uncurled against the sky, to fall in a straight line across the boat.
Cartoner could see a man catch the rope neatly and make it fast with two
turns. In a moment the boat came softly nestling against the steamer as
a kitten may nestle against its mother.
The man, who seemed to be the sole occupant, stood up, resting his hand
on the rail of the _Minnie_. His head came up over the rail, and he
peered into Cartoner's face.
“You!” he exclaimed.
“Yes,” answered Cartoner, watching his hands, for there was a sort of
exultation in Kosmaroff's voice, as if fate had offered him a chance
which he never expected.
Cable came aft and stood beside Cartoner.
“I want to go to sea this tide,” he said. “Where is the other man?”
“The other man is Prince Martin Bukaty,” was the answer. “Help me to
lift him on board.”
“Why can't he come on board himself?”
“Because he is dead,” answered Kosmaroff, with a break in his voice. And
he lurched forward against the rail. Cartoner caught him by one arm and
held him up.
“I am so weak!” he murmured, “so weak! I am famished!”
Cartoner lifted him bodily over the rail, and Cable received him, half
fainting, in his arms. The next moment Cartoner was kneeling in the boat
that rode alongside. He slowly raised Martin, and with an effort held
him towards the captain, who was sitting astride on the rail. Thus they
got him on board and carried him to the cabin. They passed through it to
that which was grandly called the captain's state-room. They laid him on
the locker which served for a bed, while Kosmaroff, supporting himself
against the bulkhead, watched them in silence.
The captain glanced at Martin, and then, catching sight of Kosmaroff's
face, he hurried to the cabin, to return in a minute with the inevitable
decanter, yellow with age and rust.
“Here,” he said, “drink that. Eat a bit o' biscuit. You're done.”
Kosmaroff did as he was told. His eyes had the unmistakable glitter of
starvation and exhaustion. They were fixed on Cartoner's face, with a
hundred unasked questions in them.
“How did it happen?” asked Cartoner, at length.
“They fired on us crossing the frontier, and hit him. Pity it was not
me. He is a much greater loss than I should have been. That was the
night before last. He died before the morning.”
“Tut! tut!” muttered Captain Cable, with an unwritable expression of
pity. “There was the makings of a man in him,” he said--“the makings of
a man!”
And what Captain Cable held worthy of the name of man is not so common
as to be lost to the world with indifference. He stood reflecting for a
moment while Kosmaroff ate the ship's biscuit offered to him in the lid
of a box, and Cartoner stared thoughtfully at the flickering lamp.
“I'll take him out to sea and bury him there,” said Cable, at length,
“if so be as that's agreeable to you. There's many a good man buried at
sea, and when my time comes I'll ask for no better berth.”
“That is the only thing to be done,” said Cartoner.
Kosmaroff glanced towards the bed.
“Yes,” he said, “that will do. He will lay quiet enough there.”
And all three, perhaps, thought of all that they were to bury beneath
the sea with this last of the Bukatys.
Captain Cable was the first to move. He turned and glanced at the clock.
“I'll turn the hands out,” he said, “and we'll get to sea on the ebb.
But I'll have to send ashore for a pilot.”
“No,” answered Kosmaroff, rising and finishing his wine, “you need not
do that. I can take you out to sea.”
The captain nodded curtly and went on deck, leaving Kosmaroff and
Cartoner alone in the cabin in the silent presence of the man who had
been the friend of both.
“Will you answer me a question?” asked Kosmaroff, suddenly.
“If I can,” was the reply, economical of words.
“Where were you on the 13th of March?”
Cartoner reflected for a moment, and then replied:
“In St. Petersburg.”
“Then I do not understand you,” said Kosmaroff. “I don't understand how
we failed. For you know we have failed, I suppose?”
“I know nothing,” answered Cartoner. “But I conclude you have failed,
since you are here--and he is there.”
And he pointed towards Martin.
“Thanks to you.”
“No, I had nothing to do with it,” said Cartoner.
“You cannot expect me to believe that.”
“I do not care,” replied the English diplomat, gently, “whether you
believe it or not.”
Kosmaroff moved towards the door. He carefully avoided passing near
Cartoner, as if too close a proximity might make him forget himself.
