The Trail of the Dead/Chapter 5
V.—THE AMMONIA CYLINDER.
THE sail crept forward down the river of sunset gold that streamed in wild splendour from a crevasse in the ranges of cloudland. The light that burnished the sea glowed upon the Polleven cliffs, tinging with fire the breakers at their feet; it threw fierce shadows amongst the clustered cottages of the Cornish fisherfolk, and painted a richer scarlet on the sails of the trawlers huddled beneath the sheltering arm of the little quay. It was a scene that rises before me, as I write, with a curious detail, though, indeed, at the time I took no pains to observe it. For on that departing vessel was he whom we had chased across Europe, madman as we supposed, murderer as we knew him to be. We had saved an innocent girl from his vendetta, and in my heart I thanked Providence for that mercy; but Rudolf Marnac, the Heidelberg professor, was still free, free with fresh schemes of vengeance against his scientific opponents hatching in his twisted brain, and with all the wisdom of his great learning to help him in his deadly purposes.
"So this is the end of your clever plans!" I cried, turning savagely on my burly cousin. "He has escaped again, got clear away. What are you going to do? Shall we follow him?"
"In the face of the storm?"
"Why not—if that is the best you can suggest?"
"You have changed, my little cousin," said he, regarding me with a kindly look, though, indeed, my words had been unmannerly. "The Fates have played the very deuce with the sedate student that I dragged out of his pleasant rooms at Heidelberg just twelve days ago. How that youngster grumbled at prospective discomforts! How he shrank from the thought of being mixed up in a business that was 'better left to the police'! Do you remember?"
"Don't we waste time?" said I.
"Perhaps. Ah! here she comes—just the thing for which I was hoping."
Running down the village street came Miss Weston, with three or four men behind her. We met her at the entrance to the quay.
"Well! have you caught him?" she panted.
"No; there he goes." My cousin pointed an arm at the distant sail.
"Oh, thank God!" she exclaimed earnestly. "I knew he was armed, and I was so afraid for the brave men who had saved my father and me."
She looked from one to the other of us with an honest gratitude in her eyes that to me seemed worth the risk of all the dangers in the world.
"And Dr. Weston?" asked my cousin.
"My father is no worse; but of course I did not tell him all. He imagines that I was annoyed by some tramp, and declares he will have a man about the cottage in future. You and your friend must come back with me, Sir Henry. I want to introduce you to him."
"Some other time, I hope. At present this young firebrand here insists that we should follow Marnac by sea."
"That is quite impossible, sir," she said, turning upon me with an anxious look. "I have enough experience of the weather to know that a storm is coming. I am certain that Sir Henry Graden will help me to dissuade you."
"I am afraid not, Miss Weston," broke in my cousin before I could reply. "We have been like over-eager hounds, losing the scent by flashing forward too quickly. It must be sheer, dogged hunting now, and no more cutting off corners. By the way, there is a fact which perhaps one of you can tell me," he said, turning to the little group that hung behind her skirts watching us with a bucolic interest. "Did the Agnes Jane yonder carry provisions on board?"
"Surely, zur," said one who stood a little forward of the rest—a stout, bearded man with a face as brown and seamed as a withered cider-apple. "Mark Pennyfold, as is owner, was telling about this furrin gent only last night down tu the 'Plough Inn.' 'E allowed 'im to be a funny zort of toad, vur 'e 'ad 'is orders to keep a week's vittles on board, though the reason was passin' his onderstanding."
"Would Pennyfold take a trip to France if he were asked?"
"Surely, zur, ef 'e be paid accordin'. 'E be most mazed on the colour of a bit of gold is Mark."
"That settles it, Miss Weston," continued Graden in his short, businesslike way. "Now please to remember my instructions. You have the facts concerning Professor Marnac in my letter. Lay an information against him for an attempt on your life, and see that the county authorities circulate his description along the coast. I don't think there is the slightest chance that he will return to trouble you, but be on your guard, and have a man to sleep in the house. Now, my lads, who has the swiftest boat in the harbour?"
"Now you be askin' a question," said their spokesman gloomily. "You zee, it be this wise. At the regatty, as my Pride o' Cornwall was reaching for the west buoy, there comes, all of a sudden like, a girt wind from over the eastern beacon which"
"He means, Sir Henry, that his boat is reckoned the fastest, but at the regatta she was disabled by a squall," broke in Miss Weston, interrupting a story which was evidently familiar in its length and detail. "This is Sir Henry Graden, Isaac Treherne, and he is trying to capture the wicked man in the Agnes Jane yonder, the man who, as I told you, tried to kill me. Will you take him in the Pride of Cornwall?"
