled and pulled at his mustache.
“First, I hope you’ll give me a chance to explain.”
“What?” she cried hotly. “What can you explain? Don’t you suppose I
know what you are? A German spy, a traitor to England, and worse than
that--a woman-baiter and a coward, Mr. Rizzio.”
He bent his head.
“I make no defense,” he said, “except necessity.” And then gravely
indicating the chair from which she had risen. “Won’t you sit down? The
voyage may be long.”
But she still stood.
“I am a prisoner, not a guest.”
“Then I command you to sit,” he said with a laugh. “Won’t you?”
A sound of exasperation came from her throat and she obeyed him, her
gaze on the sea, while with some ostentation he covered her with a rug.
“What are you going to do with me in Germany?” she repeated dully.
He sank into the chair beside her. “As I have often told you, you
are a woman of rare intelligence. In reply I can only say that,
unfortunately, I do not know.”
“A coward who is also a--a liar,” she said bitterly.
“A coward is usually a liar, but a liar isn’t always a coward. I am a
liar, Doris, if you will, but a courageous one.”
“My name is Mather,” she said distinctly.
He shrugged and turned his gaze on the sea.
“You hate me, of course. We are enemies. I am sorry. I warned you that
you were entangled in an affair that was leading you into dangerous
paths. I would have saved you, if I could, but you had learned too
much.”
“And so you had me chloroformed. It was a pity that you didn’t complete
your work.”
“I merely did what was required of me. Through a most unfortunate
combination of circumstances you came into possession of a secret known
to but one person in England; and you are the only person with English
sympathies who knows my exact political status----”
“A spy!” contemptuously.
“What you will--a spy if you like--but a strong friend of Germany
who resents an attempt by a nation jealous of her growing commercial
supremacy to wipe her out of existence. I have lived in England long,
and I have known many of the men who have made her what she is, but
never in all those years has England ever given me one token of
the high nobility she preaches. I have passed for many years as an
Englishman. I am not English. I am cosmopolitan and to a cosmopolitan,
residence is but an accident.”
“Pray spare me the details of your treachery.”
He laughed easily.
“I’m afraid you’re at my mercy. I shall try to be lenient. You are an
American, I am an Italian. To call me a traitor to England because I
happen to have a liking for Germany would be much like my calling you a
traitor to Germany because you happen to have a liking for England.”
“I have never eaten the bread and salt of Germany, or wormed my way
into the hearts of its people.”
“I’m sure you flatter me. The people of my set in London are agreeable,
but----”
Doris had straightened in the act of rising.
“I did not come on deck to discuss your ideals or Germany’s. I hope
that you will excuse----”
“You will not listen?”
“No. I care nothing for your political views. I am your prisoner. I
want to know without further words the worst that I am to expect from
you.”
“You have been upon the _Sylph_ before. What was proper for you then is
proper for you now. You are quite safe in my hands. I shall try to make
you comfortable. Does that answer your question?”
“And after----”
“You are to be delivered to the head of the Secret Service Department
of the German Empire.”
The girl paled and sank back into her chair.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because you are in possession of information that he wants.”
“What information? It isn’t true. I know nothing.”
“I am sorry,” he apologized again. “The cigarette papers. You read
them.”
“No--no.”
“You forget that you have already admitted that. You have also read the
second message which was to take the place of the first.”
“You are dreaming. A second message? I know nothing of a second
message.”
“Pardon me, if I remind you of it. You would have burned it in the
drawing-room at Kilmorack House if Mr. Hammersley hadn’t taken it from
your hand.”
She stared at him bewildered at his astounding omniscience, his
devilish ingenuity. It frightened her, his cleverness and his pursuit
of her. It seemed that she had never had a chance to get away from him.
And yet his manner was so carefully studied, his attitude toward her so
coldly impersonal that as a man once a lover she no longer feared him.
If love of her had ever been in his heart, a greater passion had burned
it out. She was grateful for this and prepared to measure her woman’s
wit to his, thinking of Cyril. What would Cyril have her do?
“You mean that you will let them--the Germans--question me?”
“If they wish to do so.”
“But how will it benefit them, if the papers are already in their
possession?”
“You will forgive me if I find it possible to doubt.”
She turned away from him and studied the lines of foam that streamed
across the green troughs of the sea.