“I will tell you one thing,” he said, in a hard, low voice. “It will not
do for you to show your face in Poland. Don't ever forget that I will
take any chance I get to kill you! There is not room for you and me in
Poland!”
“If I am sent there I shall go,” replied Cartoner. And there crept to
one side of Kosmaroff's face that slow smile which seemed to give him
pain.
“I believe you will.”
Then he went to the door. For Captain Cable could be heard on deck
giving his orders, and already the winches were at work. But the Pole
paused on the threshold and looked back. Then he came into the cabin
again with his hand in the pocket of his threadbare workman's jacket.
“Look here,” he said, bringing out a folded envelope and laying it
on the cabin-table between them. “A dead man's wish. Get that to Miss
Cahere. There is no message.”
Cartoner took up the envelope and put it in his pocket.
“I shall not see her, but I will see that she gets it,” he said.
The dawn was in the sky before the _Minnie_ swept out past the pier-head
light of Neufahrwasser. It was almost daylight when she slowed down in
the bay to drop her pilot. Kosmaroff's boat was towing astern, jumping
and straining in the wash of the screw. They hauled it up under the
quarter, and in the dim light of coming day Cable and Cartoner drew near
to the Pole, who had just quitted the wheel.
The three men stood together for a moment in silence. There was much to
be said. There was a multitude of questions to be asked and answered.
But none of the three had the intention of doing either one or the
other.
“If you want a passage home,” said Cable, gruffly, “cut your boat
adrift. You're welcome.”
“Thank you,” was the answer. “I am going back to Poland to try again.”
He turned to Cartoner, and peered in the half-light into the face of
the only man he had had dealings with who had not been afraid of him.
“Perhaps we shall meet again soon,” he said, “in Poland.”
“Not yet,” replied Cartoner. “I am under orders for Madrid.”
Kosmaroff stood by the rail for a moment, looking down into his boat.
Then he turned suddenly to Cartoner, and made him a short, formal bow.
“Good-bye,” he said.
Cartoner nodded, and said nothing.
Kosmaroff then turned towards Cable, who was standing with his hands
thrust into his jacket-pockets, looking ahead towards the open sea.
“Captain,” he said, and held out his hand so that Cable could not help
seeing it. The captain hesitated, and at length withdrew his hand from
the shelter of his pocket.
“Good-bye, mister,” he said.
Then Kosmaroff climbed down into his boat. They cut the rope adrift, and
he sat down to the oars.
There was a lurid streak of dawn low down in the sky, and Kosmaroff
headed his boat towards it across the chill, green waters. Above the
promise of a stormy day towered a great bank of torn clouds hanging over
Poland.
XXXVII
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
Paul Deulin happened to be in Lady Orlay's drawing-room, nearly a month
later, when Miss Cahere's name was announced. He made a grimace and
stood his ground.
Lady Orlay, it may be remembered, was one of those who attempt to
keep their acquaintances in the right place--that is to say, in the
background of her life. With this object in view, she had an “at home”
day, hoping that her acquaintances would come to see her then and not
stay too long. To-day was not that day.
“I know I ought not to have come this afternoon,” explained Netty, with
a rather shy haste, as she shook hands. “But I could not wait until next
Tuesday, because we sail that day.”
“Then you are going home again?”
Netty turned to greet Deulin, and changed color very prettily.
“Yes,” she said, looking from one to the other with the soft blush still
in her cheeks--“yes, and I am engaged to be married.”
“Ah!” said Deulin. And his voice meant a great deal, while his eyes said
nothing.
“Do we know the--gentleman?” asked Lady Orlay kindly. She was noting,
with her quick and clever eyes, that Netty seemed happy and was
exquisitely dressed. She was quite ready to be really interested in this
idyl.
“I do not know,” answered Netty. “He is not unknown in London. His name
is Burris.”
“Oh!” said Lady Orlay, “the comp--” Then she remembered that to call
a fellow-creature a company promoter is practically a libel. “The
millionaire?” she concluded, rather lamely.
“I believe he is very rich,” admitted Netty, “though, of course--”
“No, of course not,” Lady Orlay hastened to say. “I congratulate you,
and wish you every happiness.”