Isaac was a study of indecision. He twisted up his mouth, scratched his head, regarded the sunset attentively, and kicked a pebble over the edge of the quay.
"I du wish, miss, as I 'ad been nigh you when 'e tried it," he said at last. "I would 'ave set about the hugly toad proper, that I would. But, beggin' your pardin, and seein' he be got away, 'twould seem a matter for the perlice mor'n for we uns. Moreover, there be the fish contract, and the Pride is only waiting her crew to zail."
"It means a hundred pound in your pocket, my man," snapped Graden.
"A 'undred pounds is a 'undred pounds," replied Isaac with a sententious inconsequence.
"But, Isaac," broke in Miss Weston, "when the story gets round to Mark Pennyfold, he will say that you refused because you knew that the Pride could never catch the Agnes Jane."
"Zo he wull—the liard!" cried Isaac, with a sudden burst of indignation. "I never thought on that, miss. A pretty tale he will be telling in every public from Bude to Penzance! Come along, gentlemen, come along. I'll show 'e a thing, and Mark, tu, the liard!"
We ran to where the little trawler lay moored to the quay, and tumbled on board. One man was sitting in her stern mending some tackle, and Isaac apparently considered his services sufficient, for he cast off the ropes at once. Miss Weston was waiting on the head of the quay as our boat crept by. I shall always remember that picture of my darling as she stood on those old grey stones, with their seaweed beard dropping to the swirl of the tide below. The fire of the sunset lit her tall, graceful figure leaning to the breeze. One hand was to her hair, the other weaving us adieu. No fairer figure of encouragement could men desire who started on a perilous adventure.
"Good-bye! God keep you both!" So she cried to us.
We shouted a reply, but I doubt if she heard it, for at that moment the wind caught the great red sail on our foremast, swinging it across with a thunderous flapping that shook the little vessel from stem to stern. In another moment we were rushing forward in pursuit, with the spray from the bows in our faces and a white trail of foam marking our path from the land.
I do not think that more than ten minutes had passed from the moment of our arrival on the quay, though by my writing it may seem that I have underestimated the time. The Agnes Jane was, as far as I could judge, about a mile away to the southward, a distance which we decreased to barely a thousand yards before the full strength of the growing wind we brought had reached her. After that, however, we gained very slowly, if at all.
I was never a good sailor, a fact which the long rollers soon recalled to my remembrance. The occasional bursts of spray which flew over us added greatly to my discomfort, for my clothes, though warm, were not waterproof. I have always been susceptible to chills, and the prospect of passing the night in dripping garments seriously alarmed me. It was, therefore, with a sense of great relief that I observed Isaac produce some spare oilskins, and boots happily lined with flannel.
The seafaring appearance which I assumed did not, however, allay my internal sufferings, which soon became acute. Huddled on the leeward side of the boat, I watched the chase with an appearance of interest which was mere hypocrisy. To be sincere, I regarded my cousin, who was enjoying a pipe of strong-smelling tobacco on the windward side of me, with a more immediate enmity than I felt towards Marnac himself.
The sun sank amidst a cloud conflagration of sullen and thunderous magnificence. The coastline behind us darkened and faded until the crests of the breaking waves rose ghastly white against the gloom of the shrouded land. But fortunately the sky above us was still clear, and a silver crescent of the moon, swinging at an angle as if the wind had tilted her, showed us the chase heading southward. It was evidently some port in France for which she pointed. My cousin had joined Isaac, who was at the tiller, and the pair conversed in low tones, glancing frequently to the north-west, from which the wind blew strong and cold.
It was, according to my remembrance, past nine o'clock that the steady pressure of the wind failed. In its place came gusts, fierce and uncertain, spaced with hills of restless calm. Ignorant as I was of sea weather, I began to grow uneasy. There seemed a menace in the dark, mysterious wall of cloud to windward, a rampart edged with silver from the moon. Motionless it hung like a heavy curtain that at its rising would reveal some monstrous spectacle. For the first time I realised the insignificance of our boat, its loneliness amidst the hurrying wastes of the sea, and my anxiety passed into alarm. It was about this time that my nausea suddenly left me. This was a great relief to me, for I was well aware that an excess of sea-sickness may result in a serious prostration.
