THE BEGINNING OF THE GREAT PURSUIT.
It was our last day in London. Roderick and I sat down to dinner in the
hotel, the touch of depression upon us both. Mary had left us early in
the morning to go to Salisbury, where her kinsfolk lived, and I confess
that her readiness to quit us without protest somewhat hurt me. I
imagine that I was thinking of it, for I blurted out at last, when we
had been silent for at least a quarter of an hour--
"I suppose she's arrived by this."
"No, I didn't post her till three," Roderick replied in equal
reflective mood.
"Didn't post who?" I asked indignantly.
"Why, old Belle, of course. I sent her down with the guard to get her
out of the way."
"Oh," I replied, "I was thinking of Mary, not of your dog."
"You always are," he said; "but, between ourselves, I'm glad she went.
I thought there'd be a fuss; and if it comes to a row, as it most
probably will, girls are in the way. Don't you think so? But, of
course, you don't."
I didn't, and made no bones of pretence about it. Mary was a child;
there was no doubt about that; but as I girded up my courage for this
undertaking, I thought how much those pretty eyes would have encouraged
me, and how sweet that childish laugh would have been in mid-Atlantic.
But there--that's no part of this story.
We were going down to Plymouth by the nine o'clock mail from
Paddington, and there was not a wealth of time to spare. So soon as we
had dined, I went up to my room to put the small things of need away,
meaning to be no more than five minutes at the work; but, to my
amazement, the whole of the place had been turned utterly inside out by
one who had been there before me. My trunk lay upside down; my
writing-case was unlocked and stripped, my diary was torn and rent, my
clothes were scattered; I thought at first that a common cheat of a
hotel thief had been busy snapping up trifles; but I got a shock
greater than any I had known since Martin Hall's death when I felt for
his writing, which lay secure in its case, and found that, while the
main narrative was intact, his letters to the police at New York, his
plans, and his sketches had been taken. For the moment the discovery
made me reel. I could not realise its import, and almost mechanically I
rang for a servant, who sent the manager to me.
His perplexity and dismay were no less than mine.
"No one has any right to enter your rooms," he said; "and I will
guarantee the honesty of my servants unhesitatingly. Let us ring and
ask for the porter."
The porter was emphatic.
"No one has been here after you since yesterday, sir, when the Italian
gentleman came," he pleaded. "To-day he sent a man for a parcel he left
here, but I know of no one else who has even mentioned your name."
"What is the amount of your loss?" asked the manager, as he began to
assist me to make things straight, and the question gave me
inspiration. I made a hurried search, and I must have shown feeling,
for I was conscious of pallor of face and momentary giddiness.
"You have lost something of great value, then?" he continued, as he
watched. And I replied--
"Yes, but to myself only. Nothing has been taken from the room but
papers, which may be worth ten thousand pounds to me. They are not
worth a penny to anyone else."
"Oh! papers only--that is fortunate; it is, perhaps, a case for your
own private detective."
"Quite so; I shouldn't have troubled you had I made a search before. I
will see to it myself--many thanks."
He withdrew with profuse apologies, but I remained standing, with all
the heart out of me. What, in Heaven's name, did it mean? Who had
interest to rifle my portfolio and take the papers? Who could have
interest? Who but the man I meant to hunt down? And what did he know of
me--what? I asked, repeating the words over again, and so loudly that
those in the neighbouring rooms must have heard them.
Was I watched from the very beginning? Had I to cope, at the very
outset, with a man worth a million, the captain of a band of
cutthroats, who stood at no devil's deed, no foul work, no crime, as
Martin Hall's death clearly proved? My heart ached at the thought; I
felt the sweat dropping off me; I stood without thought of any man; the
one word "watched" singing in my ears like the surging of a great sea.
And I had forgotten Roderick until he burst into my room, a great laugh
on his lips, and a telegram in his hand; but he stood back as he saw
me, and went pale, as I must have been.
"Great Scott!" he said; "what's the matter?--what are you doing? We
leave in ten minutes; why aren't you ready?"
The excuse gurgled in my throat. I stammered out something, and began
to pack as though pursued by Furies. Then I put him off by asking what
his humour was about. He laughed again at the question--
"What do you think?" he said; "Mary's arrived all right."
"Oh, that's good; I hope she'll like Salisbury," I replied, bundling
shirts, collars, and coats into my trunk with indiscriminate vigour.
"Yes, but you don't wait to hear the end," he continued, with a great
roar of laughter; "she isn't at Salisbury at all; she's at Plymouth, on
board the _Celsis_. She went straight down there, and devil a bit as
much as sent her aunt a telegram!"
