CHAPTER XXIII
The _Nadine_ ranged alongside, Miss Chrysie still sitting at herMaxim, with Robertson beside her ready to see to the ammunition feed,and the president, leaning over the forward rail, said, as laconicallyas though he had been putting the most ordinary business proposition:
"Good-morning, excellency; I guess you and the countess had bettercome on board as soon as possible. If you'll lower the gangway I'llsend a boat; but if there's any more shooting I shall sink you. Idon't want to do anything unpleasant, you understand; but thathigh-toned friend of yours the marquise has half-poisoned most of us,and so the rest have to take charge. Are you badly hurt?"
Count Valdemar held a hurried consultation with the captain of the_Vlodoya_, and replied, as politely as he could:
"The fortune of war is with you, Mr Vandel, and there is no need forany further concealment. We are crippled, but the watertightcompartments have been closed and we shall float. Meanwhile, we arehelpless and entirely at your service. What do you wish us to do?"
In the meantime the _Nadine's_ boat had been lowered, and was pullinground her stern to the gangway of the _Vlodoya_, which had beenlowered, and the president replied:
"We'll have to ask your excellency and the countess to be our guestsfor a bit; so if you'll just come right on board and tell your peopleto get your baggage fixed up, we'll be able to save you a certainamount of unpleasantness. You will be a lot more comfortable on boardhere than you will there, because we're going to take what coal you'vegot and then sink you."
As the president said this the captain of the Russian yacht noddedtowards a man standing by one of the one-pounders on the fore deck. Hepulled the lanyard, there was a sharp bang, and a shell bored its waythrough the plates of the _Nadine_ amidships, just missing theengines. The next moment Miss Chrysie's Maxim began to thud, spittingflame and smoke and lead, sweeping the decks of the _Vlodoya_ fromstem to stern. Only those on the bridge were spared. For a full threeminutes the deadly hail continued, and there was not a man on deck whowas not killed or maimed. The president had jumped back to the breechof his gun, the muzzle swung round till it bore directly on the partof the _Vlodoya_ which contained her boilers. He held up his hand andChrysie stopped the Maxim. Then she swung it on to the bridge, glancedalong the sights and touched the spring. There was a crack and a puffof smoke and flame, and the captain of the _Vlodoya_, who was standingabout a couple of feet away from Count Valdemar and Sophie, reeledhalf round and dropped with a bullet through his heart.
"I guess your excellency and the countess had better come on boardright away," said the president, still looking along the sights of hisgun. "That's a pretty unhealthy place you're in, and my daughter'sonly got the patience of an ordinary woman, you know."
Sophie looked across at the _Nadine's_ bridge, and saw Chrysie's whiteface and burning eyes looking over the barrel of the Maxim. Her thumbwas on the spring and there was death in her eyes. She took her fatherby the arm, and said:
"Come, papa, it's no use. That she-devil will shoot us like dogs if wedon't go. Come."
And so they went down to the deck, strewn with corpses and splashedwith blood, to the gangway ladder, at the bottom of which the_Nadine's_ boat was waiting.
Miss Chrysie at once left the gun with which she had done suchterrible execution, and went with the chief officer to receive them.To the utter astonishment of both the count and Sophie, she held outher hand as cordially as though the meeting had taken place on theterrace of Orrel Court, and said with a somewhat exaggerated drawl:
"Well, countess, and your excellency, I am real glad to see you. Wesort of thought we should meet you somewhere about here, and I am surehis lordship and the viscount and Lady Olive, when they get better,will do all they can to make you comfortable. Now, here's thestewardess. As she didn't have any of the marquise's punch last night,she's ready to show you to your room. Mr Vernon, perhaps you'll bekind enough to attend to his excellency. Good-bye for the present: Iguess we shall meet at lunch."
"Really, after the unpleasantness that has happened," said the count,"your kindness, and your hospitality are quite overwhelming."
"And," added Sophie, as the two prisoners of war passed into thecharge of their respective custodians, "I must say that to me it is asmysterious as it is charming. If the conditions had been reversed, Ishould certainly have shot you."
"It wouldn't have been quite fair," replied Miss Chrysie, sweetly."You see I had a gun, and you hadn't."
She watched them disappear down the companion way to the saloon, thenshe put her hands up to her eyes, groped her way half-blindly to along wicker chair, dropped into it and incontinently fainted.
Just then the chief, washed, shaved, new-clad and thoroughly contentedwith the really splendid piece of work that had been done on one ofhis beloved engines, came on deck, looking as though nothing veryparticular had happened. He saw instantly what was the matter.
"The lassie has a wonderful nerve," he said to himself. "Ay, what aman she'd have made! But she's only a lassie after all, and we'dbetter get her below. I'll just take her down to Mrs Evans withouttroubling the president. He's got plenty to think about. Yes; Vernon'son the bridge, and he'll see to things."
Then he picked her up in his arms and carried her down to her owncabin and laid her in her berth, and gave her into the charge of thestewardess. Then he went up to the captain's room, and found him justrecovering consciousness.
"What's the matter, M'Niven?" he said. "That infernal punch last nightseems to have poisoned me. I seem to have been having nightmare afternightmare, with guns firing and----"
"That's all right, captain," replied the Scotsman; "if you'd takenless of that infernal punch and more honest whisky, as I did, youwouldn't have such an awful head on you as I suppose you have. Still,there's nothing much to trouble about. We've got the engine to rightsagain; we've met the Russian yacht, and fought her, and beaten her. MrVandel smashed her up with his gun, and Miss Vandel--a wonderful girlthat, sir, a wonderful girl--she sat at her Maxim as if it had been asewing-machine, and seemed to think no more of shots than stitches,and then, woman-like, she fainted, and I've just taken her below andhanded her over to Mrs Evans.