It was in one of the lulls I have mentioned that Isaac gave my cousin the helm and with his man's assistance lowered the sail on the smaller mast at the stern which, I believe, is known nautically as the jigger. They also reefed the larger canvas on the foremast. The Agnes Jane, which was now not more than four hundred yards away, showed no sign of following our example.
"Mark Pennyfold must be mazed," said Isaac, on his return aft. "'E must have zeen us were chasin' 'e, yet 'e gives we no chance o' speaking 'im; and now 'e be chancing his boat by carrying on with that press o' zail. Plaze to keep thy hand on the tiller, zur."
The little Cornishman rolled forward to where I sat, and stood, making a hollow of his hands. A great stillness held the sea and air, save for the whisper of the gliding waves.
"The Agnes Jane, ahoy!"
He drove the words over the black waters like the blast of a trumpet.
"The Agnes Jane, ahoy!"
Again he called, and this time there came an answering voice.
"Help!" it cried—the one word—and was silent. We waited, but that was all.
"It is no good, Treherne," said my cousin. "They have an ugly customer on board who does not mean to be taken. He has his pistol at their heads as like as not. They must take their chance of"
His words were lost in a stirring note like the throbbing of a giant harp-string, a note that rose to a shriek and then melted into a rattling, drumming roar, the uttermost diapason of the storm-wind. For some seconds we heeled over, so that I could have dipped my face in the bubbling waters; and then, slowly gathering way, we shot forward through the flying spray, with Treherne yelling to his man in tones that even outsounded the squall itself.
We were upon her almost before I realised the disaster that had befallen her. I caught a glimpse of the level lines of timbers about the keel, the red sails awash in streaks of hissing foam; and then I saw my cousin lean out and grip a something in the water. For a moment I thought he would be dragged from the boat, but Isaac, letting go the tiller, circled his legs with a pair of muscular arms and held on like the little bulldog he was. With three great heaves Graden lugged the dripping thing he held to the boat's edge; with a fourth he landed it fairly on board. The Agnes Jane had gone, and with her the unfortunate men she carried—save Marnac only.
Thus Fate in its own strange manner had given him to us at last!
Shouting like a madman, I started towards the stern, where my cousin was bending over the huddled body he had saved. But even as I did so I saw a black mass, crested and streaked with hissing white, rush up from the obscurity to windward. For a space it seemed to hang above us, while Isaac yelled as he tugged wildly at the tiller. Then, with a wild roar that drummed in my ears like the explosion of a mine, it threw itself upon us, hurling me into the bottom of the boat, choked, deafened, and blinded.
I do not know how we lived through that first furious hour. Isaac Treherne made no second mistake, but crouched at the tiller, tricking the succession of great seas that swung upon us out of the throbbing blackness. Stung by passing hailstorms, drenched to the skin, and aching with cold, I toiled with a tin pannikin, baling, baling until my back creaked with stiffness and my hands could scarce feel the handle. Graden and the sailor worked beside me, so that we managed to keep the water under. Now and again a slit in the rushing dark above us showed me Marnac lying by the steersman's side. Was he alive or dead? I did not know, nor did I stay my labour to make inquiry.
The daylight came at last, the God-given light for which all poor mariners must pray in their hours of danger. With it came a lessening of the wind and a falling sea. Yet there had been an angry menace in the brilliant colours that lit the eastern sky, and I stared eagerly over the muddy green of the hurrying surges. Indeed, I was the first to see a steamer's smudge of smoke on the western skyline.
"Her be making for we, gentlemen," remarked our steersman, after a long stare at the distant vessel. "Happen her would take 'e aboard, if you be so minded. The weather be blowing up again, and it's a long reach back to Polleven."
"I don't like deserting the ship, Isaac," said Graden; "though, to tell the truth, I don't relish another day in the chops of the Channel."
"Bain't no desartion, sir. Me and Jake can take her whoam; and, to tell 'e the truth, her 'll ride the lighter for the want of him!"
He pointed to where Marnac sat crouching under an oilskin coat. Save for occasional shivers, the old man seemed to be no worse for his handshake with Death. He received the sailor's remark with a benevolent smile.
"Doan't 'e go grinning at me, you wicked-minded old toad!" cried Isaac. "'Twas only through special mercies that Providence forgot you was on board. We'd ha' been sunk for zarten, else."
Within half an hour we could see the steamer clearly, an ancient tramp of the seas, bluff in the bows, square in the flank, with a colouring of soot and rusty iron. She answered our signals with a melancholy toot and stood towards us. Graden, who had been watching her approach at my side, turned and walked aft.