She turned rather abruptly towards Deulin, as if to give the next word
to him. He took it promptly.
“And I,” he said, with his old-world bow and deprecatory outspreading of
the hands--“I wish you all the happiness--that money can buy.”
Then he walked towards the fireplace, and stood there with his shoulder
turned towards them while the two ladies discussed that which was to be
Netty's future life. Her husband would be old enough to be her father,
but he was a millionaire twice over--in London and New York. He had,
moreover, a house in each of those great cities, of which details
appeared from time to time in the illustrated monthly magazines.
“So I shall hope to be in London every year,” said Netty, “and to see
all the friends who have been so kind to us--you and Lord Orlay and Mr.
Deulin.”
“And Reginald Cartoner,” suggested Deulin, turning to look over his
shoulder for the change which he knew would come into Netty's eyes. And
it came.
“Yes,” she said. She looked as if she would like to ask a question, but
did not give way to the temptation. She did not know that Cartoner
was in the house at that moment, and Wanda, too. She did not know that
Deulin had brought Wanda to London to stay at Lady Orlay's until Martin
effected his escape and joined his sister in England. She only knew what
the world now knew--that Price Martin Bukaty had died and been buried at
sea. It was very sad, she had said, he was so nice.
Deulin did not join in the conversation again. He seemed to be
interested in the fire, and Lady Orlay glanced at him once or twice,
seeking to recall him to a sense of his social obligations. He had taken
an envelope from his pocket, and, having torn it in two, had thrown it
on the fire, where it was smouldering now on the coals. It was a soiled
and worn envelope, as if it had passed through vicissitudes; there
seemed to be something inside it which burned and gave forth an aromatic
odor.
He was still watching the fire when Netty rose and took her leave. When
the door closed again Lady Orlay went towards the fire.
“What is that in which you are so deeply interested that you quite
forgot to be polite?” she said to Deulin. “Is it a letter?”
“It is a love-token,” answered the Frenchman.
“For Netty Cahere?”
“No. For the woman that some poor fool supposed her to be.”
Lady Orlay touched the envelope with the toe of a slipper which was
still neat and small, so that it fell into the glowing centre of the
fire and was there consumed.
“Perhaps you have assumed a great responsibility,” she said.
“I have, and I shall carry it lightly to heaven if I get there.”
“It has a smell of violets,” said Lady Orlay, looking down into the
fire.
“They are violets--from Warsaw,” admitted Deulin. “Wanda is in?” he
asked, gravely.
“Yes; they are in the study. I will send for her.”
“I have received a letter from her father,” said Deulin, with his hand
on the bell.
Wanda came into the room a few minutes later. She was, of course, in
mourning for Martin now, as well as for Poland. But she still carried
her head high and faced the world with unshrinking eyes. Cartoner
followed her into the room, his thoughtful glance reading Deulin's face.
“You have news?”
“I have heard from your father at last.”
The Frenchman took the letter from his pocket, and his manner of
unfolding it must have conveyed the intimation that he was not going to
give it to Wanda, but intended to read it aloud, for Lady Orlay walked
to the other end of the long room, out of hearing. Cartoner was about to
follow her, when Wanda turned and glanced at him, and he stayed.
“The letter begins,” said Deulin, unconsciously falling into a
professional preliminary--
“'I have received Cartoner's letter supplementing the account given by
the man who was with Martin at the last. I remember Captain Cable quite
well. When we met him at the Signal House, at Northfleet, I little
thought that he would be called upon to render the last earthly service
to my son. So it was he who read the last words. And Martin was buried
in the Baltic. You, my old friend, know all that I have given to Poland.
The last gift has been the hardest to part with. Some day I hope
to write to Cartoner, but not now. He is not a man to attach much
importance to words. He is, I think, a man to understand silence. At
present I cannot write, as I am virtually a prisoner in my own house.
From a high quarter I have received a gracious intimation that my
affairs are under the special attention of a beneficent monarch, and
that I am so far to be mercifully forgiven that a sentence of perpetual
confinement within the barriers of Warsaw will be deemed sufficient
punishment for--not having been found out. But my worst enemies are
my own party. Nothing can now convince them that Martin and I did not
betray the plot. Moreover, Cartoner's name is freely coupled with ours.
