CHAPTER XIX
When the _Nadine_ left her moorings, at about four o'clock on alovely June afternoon, she sauntered easily down to the Needles atabout twelve knots. For reasons of his own her owner had never put herto full speed in crowded waters, or, in fact, where any other craftwas near enough to see what she could do. On deck the principal actorsin the tragedy that was to come were sitting in deck-chairs orstrolling about, chatting in the most friendly fashion possible, justas though the graceful little vessel was not practically carrying thefate of the world as she slipped so smoothly and swiftly through theswirling water that ran along her white sides.
Until nightfall she continued at the same speed; but when dinner wasover, and the lights were up, Hardress lit a cigar and went on to thebridge, and said to the commander:
"Captain Burgess, I think you can let her go now. Full speed ahead,right away to Halifax. As I have told you, it is most urgent that weshould be there in between five and six days. Of course, everythingdepends on the engines, and I think it would be well to work theengine-room staff in treble shifts, just to see that nothing goeswrong. Any accident in the engine-room would mean a good deal to me.So you may tell the stokers and engineers that if everything goessmoothly, and we get to Halifax by the 15th--that's giving you fivedays and a bit from now--there will be a hundred pounds extra to bedivided among them when we've coaled up again at Halifax. Youunderstand, I want those engines looked after as though they were alady's watch."
"Certainly, my lord," replied the captain. "I hope, sir, you don'tthink that anything of that sort is necessary for the working of the_Nadine_; but, of course, the engine-room staff will be very gladto accept your lordship's generosity."
The captain blew his whistle, and the head and shoulders of aquartermaster appeared on the ladder, looking up to the bridge.
"Quartermaster, who is on duty in the engine-room?"
"Mr Williams, sir," replied the quartermaster, touching his cap.
"Ask him to be good enough to step up here for a moment."
"Ay, ay, sir," and the head and shoulders disappeared.
A few moments later Edward Williams came up on to the bridge. Apartfrom the work of his profession he was an intensely nervous man, andhis imagination had instantly construed the sudden and unwontedsummons into a suspicion of his contemplated guilt, and his close-set,greenish-blue eyes shifted anxiously from the captain to Hardress in away that at once inspired Hardress with vague undefined suspicions,which somehow brought him back to one or two interviews on the subjectof Williams's patents--which had ended in a way which would haveprompted a less generous man to have dismissed him on the spot. It wasonly a suspicion. Still, in another sense, it was the intuition of akeen and highly-trained intellect, and somehow, by some process whichHardress himself could not have explained, Williams's manner as hecame on the bridge, and that sudden shifty glance, inspired him withthe thought that this was a man to be watched.
"Mr Williams," said the captain, "his lordship has just informed methat it is most important we should get to Halifax in the quickestpossible time; and, as you have most of the routine work to do, underMr M'Niven, and are, perhaps, more in touch with the men than he is, Iwish you to tell the men that from here to Halifax the engineers andstokers will work in treble shifts. It'll be a bit harder work, butnot for long. And his lordship has kindly promised a hundred pounds tobe divided among the engineer's staff at Halifax. Now, that's not badextra pay for five or six days work, and I hope you'll see that it'searned."
"Very well, sir," replied the engineer, doing his best to keep hisvoice steady, and not quite succeeding. "It is, I am sure, mostgenerous of his lordship, and I am quite certain that the men will doeverything in their power to deserve it."
"And," said Hardress, noting the break in his voice, "you understand,Mr Williams, I shall expect the officers to do the same. We can takeno risks this trip, and there must be no accidents or breakdowns. Timeis too precious; you understand me, of course. I will see Mr M'Nivenlater on. That will do, thank you."
Mr Williams touched the peak of his cap, and disappeared down theladder, feeling, in his inmost soul as though his contemplatedtreachery had already been discovered. And yet, if he had seen thematter from another point of view, he might have known that theprecautions which Hardress had taken were, under the circumstances,just what any man carrying such enormous responsibilities as he didwould have taken, for, as he had said, everything depended on the_Nadine's_ engines. It was, therefore, the most natural thing inthe world that everything possible should be done to ensure theirperfect working. In fact, if he had not had the burden of acontemplated treachery on his soul, he would have considered theorders to be not only natural, but necessary.