"I have already dropped your revolver overboard, Professor Marnac," he said; "but I must trouble you to hand me your pocket-book. Money, you know, is often the most valuable of weapons."
The Professor obeyed with a gentle cluck of amusement.
"I trust, Sir Henry, that the notes are not damaged," he said in the low, musical tones with which I was so familiar. "Indeed, I was assured that the case was waterproof."
"Now your loose gold, if you please."
"Here it is, Sir Henry, with my watch and chain. Observe that my pockets are now completely empty. Ah, Mr. Harland! forgive me if I did not notice you before. I fear that these nautical adventures will interrupt your course of studies. Did you hear whom the University have appointed in my place? I should be sorry if my students, amongst whom I always held you to be the most studious, if not the most able, should be long without a lecturer—like sheep that have lost their shepherd, Mr. Harland."
I turned from him with a feeling of nausea. Mad or sane, he had done such deeds as placed him beyond the intercourse of humanity.
The steamer was close upon us now, and as she came rolling down the heave of the swell we were hailed from the bridge in a tongue that was strange to me. Before we could reply, a seaman had sprung to the bulwarks and sent the coils of a line spinning over us. This Isaac made fast, allowing a fair space to intervene between his little craft and the rusty metal fabric that towered above us.
"Good-bye, Isaac," said Graden, shaking the little Cornishman warmly by the hand. "I will see to your cheque the moment I get to London."
"Doan't 'e mention it, zur. I was right proud to take 'e. Nor do 'e trouble about we uns. Jake and I will be making Polleven by midnight at latest—please be."
It was an anxious scramble—they had to swing out a chair for Marnac—but the trawler was as handy as a row-boat, and at last the three of us stood on the deck of the stranger. A more ill-assorted trio of bedraggled voyagers never ranged in line.
But if we were strange to look upon, so were the group of men who confronted us. They were of the degenerate Latin breed, dark, small, uncertain in temper, and dirty by nature and training. Their seafaring dress seemed as ill-suited to them as a sash and a coloured cloak would be to a British shell-back.
"Eengleshe?" asked one whom I took to be the mate. "Eengleshe? what say?"
"We are Englishmen who were driven out to sea by last night's storm. If I may see the captain, I will explain," said my cousin.
The man grinned his lack of comprehension. Plainly his vocabulary was of the smallest.
"These men are Portuguese, Sir Henry," said Marnac, stepping quickly forward. "I know their language. Allow me to explain the situation."
But he got no further. My cousin's long arm shot out, gripping his collar firmly from behind. With a gentle heave, he swung the Professor from his feet and dropped him behind us.
"Please to keep silence, Professor Marnac. Your explanations might be somewhat biassed," said he, with a grim smile. And then turning to the sailors, who had been watching the little scene with evident surprise—
"Do none of you speak English?" he asked.
They seemed to understand the question, for some talk, eked out by much gesticulation, ended in one of their number trotting up the ladder to the bridge, where he disappeared into the wheel-house. An instant later a long, red-headed man emerged and came running towards us.
"And shure wud Oi not have greeted jer honours before now," he exclaimed in the most strenuous of brogues; "but 'twas me trick at the wheel, and niver a wan of these spalpeens wud relieve me. An' what can Oi do fer ye now at all?"
"What boat is this?"
"The Portugaise ship, San Joseph, fr'm Buenos Ayres to Hamburg wid a mixed cargo, and a darned mixed crew, sorr. If it hadn't been fer a back answer whin the wine was in me, faith! it's not on this greasy flat-ir-ron that Tim Blake wud be after serving."
"Do you speak the language, my man?"
"Indade an' Oi do, sorr; an' good raison, seeing that 'tis fower years come Christmas that Orve been steward on th' yacht iv wan iv tha' Portugaise nobility."
"That's good news. And now where is the captain?"
"Faith! but 'twas a jool iv a toime we were after havin' in the Bay last night, sorr, an' the old man's turned in. The second mate has gone aft, gatherin' his courage in both hands fer to wake him. Indade, sorr, 'tis a r-resolution that wud put the fear iv the Lord into a better man than him."
"Rather a Tartar, eh?"
"A strong man, sorr, an' a good seaman fer a greaser, though his temper is most pro-digious. But see, here he comes, like a dook out iv a theatre."
He was indeed a fine figure of a man, fully six feet in height and proportionately broad. His skin was very dark, and his eyes of the deep blackness that I have since observed in Indian races, but very soft and glowing. His hair, which he wore at a greater length than is customary amongst sailors, showed under his cap in glossy curls; and his moustache was twisted back almost to his ears.