I rose up at his word, and looked him in the face.
"Well," he said, "what do you think?--you don't seemed pleased."
"I'm not pleased," I said, going on with my packing. "I don't think she
ought to be there."
"I know that; we've talked it all over, but when I think of it, I don't
see where the harm comes in; we can't meet mischief crossing the
Atlantic, and when the danger does begin in New York I'll see she's
well on the lee-side of it."
I did not answer him, for I knew that which he did not know. Perhaps he
began to think that he did not do well to treat the matter so lightly,
for he was mute when we entered the cab, and he did not open his lips
until we were seated in the night mail for Plymouth. The compartment we
rode in was reserved for us as he had wished; and, truth to tell, we
neither of us had much liking for talk as the train rolled smoothly
westward. We had entered upon this undertaking, so vast, so shadowy, so
momentous, with such haste, and moved by such powerful motives, that I
know not if some thought of sorrow did not then touch us both. Who
could say if we should live to tell the tale, if our fate would not be
the fate of Martin Hall, if we should ever so much as see the nameless
ship, if chance would ever bring us face to face with Captain Black?
And whither did we go? When should we set foot again in that England we
loved? God alone could tell; and, with one great hope in a guiding and
all-seeing Providence, I covered myself up in my rug, and slept until
dawn came, and the fresh breezes from the Channel waves brought new
strength and men's hearts to us again.
It was full day when we went on board the yacht, and I did not fail to
cast a quick glance of admiration on her beautiful lines and perfect
shape as I clambered up the ladder, at the top of which stood Captain
York.
"Welcome aboard," he said, giving us hearty hand-shakes; and without
further inspection at that hour we followed him to the cabin, where
steaming coffee brought the blood to our hands and feet, and put us in
better mood.
"So my sister's here," said Roderick, as he filled his cup for the
third time.
"Yes, last night, no orders," jerked the skipper with his usual
brevity.
"Ah, we must see to that--and the second officer----"
"Still ashore; he left a bit of writing; he'll be aboard midday!"
He had the writing in his hand, and was about to crumple it, but I
caught sight of it, and snatched it from him. It was in the same
handwriting as the letter which Captain Black had sent to me at the
Hotel Scribe in Paris.
"What's the matter?" said Roderick, as he heard me exclaim; but the
skipper looked hard at me, and was much mystified.
"Do you know anything of the man?" he asked very slowly, as he leant
back in his chair, but I had already seen the folly of my ejaculation,
and I replied--
"Nothing at all, although I have seen that handwriting before
somewhere; I could tell you where, perhaps, if I thought."
Roderick nodded his head meaningly, and deftly turned the subject. I
yawned with a great yawn, and the episode passed as we both rose to go
to our cabins. It is not well to greet the waking day with eyes that
are half-closed in sleep; and, although the skipper seemed to desire
some fuller knowledge as to the ends of our cruise and the course of
it, we put him off, and left him to the coffee and the busy work of the
final preparation. But Roderick followed me to my berth and had the
matter of the handwriting out. I told him at once of the robbery of
some of the papers, and the coincidence of the letter which the second
mate had left with the skipper. He was quick-witted enough to see the
danger; but he was quite reckless in the methods he proposed to meet
it.
"There's no two thoughts about this matter at all," he said; "we've
evidently run right into a trap, but luckily there's time to get out
again--of course, we shall sail without a second mate?"
"That's one way out of the hole, no doubt, but it's very serious to
find that our very first move in the matter is known to others. Hall
said well that his diamond-buyer could command and be obeyed in ten
cities: and there isn't much question that we've got one of his men
aboard this ship--but I don't know that we shouldn't keep him."
"Keep him! What for?--to watch everything we do, and hear everything we
say, and arrange for the cutting of our throats when we land at New
York? You've a fine notion of diplomacy, Mark!"
"Perhaps so; but we won't quarrel about that. There's one thing you
forget in this little calculation of yours--our men are as true as
steel; this rogue couldn't turn one of them if he staked his life on
it. Suppose he has come here to use his eyes, and hang about keyholes;
well, we know him, fortunately; and what can he learn unless he learns
it from you or me? There's not another soul aboard knows anything. You
will tell the skipper that we cross to America for a pleasure trip; you
will help me to keep so close an eye on Master Francis Paolo, second
mate, that if he lose a hair of his head we shall know it. In that way
it may turn out that we shall get from him the link which is lost in
the chain; and when he would draw us, we shall pump him as dry as a
sand-pit. At least, that's my way of thinking, and I don't think it's
such a poor notion, after all."