As he reached the deck, it happened that the marquise was strollingforward towards the bridge. Williams raised his cap, and by the lightof one of the electric deck-lamps, Hardress saw from the bridge thatshe looked hard at him for a moment, and that he replied with analmost imperceptible shake of the head. His brows came together for amoment, and he shut his teeth. His keen intellect saw what hishalf-intoxicated senses would not have seen. Under any normalcircumstances, it was impossible that his guest, Adelaide de Conde,could have even the remotest relations with his second engineer, andyet there was no mistaking what he had seen as she passed under theelectric light.
"Captain Burgess," he said, suddenly, in a low voice, "I don't quitelike the look of Mr Williams. I have nothing against him, but I knowhe has a bit of a grudge against me about those patents of his,and----"
"Surely you don't think, my lord, that he would do anything?"
"No," interrupted Hardress; "I say nothing, except that we're takingno risks this voyage; but I shall ask Mr M'Niven to have a very sharpwatch kept on the engines."
"May I come up on to the sacred territory?" said a sweet, pleadingvoice from half-way up the bridge stairs.
"And may we too?" said the voice of Miss Chrysie just behind.
"By all means, marquise," said Hardress; "and you too, Olive, and MissChrysie, certainly; only I hope you've got your caps pinned onsecurely, because we're going to quicken up."
"Ah," said Adelaide, coming up on to the bridge with her headhalf-enveloped in a fleecy shawl, "quicken up. Does that mean what youcall full speed?"
"Something like it, I reckon," said Miss Chrysie, coming up closebehind her, followed by Lady Olive, both with white yachting capspinned more or less securely on to their abundant tresses.
"Yes," said Hardress, with a note in his voice that Adelaide had notheard before; "it is full speed. Now, hold on to your headgear andyou'll see."
As he spoke he put his hand on the handle of the engine telegraph andpulled it over from half to full speed. They heard a tinkle in theengine-room, and presently the bridge began to throb and thump undertheir feet. The sharp prow of the _Nadine_ had so far been cleavingthe water with scarcely a ripple. Now it seemed to leap forward intoit, and raised a long creased swirl to left and right. A sudden blastof wind struck their faces, hands instinctively went up to heads, andLady Olive exclaimed:
"What is that, Shafto? It hasn't suddenly come on to blow, has it?"
"Oh no," he laughed. "We're making it blow. That's only the differencebetween about ten or eleven knots and twenty--and there's a bit of abreeze against us, about five miles an hour--so that makes ittwenty-five miles an hour--in fact, even thirty--for knots are longerthan miles."
"Now isn't that just gorgeous!" said Miss Chrysie, and she opened hermouth and filled her lungs with the strong salt breath of thesea--"and there goes my cap," she said, when she got her breath again.
The breeze had got under the peak of her yachting cap, and sent itflying aft. The pin dislocated the arrangement of her hair, and thenext moment she was standing with the loosened shining coils streamingout behind her, unravelling into a shower of golden glory. Adelaide,with the instinct of a Frenchwoman, had drawn her shawl tight roundher head. Hardress looked round at the moment, and, if his heart hadever w
avered, in that moment the old allegiance was confirmed. Therewas no more comparison between the tall, deep-chested American girl,with her cheeks glowing, her eyes shining in the sheer joy of physicallife, and her long gold-brown hair streaming away behind her, and theslight, shrinking figure of the daughter of the Bourbons, coweringbehind the canvas of the bridge and gripping the shawl that coveredher head, than there might have been between a sea-nymph of the oldGrecian legends and a fine lady of to-day caught in an unexpected gustof wind.
Miss Chrysie looked natural and magnificent, breasting the gale andbreathing it in as though she loved it. Adelaide de Conde, the exoticof the drawing-room, cowered before it, and looked pinched, andshivered. Lady Olive, with one hand on the top of her cap and theother holding the wrap she had thrown round her shoulders, gasped fora moment, and said:
"Yes, Chrysie; this is glorious. Twenty knots!--that's abouttwenty-four miles an hour, isn't it, a little bit faster than aSouth-Eastern express train?"
"I hope so," laughed Hardress; "if it wasn't we should be some time ingetting to Halifax. And now, I suppose, you've got some coffee readyfor us down in the saloon?"
"Oh yes, it will be quite ready now," said Lady Olive. "Mr Vandel andpapa have started their chess already; Madame de Bourbon is stillmaking lace with those wonderful eyes and fingers of hers; and so, ifyou want to exchange the storm for the calm, come along."