He bowed to us with a deliberate courtesy, muttering a greeting in his own tongue. He spoke no English, and it was through the medium of Tim Blake that he offered us hospitality. It was no time for explanations, so, guarding Marnac between us, we hurried down to a large cabin where warm garments and steaming glasses of hot brandy-and-water were brought by the worthy Irishman, to whose care we had been assigned. As far as could be judged, I had not contracted so much as a cold in the head, despite my long exposure. When we had completed our change of clothes, my cousin beckoned me outside the cabin, closing the door on our prisoner.
"I have asked Blake to take me to the captain, for it is right that he should know the true position of affairs," he whispered. "While I am gone, you must sit with Marnac. Remember, do not let him out of your sight for a moment."
"Very well," I said, and he strode off down the dark alley of the passage-way.
When I re-entered the cabin, I found Marnac muffled to the chin, under the blankets of a bunk. He gave me one of his quick, evil glances, that was unpleasantly reminiscent of an aged rat surprised in an iron gin. I had so great a horror and detestation of the man that his mere presence was a source of physical discomfort to me; and when, sitting up amongst his wraps, he commenced to pester me with questions, I could endure it no longer. I retired outside the cabin, seating myself with my back to the door. I was as well there, I argued, as in the interior, and in a position infinitely more satisfactory to myself.
The garments they had lent me were thick and warm; the dose of brandy had been considerable. I was weary from the toil of a sleepless night. Those are my excuses for the fact that in the course of the next few minutes I fell soundly asleep.
It was Graden who woke me, a very angry and exasperated Graden who shook my senses into me with unnecessary violence. I started up, protesting against his treatment.
"I thought better of you than this," he said, with his hand still fixed in my collar.
"My back was against the door. He could not pass without waking me. What does it matter?" I grumbled, with every sign of irritation.
"I told you to watch him, to stay inside the cabin, and I find you snoring here. No more excuses, please. You know the ability of the man. Let us hope he has not taken advantage of any chances you gave him."
He opened the door cautiously, peeped in, and then flung it wide with a great oath. The cabin was empty!
Yet there was no doubt as to his manner of escape. In the middle of the flooring there gaped a hole, with a heavy square of wood lying beside it. On examination, we found that this entrance had also been barred by a grating, which now swung downwards on its hinges, disclosing a wooden ladder, the foot of which was indistinguishable in the gloom below.
"He is in the hold!" I cried. "He is hiding somewhere amongst the cargo! We shall never find him without the help of the crew."
Amongst the excellent points in my cousin's character was that of perfect self-control. There was no anger in his voice to remind me of my blunder when he spoke again.
"It's not the hold, cousin Robert," he said. "This is the ship's lazarette, where the food is stored. There are usually two entrances, each similar to this. If he has escaped by the second, it's a bad business. It will mean he has found a friend, for these gratings should be secured. But it may be that he is lurking amongst the pork and the biscuits. If so, we ought to find him easily enough. I don't want to bring the crew into this affair if I can help it. It will be enough if the captain' knows."
"But he does—you have told him."
"That's the blackest part of the luck. The ship caught it pretty badly last night; they were right in the thick of it. I found the captain on deck superintending three or four sailors who were clearing away the wreckage of one of the boats. He was in an amazing temper, and Blake advised me that if I had a favour to ask him, I had best let him cool off a bit. So I dismissed the Irishman and climbed up to the bridge. I should think I'd been there about twenty minutes watching the work, when I saw a sharp-looking lad pop out from the companion and go over to where the captain was standing. They had a fine pow-wow together, looking up at me from time to time. It rather puzzled me, and presently I dropped down the stairs and walked over to where they were. The captain seemed decidedly chilly, and I soon saw by his manner that he was not wanting a talk just then. Whereupon I came below. So kindly light the lamp I see in the bracket yonder, cousin Robert, and we'll go hunting again."
We descended the ladder, Graden going first, and I following with the lamp, the light of which I endeavoured to throw over his shoulder.
It seems a cowardly thing to confess, writing as I am in the broad daylight, with the bees amongst the flower-beds singing their song through the open window, but though we were two to one, and our quarry an old man, my cousin had twice to rate me for the deliberation of my movements. We peered about amongst the lurking shadows, with the thunder of the seas hammering on the iron sides without. Now and again a heave of the ship would send us staggering apart, to bring up amongst unexpected barrels. Perhaps it was the want of sleep that had jangled my nerves, but I knew in my heart that if I were suddenly to catch a sight of those wicked eyes staring out from the gloom before us, I should shriek and run like a hysterical schoolgirl.