"It's not poor at all--it never came to me like that. Of course, you're
right; let's take the man aboard, but I wish we could have left Mary
behind--don't you?"
That I did, but what could I tell him? It was bad enough to be hugging
all those fears and thoughts of danger to my own heart, without setting
him all a-ferment with apprehension and unrest; so I laughed off his
question, and after a six hours' sleep I went aft to the quarter-deck,
to take stock of the yacht and get some better acquaintance with her.
She was a finely-built ship of some seven hundred tons, and was
schooner-rigged, so that she could either sail or steam. Her engines
were unusually large for so small a vessel, being triple-compound;
while the main saloon, aft, and the small library attached to it,
showed in the luxurious fitting that her late owner had been a man of
fine taste. In the very centre of her there was a deck-house for the
chart-room, the skipper's and engineers' quarters, and a couple of
spare cabins; but generally the accommodation was below, there being
three small cabins with two berths apiece each side the saloon, and
room for the steward and his men amidships. The fo'castle was large,
and airy, giving ample berthing for the stokers and seamen; while the
whole ornament of the deck was bright-looking with brass, and smart
rails, and pots of flowers, these last showing clearly that Mary had
been at work. Indeed, I had scarce made my inspection of our new ship
when she burst up from below, and began her explanation, standing with
flushed cheeks, while the wind played in her hair, and her eyes danced
with the merriment of it.
"Come aboard," she said, mocking the seaman's "_Adsum_," and I said--
"That's evident; the question is, when are you going ashore again?"
"I don't know, but I guess I'll get ashore at New York, because I mean
to go to Niagara----"
"You think you'll go ashore at New York, not 'you guess,' Mary."
"But I do guess, and I don't think, and I wish you wouldn't interrupt
me with your perpetual grammar. What's the good of grammar? No one had
a good time with grammar yet."
"That's not exactly the purpose of grammar----"
"No, nor of orthography, nor deportment; I learnt all these at a guinea
a quarter extra when I was at school, so you're just wasting your time,
because I'm finished."
"Finished?"
"Yes, didn't Roderick tell you that I went to a finishing school? You
wouldn't finish me all over again, would you?"
"Not for anything--but the question is, why did you come aboard here,
and why didn't you go to Salisbury? What is your old aunt thinking
now?"
She laughed saucily, throwing back her head so that her hair fell well
about her shoulders; and then she would have answered me, but I turned
round, hearing a step, and there stood our new second mate, Francis
Paolo. Our eyes met at once with a long, searching gaze, but he did not
flinch. If he were a spy, he was no poor actor, and he stood his ground
without the movement of a muscle.
"Well?" I said.
"Is Mr. Stewart awake yet, sir?" he said, asking for Roderick.
"I don't know, but you may wake him if he isn't."
"The skipper wants a word with him when he gets up," he continued; "we
are all ready to heave anchor when he speaks."
"That's all right: I'll give you the word, so you can weigh now;
perhaps, Mary, you'll go and hammer at Roderick's door, or he'll sleep
until breakfast time to-morrow."
She ran at the word, and the new second mate turned to go, but first he
followed the girl with his eyes, earnestly, as though he looked upon
some all-fascinating picture.
I watched him walk forward, and followed him, listening as he directed
the men; and a more seaman-like fellow I have never seen. If he were an
Italian, he had left all accent of speech in his own country, and he
gave his orders smartly and in a tone which demanded obedience. About
his seamanship I never had a doubt from the first; and I say this now,
a more capable officer than Francis Paolo never took a watch.
Yet he was a man of violent temper, soon displayed before me.
As I watched him from the hurricane deck, I heard a collier who had not
yet left the ship give him some impudence, and look jauntily to the men
for approval; but the smile was not off his cheeks when the new mate
hit him such a terrific blow on the head with a spy-glass he held that
the fellow reeled through the open bulwarks right into his barge, which
lay along-side.
"That's to set your face straight," cried the mate after him; "next
time you laugh aboard here I'll balance you on the other side."
The men were hushed before a display of temper like this; the skipper
on the bridge flushed red with disapproval, but said nothing.
The order "Hands, heave anchor!" was sung out a moment after as
Roderick joined me aft, the new _Celsis_ steamed away from Plymouth,
and the episode was forgotten.
For truly, as we lost sight of the town and the beautiful yacht moved
slowly upon the broader bosom of the Channel, thoughts of great moment
held us; and I, for my part, fell to wondering if I should ever see the
face of my country again.
And in that hour the great pursuit began.