“I suppose that conversation between us two is superfluous. You
distrust me and I----”
“I think perhaps,” he said gravely, “that it would be pleasanter for
both of us not to hear your sentiments toward me. Since the night of
Lady Heathcote’s dinner in London you ceased to be Miss Doris Mather
and became merely an official document. It is my duty to preserve it
and deliver it safely.”
“I hope you may succeed. Otherwise the American Ambassador in Berlin
may----”
“Unfortunately,” he went on quietly, “the American Ambassador cannot be
informed.”
She laughed with a greater confidence than she felt.
“You surely can’t believe that my absence from England will pass
unnoticed. Do you think that my father--that Lady Heathcote----”
She paused bewildered.
“They will merely know that you rode late at night to Ben-a-Chielt and
that your horse was found riderless on the moor.”
She buried her face in her hands and a sob broke from her throat. It
was true. They would think her dead. For the first time she really was
able to think of things in their true aspect.
“It’s cruel,” she gasped. “How could you!”
He was too wise to touch her or even by his manner to show too deep a
sympathy.
“I am sorry,” he said coolly, “awfully sorry. As you know, I would
have had things different. You may still doubt me when I say that what
I have done is the hardest task that I ever undertook in my life. But
that is true. You were the only person in England who jeopardized my
existence there. I had to take you away. I regret the necessity of
having to use force. I shall do what I can here upon the _Sylph_ to
counteract the unpleasant impression of my brutality. I am not a bully
and a woman-baiter. I am a spoke in the wheel of destiny which you had
clogged. By all the rules of the game you should have died. Reasons
which I need not mention made your death at my hands an impossibility.
So I merely removed you to a place of safety. No harm shall come to
you, I pledge my honor.”
“Thanks,” she said dully, struggling up, her face away from him. And
then dauntlessly, “Small a thing as it is, I must be content with
that.” She had risen and turned, “And now, if you don’t mind, I will
go below. I would prefer to be alone. If, as you protest, you would do
me kindness, you will not ask to see me.”
He bowed.
“I have given instructions that you shall be allowed to do as you
please. Mrs. Madden will furnish you with all that you require both I
think of linen and toilet articles. I shall not try to see you again
until we land.”
She bowed her head and went down. Rizzio watched her until she
disappeared and then walked over to the rail and peered out over the
sea. It had taken some self-command to go through this interview as
he had planned it, and in conquering himself he had succeeded in
establishing a relation between them which made his presence at least
bearable to her. The impersonal tone which he had used through the
interview was the one most calculated to put her at her ease with him
and the perfect frankness of his confession had made her understand
at once that sentimentally at least she had nothing to fear from him.
John Rizzio was wise in the ways of women and the particular woman
now thrown upon his mercy, even though she was the one woman in the
world he had thought the most desirable, was to be treated with the
delicate consideration due to her unfortunate dependence upon him. A
flash of sentiment, a breath of revelation of his ultimate purposes
toward her, and the woman would be lost to him. Her misfortunes if
anything had made her more desirable than ever, especially since he
had been the cause of them. For one mad moment, he had thought this
morning of turning the _Sylph_ toward the waters of the South Atlantic,
forgetting the quarrels of the nations in which he had become involved,
and of seeking a new world where he could begin again, trusting
to time and opportunity and his own patience and tact to bring a
sentimental victory out of what had already been defeat. A mad moment
but a tempting one. But the time was not yet. He must be patient. With
Hammersley gone----
He straightened and slowly strolled forward to the wireless room.
Toward evening he was given confirmation of the wisdom of his course,
for as he was pacing the deck aft she came up from below and joined
him. She was looking rather white, but she smiled at him brightly and
matched her steps to his.
“I was lonely below,” she said. “You don’t mind?”
He had never thought her lovelier. Her face, if anything, had always
needed just those shadows of pain to make it perfect.
“I hadn’t hoped for such a kindness. You are feeling better?”
“Yes, thanks. And since we must meet I am willing to try to be
friendly.”
“I’m sure you’ll find that I’ll meet you more than halfway,” he said
politely.
They talked far into the evening and at her request they dined together
in the saloon. He was reserved but not cautious, and when the evening
was over remembered hazily that she had succeeded in learning something
from him of General von Stromberg, the head of the German Secret
Service Department, of the aviation field at Windenberg and of the
frequent flights of the Yellow Dove since the beginning of the winter.