But Marnac was nob there. The grate of the second stairway was closed and locked, and yet he had disappeared. Someone had helped him—that was plain enough. We stood disconsolate amongst the details of the ship's larder.
"Well, he's gone right enough," said my cousin. "Hallo! what the deuce is this?"
He took the light from my hand and stooped to examine something at his feet. It was a steel cylinder, about eight feet in length; a second lay beside it.
"Ammonia! So they run a cold storage on board."
"How do you know that?" I asked.
"My dear cousin, if you can't remember the part that ammonia plays in the manufacture of ice, I shall not attempt to—hallo! stop that—stop that, I say!"
He sprang forward, caught his foot in an empty sack, and fell heavily, extinguishing the lamp. As he did so, I saw an arm reach down and draw up the grating through which we had descended. A key clicked in the padlock. Graden was on his feet in an instant, and together we rushed to the foot of the ladder.
In the patch of grey daylight above us we could see the face of the captain looking through the bars, and peeping down beside him, with the sweetest dimple of an old man's smile upon his lips, was Professor Marnac!
There was a pause, filled with much whispered talk from above. Then the red head of our friend Tim Blake came thrusting into the picture. He seemed much distressed at the situation.
"Faith! but 'tis not Oi that knows fwhat to belaive," said he; "but the skipper here will have it that yer-re a pair iv desprite and revolting characters. Oi am also to tell ye, gintlemen, that ye've the very divil's own choice of ut. Eyther ye will let me r-run through yere pockuts wid me practised hand, upon which ye may come up an' make us acquainted wid yere gineral defence, or, if ye refuse, be jabbers! but they'll clap on the hatches an' lave ye in the dark."
"Tell the skipper, Blake," said my cousin, "that he has been grossly deceived, for we are law-abiding English gentlemen. Nevertheless, if he will keep to his terms and hear our case out, we consent to being searched."
The Irishman vanished, and again came the murmur of voices. Then he reappeared, unlocking the grating and descending the ladder. At the edge of the hole I could see the faces of several members of the crew, and caught the gleam of drawn knives.
Evidently they did not trust us. When it was over, we followed Blake up the ladder and waited quietly while he laid out Graden's revolver and our few belongings on the flap of a central table behind which the captain was standing. A short speech by that worthy, and the Irishman began again.
"The skipper wud have ye know," he said, addressing Graden with a growing dignity that would have been comic enough at a less unfortunate moment, "that ye stand accused iv carrying off the ould gint yonder and committin' burglary on his person. Fwhat do ye say to that, sorr?"
"It is absolutely untrue."
"Wan for him, thin. But Oi'm to ask ye how ye account fer th' possession iv that pocket-book the skipper is holding so loving in his hand. He says that there's close on five hundred pounds in ut. Is ut yours?"
"No—it belongs to the old gentleman."
"The divil it does! Then how did ye come by ut?"
I feel certain that if my cousin could have told his story directly to the captain, the honesty of his manner and the simplicity of his narration would have had effect. But this pleading at second-hand was a sorry business. From his long pauses and facial contortions I soon gathered that Blake was not the linguist that he claimed to be. Indeed, the version which the captain received from him must have been something astounding. The tale was scarcely concluded when the captain raised his hand, and the flounderings of the interpreter ceased abruptly.
Thus was his decision translated. He would touch at Southampton, where the case could be fought out in the English courts. In the meanwhile, as the evidence was overwhelmingly against us, we should be placed in irons and confined in the cabin where we then were.
He was a just man. Angry though I was at the time, I have come to think he did the right thing. The harmless appearance of Marnac, his ability to plead his cause, our obvious endeavour to keep him from communicating with the crew, our possession of so valuable a pocket-book belonging to him—no, we cannot blame the captain if he decided in his favour.
To attempt resistance would have been absurd. The men about us carried knives, and the butt of a heavy revolver showed warningly from the captain's pocket. For the first time in either of our lives the handcuffs snapped at our wrists. They moved out one by one; the door was closed and barred upon us. In another three minutes we were both sound asleep. Our ill-fortune, the doings of our most dangerous enemy, the irons at our wrists—we forgot them all in the dead, still sleep that Nature grants to the very weary.