So they believe. So it will go down to history, and nothing that we
can say will make any difference. That I find myself in company with
Cartoner in this error only strengthens the feeling of friendship, of
which I was conscious when we first met. Beg him, for his own sake,
never to cross this frontier again. Ask him, for mine, to avoid making
any sign of friendship towards me or mine.'”
As fate ruled it, the letter required turning at this point, and Deulin,
for the first time in his life, perhaps, made a mistake at a crucial
moment. He allowed his voice to break on the next word, and had to pause
for an instant before he could proceed.
“Then follow,” he said, rather uneasily, “certain passages to myself
which I need not read. Further on he proceeds: 'I am in good health.
Better, indeed, than when I last saw you. I am, in fact, a very tough
old man, and may live to give much trouble yet.'”
Deulin broke off, and laughed heartily at this conceit. But he laughed
alone.
“So, you see, he seems very cheerful,” he said, as if it was the letter
that had laughed. He folded the paper and replaced it in his pocket. “He
seems to be getting on very well without you, you perceive,” he added,
smiling at Wanda. But he lacked conviction. There was in his voice and
manner a dim suggestion of the losing game, consciously played.
“May I read the letter for myself?” asked Wanda, holding out her slim,
steady hand.
After a moment's hesitation, Deulin took the folded paper from his
pocket and handed it to her. Lady Orlay had returned to the group
standing near the fire. He turned and met her eyes, making an
imperceptible movement of his eyebrows, as of one who had made an
attempt and failed. They waited in silence while Wanda read the letter,
and at length she handed it back to him.
“Yes,” she said, “I read it differently. It is not only the world which
appears differently to two different people, even a letter may have two
meanings to two readers. You shed a sort of gayety upon that----”
She indicated the letter which he still held in his hand, and Deulin
deprecated the suggestion by a shrug of the shoulders.
“--which is not really there. To me it is the letter of a broken-hearted
man,” she added slowly. There was an odd pause, during which Wanda
seemed to reflect. She was at the parting of the ways. Even Deulin had
nothing to say. He could not point out the path. Perhaps Cartoner had
already done so by his own life, without any words at all.
“I shall go to Warsaw to-night,” she said at last to Lady Orlay, “if
you will not think me wanting in manners. Believe me, I do not lack
gratitude. But--you understand?”
“Yes, dear, I understand,” replied the woman who had known happiness.
And she closed her lips quickly, as if she feared that they might
falter.
“It is so clearly my duty, and duty is best, is it not?” said Wanda. As
she spoke she turned to Cartoner. The question was asked of none other.
It was unto his judgment that she gave her case; to his wisdom she
submitted the verdict of her life. She wished him to give it before
these people. As if she took a subtle pride in showing them that he was
what she knew him to be. She was sure of her lover; which is, perhaps,
happiness enough for this world.
“Duty is best, is it not?” she repeated.
“It is the only thing,” he answered.
Deulin was the first to speak. He had strong views upon last words and
partings. The mere thought of such things made him suddenly energetic
and active. He turned to Wanda with his watch in his hand.
“Your mind is made up?” he asked. “You go to-night?”
“Yes.”
“Then I must go at once to see to your passport and make arrangements
for the journey. I take you as far as Alexandrowo. I cannot take you
across the frontier, you understand?”
He turned to Cartoner.
“And you? When do you go to Spain?”
“To-night,” was the answer.
“Then good-bye.” The Frenchman held out his hand, and in a moment was
at the door. Lady Orlay followed him out of the room and closed the door
behind her. She followed him down-stairs. In the hall they stood and
looked at each other in silence. There were tears in the woman's eyes.
But Deulin's smile was sadder.
“And this is the end,” he said--“the end!”
“No,” said Lady Orlay; “it is not. It cannot be. I have never known
a great happiness yet that was not built upon the wreckage of other
happinesses. That is why happy people are never gay. It is not the end,
Paul. Heaven is kind.”
“Sometimes,” answered Deulin, grudgingly. On the door-step he paused,
and, facing her suddenly, he made a gesture indicating himself,
commanding her attention to his long life and story. “Sometimes,
milady.”