The next morning passed quietly. Doris did not appear until noon. But
just before luncheon a smudge of smoke appeared upon the horizon, which
rapidly grew larger, and in a little while she made out the lines of
a war vessel steaming in a direction which would intercept the yacht.
The _Sylph_ did not slow down until a solid shot from a gun in the
forecastle of the destroyer went ricochetting across her bows, when the
engine was stopped and John Rizzio made slowly aft to where she stood.
“Miss Mather,” he said briefly, “I must ask you to go below to your
cabin at once.”
A glance at his face showed that her protests would have been useless
and she went below to her own stateroom, the door of which was locked
upon her. Through the heavy glass of her port-hole she saw the vessel
approach until within hailing distance when a boat dropped from her
side into which a boat’s crew and an officer clambered and rowed
alongside. The vessel bore no flag, but the girl clearly heard the
hail of the boarding officer and realized that the destroyer was an
English vessel. Her hopes rose. Perhaps even now the Englishman would
find something irregular in the yacht’s papers and would take charge,
conveying her back to England. She waited for a long time and then
heard the clatter of oars and saw the boat push off from the side of
the yacht, while the officer, young, slender and windburned, stood up
in the stern sheets of his boat.
“All right,” she heard him say, “sorry to have troubled you. Pleasant
voyage. Good-by.”
Never had English sounded so good to her. But it was with a sigh of
despair that she saw the boat reach the side of the war vessel and felt
the steadily increasing rhythm of the engines of the yacht as she drove
once more upon her way.
When the two vessels were at a distance from each other the key turned
in the lock of the door and in reply to a knock, she found John Rizzio
himself, standing hat in hand in the gangway.
“I seem to be in a continual state of apology. But of course you
realize the necessity for my action.”
“I am in your power,” she said helplessly.
“I hope you will believe that I shall not abuse it.”
She shrugged her shoulders and followed him to luncheon, managing
to preserve at table a cheerfulness which she was far from feeling.
Throughout the morning she had been thinking hard. And the only course
that was open to her if her courage did not fail was the one that she
was following. If she was to be able in any way to help Cyril, she must
try to learn what she could, accept the situation with good grace and
perhaps by some turn of good fortune find a way to disarm John Rizzio
and profit by an inadvertence or mistake. But as the second day wore
on she found her task increasingly difficult. At luncheon Mr. Rizzio
was more reserved and during the afternoon as they approached waters
in which German warships were more likely to be found he spent much
time in the wireless room, where a repetition of the crackling noises
advised her that he was again in communication with the land of her
enemies.
After dinner, at which Rizzio had been very quiet, he requested
politely that she go at once to her cabin, which she did to hear the
sound of the key again turned in the lock of her door. Despair came
over her and at last she cried herself to sleep, awakening during the
night at the glare of a searchlight which pierced her window port.
She got up and looked out to see a dark bulk looming alongside, the
flashing of lanterns, and heard the sound of voices speaking German.
At last all was quiet again, and the steady hammer of the vessel’s
propeller told her that the _Sylph_ was again on her way.
She must have slept again, for the silver of dawn was already modifying
the gloom of her cabin when there was a knock upon her door and she
rose. The stewardess fully dressed was outside.
“Mr. Rizzio asks me to request you to please dress at once, as
breakfast will be served in half an hour.”
She obeyed blindly aware that there was no motion to the deck of her
cabin and that the _Sylph_ was now riding on an even keel. She verified
her guess at the nearness of their destination by a glance through the
port-hole, which showed her that the vessel had reached the quieter
waters of a bay or river in which she slipped smoothly onward. There
were vessels at anchor, large and small, and beyond them she made out
the lines of a shore, upon which at intervals buildings loomed.
Mrs. Madden, the stewardess, would not talk and it was not until she
reached the breakfast table that Doris learned where they were.
“We shall reach Bremen shortly,” said Rizzio. “I do not know how you
feel about the matter, but I would suggest that it would save you much
trouble and anxiety to trust yourself entirely into my hands.”
“I know of nothing else,” she said quietly. “What are you going to do?”
“I shall confer with certain officials when we reach the city, which
will be in a few moments. After that we will take the seven o’clock
train for Windenberg.”