It was Blake who woke us with our midday meal. He was in his most talkative mood. Guilty or innocent, it made small difference to him, after he had decided upon the fact of our gentility. He was agog with the manner of Marnac's escape from us. The lad who was servant to the captain had been down in the lazarette and from pure curiosity had poked up the trap in the cabin floor. With promises of money, Marnac had persuaded the youngster to guide him to the captain. In their haste they had forgotten to close the trap and grating behind them, though they had secured those at the head of the second ladder. Marnac had waited in the captain's room while the lad went forward to find his master. It was doubtless their interview that Graden had, observed from the bridge. When the supposed victim of our plot had told his story, they had armed themselves and come to arrest us, calling the Irishman and two more of the crew in case of resistance. They had found us below—a source of delight to the Portuguese sailors, who had a healthy terror of Englishmen; and the rest we already knew.
"Come, my man," said my cousin after he had concluded, "for yourself, now—do you believe us guilty?"
"Faith, sorr, 'tis a quare business entoirely," he answered, scratching his red pole indecisively, "For whether 'tis you or the ould gintleman that they'll lay by the heels in Southampton Water, it's not fer me to be after saying. Sure 'tis wan of the two—which is all Oi knows."
"Now listen to me, Tim Blake," said my cousin. "My name is, as I told you, Sir Henry Graden, and I am a rich man. I am not asking you to neglect your duty, which is to keep us in; but if you will have an eye to the door so as to keep that old gentleman out, there'll be five-and-twenty pounds in your pocket."
Whatever the Irishman may have thought of our characters, there was no doubt as to his belief in the genuine nature of the offer. He beamed upon us with a childlike jubilation that was quite comic in its enthusiasm.
"Indade, sorr, indade, and I will!" he cried.
"Have you the key?"
"I have, sorr. Wud your honour like to kape it! You can turn the lock whin I knock fower times."
"That will hardly do," said my cousin, laughing. "We might have the captain visiting us, which would mean a change of gaolers. Now as to the trap-door—is that also secured?"
"The lad we spoke of—he has the kay, sorr. May the divil seize him!"
"We can't leave it like that. See if you can fix it up to better advantage."
Blake raised the outer block of wood which fitted level with the flooring, and inspected the grating below. It was secured by a padlock—a precaution necessary enough, for honesty is not the prevailing characteristic of a Portuguese crew. After a moment's thought, he drew from his pocket a handful of assorted rubbish from which he extracted a large nail. Graden's boot served as a hammer, and with this he drove it into the key-hole.
"'Twill hould it foine!" cried he, regarding his work with exultation.
And so, with fresh assurances of watchfulness, he left us.
The wind rose again that afternoon, and by four o'clock it was blowing very hard. The seas drove against the sides of the old ship in thunderous murmurs; now and again they sprang the bulwarks, crashing down upon the deck above us and shaking the iron fabric in convulsive tremors. In the confined cabin my nausea again visited me. Enough that I was supremely miserable.
At six, Blake had brought us a supper. His presence irritated me; and when he pressed food upon me, I spoke my mind strongly on the lamentable want of tact general amongst sailors. He gave us the comfortable news, however, that we were expected to reach Southampton by three next morning.
The night crawled on. Blake had helped us into bunks and covered us with rugs. I found the handcuffs of small inconvenience. I could hear Graden snoring. For myself, I could not get to sleep, but lay in the lowest misery, staring at the opposite partition, that rose and fell at the ship's rollings with a sickening regularity. Just before midnight, the lamp—that had probably been injured when Graden fell in the lazarette—smoked, stank, and expired. I was too unwell to care, except for the smell.
Yet it was the darkness which saved our lives.
It was about half an hour later that I first noticed it—a faint ray of illumination winking in the centre of the cabin floor. At first I imagined that the nausea had affected my eyes, and so peered into the black of the night, rubbing them impatiently. But the rays steadied and, if anything, increased in volume. It was a ghostly thing to witness, this white knife-edge of light stabbing up from the solid planking without cause or explanation. I was about to shout to Graden when I remembered the trap-door. Someone was below in the lazarette!
For some moments I remained staring at the crevice through which the rays passed up to me. After all, it might be some member of the crew; but if not—if it were Marnac! What then? He was an old man; he could not force the grating, even if he had obtained the key. We had seen to that.