A little after eleven that night, when the _Nadine_, thrilling inevery plate and plank, was tearing through the smooth water of theAtlantic at nearly twenty-one knots an hour, a council of three wasbeing held in the smoking-room on deck. The doors and windows wereclosed, and a quarter-master was patrolling the deck on each side.Below in the saloon, Miss Chrysie, with a dainty little revolver inthe pocket of her yachting skirt, was playing poker for beans withMadame de Bourbon, Lady Olive, and the marquise. In short, as MissChrysie herself would have expressed it, things were rapidly coming toa head on board the _Nadine_.
"It seems to me," said the president, "that, all thingsconsidered--thank you, viscount, I think I will take just one morepeg--we have just got to take every possible precaution. I don't saythat I am suspecting or accusing anybody; but, considering that we'vegot about the biggest thing on earth right here aboard this yacht, Idon't think we should calculate on taking any risks. Take thattelegram to start with. There can't be any doubt about that; and itdoesn't matter whether the marquise or Ma'm'selle Felice sent it,there it is. Get it down to plain figures. This boat does twentyknots, and she started fifteen hours before her time. A telegram goesfrom Southampton to Cherbourg, as Chrysie's duplicate showed, clearlytelling Count Valdemar, on the _Vlodoya_ at Cherbourg, where he had nobusiness to be, according to his programme, that we were sailing inthe afternoon instead of the next morning, and it ended by telling himto make haste. Now, what does haste mean? We steam twenty knots, andthe _Vlodoya_, we know, steams about sixteen. She started fromCherbourg, and we started from Southampton. The French and RussianPolar expeditions are perhaps under weigh now, and, from what we know,I reckon that they have a fairly good idea of what we're going acrossthe Atlantic for. Now, how's a sixteen-knot boat going to catch atwenty-knot yacht anywhere between Southampton and Halifax?"
"And why should Count Valdemar receive that telegram at Cherbourg, asI suppose he did," said Lord Orrel, "instead of going on to theBaltic, when he said he was in such a hurry to get to Petersburg?"
"That, I think," said Hardress, "is the most suspicious fact in thewhole business. Of course, I don't like to suspect our late or ourpresent guests, but I must confess that I feel there's somethingwrong. What it is I can't exactly say; but still I do feel thateverything is not as it ought to be."
"And that," said the president, "I think I can explain in a fewwords--not my own ideas altogether, because Chrysie has given me agood many points. You know, gentlemen, there are some things that awoman's eyes can see through a lot farther than a man's can, andChrysie doesn't always keep her eyes down."
He lit a fresh cigar, took a sip of his whisky and soda, and went on:
"Why should a telegram be sent to the owner of a sixteen-knot boat,informing him of a change of sailing a twenty-knot boat, when thesixteen-knotter is supposed to be going up the Baltic, and thetwenty-knotter is going across the Atlantic? It seems ridiculous,doesn't it? It would, even if they were both going across theAtlantic, as they might be. Now, those are hard facts; and there's adead contradiction between them, just as you might say there isbetween positive and negative in electricity. Now, where's the sparkthat's going to connect them?"
There was silence at the table for a few moments, while the presidentblew two or three long whiffs of blue smoke from his lips; and thenHardress, remembering his thoughts on the bridge, and what he had seenfrom it, blurted out, almost involuntarily:
"Something wrong with the engines, I suppose?"
"You've got it in once, viscount," said the president, flicking theash off his cigar. "Is there any other way that a sixteen-knottercould overtake a twenty-knotter? I don't want to say anything againstanyone, but, you know, accidents to engines are easily managed, and wejust can't afford to have any right here."
"I've seen to that already," said Hardress. "I don't think there's anyfear of a mishap, accidental or otherwise."
"But," said the president, lighting another cigar, "if it shouldhappen that the sixteen-knotter did overhaul the twenty-knotter,wouldn't it be just as well to get that gun mounted? They may haveguns on that Russian boat, and they probably have; but I don't thinkthey'll have anything that's a circumstance to our twelve-pounderVandelite gun."
"Well, in case of accidents," said Lord Orrel, "I think, Shafto, thatit wouldn't be a bad idea to get the gun mounted at once. If, in spiteof any precautions, there is going to be an accident in theengine-room, it might as well be mounted as soon as possible."
"I quite agree with you, sir," said Hardress. "We will have it out ofthe hold, and mount it first thing to-morrow morning."
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