I do not pretend to say that I was unafraid. There were devilish possibilities in a hatred such as that in which the mad Professor held us. Yet after a while my curiosity overcame my fear, just as my fear had put aside my sickness. I rolled from my bunk—noisily enough, I dare say, but all sound was dulled by the turmoil without. The pitching of the vessel made it impossible for me to stand, so I crawled forward to where the edge of the trap was outlined. I felt for and found the ring, gripped it with my teeth, and slowly, for the irons hampered my balance, raised the edge. Then with my hands I thrust the edge of the boot, which I had removed for that purpose, into the crack. Flat on my face, I peeped below.
It was indeed Marnac. The light of a ship's lantern, jammed between two barrels, drew streaks of silver from his white hair as he bent to his labour. Seated astride one of the steel cylinders that we had noticed, he was unscrewing the last of the nuts which secured its iron cap. What he intended I had no idea.
He was fingering the nut which the spanner had loosened, when I saw a face creep out of the shadow behind him. It was the captain's boy. With infinite caution he moved forward, with a blending of alarm and curiosity in his manner that showed he was no party to what was proceeding. Probably the key to the lazarette had been purloined from him, and he had discovered its loss. When scarcely two yards from Marnac, the lurch of the ship threw him from his balance. As he stumbled forward, Marnac spun round with a scream of the most violent passion. Swinging the heavy spanner, he brought it down upon the bent head with a scrunching blow. The lad dropped upon the floor face downwards; nor did he try to rise again.
"Murderer!" I cried down upon him, in horror at so fearful a spectacle.
Marnac dropped his weapon and started back, his fingers twitching, his eyes searching wildly round for a sight of his accuser. Yet when, at last, he saw my face above him, he drew himself together without a sign of trepidation for his discovered crime—save that the hand with which he gripped the stairs still shook slightly.
"Ach! but it is you," he whispered up. "For a moment I thought—but it was the folly of a child. And so, Mr. Harland, you come again to trouble me. Well, it is for the last time—mark you that—for the very last time."
He sat himself across the cylinder. As he did so, I felt a hand upon my shoulder and knew that Graden was awake.
"You might have spared the lad," he said very quietly.
Marnac looked up with one of the beast-like glances that showed the disordered brain.
"It was a necessity," he said. "He would have prevented my act of justice upon you—upon you who have tried so hard to hinder me in my revenge upon my enemies who are also the enemies of science. Do you understand what I am about?"
"Perhaps," answered my cousin grimly, and at the word he jerked away my boot, letting the trap fall into its place.
"To the door, Robert," he whispered. "To the door and shout for help, or it is all over with us. He must have noticed the ammonia cylinder this afternoon. If he turns the tap, that stuff will choke the life out of us. The gas is under immense pressure and will pour up into this den like water from a fire-hose. Run, man, run!"
I staggered across the heaving cabin to the door and dropped upon my knees, hammering with my irons and screaming for aid. It seemed to me that the thunders of the storm redoubled in violence, as if Nature was conspiring to shout me down. Once I looked round and saw that the light about the trap had gone. Graden had smothered the spot with blankets. Presently he came groping to me, raising his great voice in hoarse bellowings.
And then it happened.
There came an acrid, piercing scent to my nostrils, that grew and grew until my lungs seemed to contract, so that I fought for very breath. My cries ceased. I struggled to my feet, with my head raised like a bird shot through the lungs. Brilliant lights flashed in my eyes; there were hollow drummings in my ears. And then it seemed that the air left me in a vacuum. I fell, and forgot it all.
•••••
It was daylight when I remember facts again. The motion of the ship had ceased, and there was an English stranger by my side. My chest felt bruised and battered, and my eyes still watered freely. Also I was very weak and ill.
"My cousin?" I faltered.
"We have got your friend round," said the doctor—for so I felt that he must be, "also the other man."
"What man?"
"The man who pulled you out after the cylinder exploded. A red-headed fellow—Blake, I think his name is. You owe your lives to him. You had both fainted when he opened the door."
"Then he heard us, after all! Tell me—what became of Marnac?"
"I really don't know about him. I don't think he was injured. Oh! perhaps you mean the old gentleman who bolted?"
"Bolted?"
"Yes; of course, there was great excitement over the accident. The captain was dreadfully cut up over the death of his servant. He could not imagine how it came about. When the ship arrived here, Mr. Marnac, or whatever his name was, slipped away by a shore-boat, while everyone was fussing over you. Your friend has gone to inquire about him, I fancy. The old man had something against you both, hadn't he? Or was it you against him?"
"Both, doctor, both," I whispered, shutting my eyes.
* Copyright, 1903, by B. Fletcher Robinson and J. Malcolm Fraser, in the United States of America.