"And now, captain, don't you think that a wee peg would do you good?Mr Vernon's on the bridge, the president's holding up the Russianswith his gun, and the engines are working all right, but half the crewand all the company are still something like dead, with thatFrenchwoman's drugs, whatever they were."
Captain Burgess took the chief engineer's hint, and a stiff brandy andsoda. Then he dressed and went on deck, and had a brief conversationwith the president, after which he took charge of the operations ofclearing all the coal and stores out of the _Vlodoya_ before she wassent to the bottom.
The president and Miss Chrysie had to entertain their involuntaryguests at lunch, for although the rest of the _Nadine's_ companywere recovering consciousness, they were still under the doctor's careand unable to leave their berths; but at dinner that evening LadyOlive, the earl, and Hardress were able to welcome them, and they didso with a sardonic cordiality which compelled both his excellency andSophie to admit that these Anglo-Saxons were, after all, not such baddiplomatists as Europeans were wont to think. Madame de Bourbon wasstill prostrate, and the marquise had the best of reasons forremaining in her own cabin.
It was perhaps as strange a dinner party as ever sat down afloat orashore, and it was rendered doubly strange by the fact that the lasttime they had all sat together most of them suspected, and some ofthem knew, that this very conflict, which had ended in spite of alldisadvantages so completely in favour of the _Nadine_ and her company,was certain to take place, yet very few references were made to thestate of active hostilities which had now been practically proclaimed.
Count Valdemar and Sophie were treated on board the _Nadine_ exactlyas they had been at Orrel Court. Lord Orrel and Lady Olive were justas they had been at Cowes, and in the Solent. Hardress, who had takena somewhat perilously large dose of the fair Ad
elaide's punch, lookedpale and seemed rather sleepy, until he had had two or three glassesof champagne, and then he seemed to brighten up, and began discussinginternational politics with a frankness and an intimate knowledgewhich simply astounded their involuntary guests. So far as the partywas concerned, there was now no further need for anything likeconcealment, and not only were the Storage Works discussed, in theirfull nature and purpose, but even the advent of the French and Russianexpeditions at Boothia Land was anticipated with what the Countafterwards described to Sophie as brutally disgusting frankness.
Miss Chrysie, eating her strawberries at dessert as daintily as thoughher hands had never been within a mile of a Maxim gun, chatted andchaffed just as she had been wont to do at Orrel Court, and thepresident talked gunnery and machinery with the captain and MrM'Niven, who had been invited to join the party; and finally, wheneven the marquise came into dessert on Lady Olive's pressinginvitation, all that she heard about her deliberate attempt to drugthe whole ship's company was from Lord Orrel, who rose as she entered,and said in just such a tone as he might have used in the drawing-roomat Orrel Court:
"My dear marquise, I am delighted to see that you have recovered fromthe same mysterious indisposition that has affected all of us. I amreally afraid that there must have been something wrong with therecipe for the punch _a le Grand Monarque_, or perhaps it was notintended for general use. However, as we are all happily recovered, weneed not trouble ourselves any further about that."
Adelaide entered instantly into the spirit of the comedy that wasbeing played, and she replied:
"Ah, my lord, it is so kind of you not to blame me! Believe me, I amdesolated, and have been very nearly killed, and my poor aunt believestoo that she is going to die. It is my last performance atpunch-making, for I have torn the horrible recipe up and thrown itinto the sea."
"I am rather sorry to hear that, marquise," said Hardress, looking ather with a cold, steady stare, which at once enraged and infinitelysaddened her; for it proved that the empire, which until a few hoursago she had hoped to gain over him, and through him the world, was nowonly a dream never to be realised. Still, she kept herself undercommand marvellously, and greeted the count and Sophie just as thoughthe _Nadine_ had been lying off Cowes instead of being lashed to the_Vlodoya_ in mid-Atlantic, with the steam winches rattling and roaringover their heads, emptying the Russian yacht's bunkers into the_Nadine's_ as fast as her own crew and what was left of her enemy'scould do it. In short, a most unexpectedly pleasant evening was spentby everybody.
Coffee and cigars and cigarettes were taken up into the smoking-room,which was well to windward of the coal dust. Adelaide went to thepiano and played brilliantly. Then she accompanied Sophie in quaintand tenderly-touching Russian folk-songs. Then Miss Chrysie sang coonsongs and accompanied herself; and Hardress, on her suggestion, madewith a wicked humour in her dancing eyes, recite Kipling's "Rhyme ofthe Three Sealers" to her own piano accompaniment. They both did itvery well, and more than one person in the cosy little smoking-roomcould have killed them for it.
Nothing occurred to give the count and Sophie or Adelaide and theinnocent Madame de Bourbon any idea that they were really prisonersuntil they retired for the night. Then the chief steward knocked atthe count's door and asked if he wanted anything more. Mrs Evans didthe same for Sophie and the marquise, and then the doors of thestaterooms were locked. They were unlocked again at seven the nextmorning, and, after baths and early coffee, Hardress invited hisguests on to the bridge to watch the end of the _Vlodoya_.
During the night she had been completely stripped of everything thatcould be useful to her captor. Every pound of coal was taken out ofher bunkers. The two little quick-firers had been transferred with alltheir ammunition to the _Nadine_. Her four boats, amply provisionedand watered, were comfortably filled with such of her officers andcrew as Chrysie's Maxim volley had left alive. There was a southwardbreeze, and in forty-eight hours at the outside they were certain tobe picked up, either by a liner or a cargo boat, and plenty of moneyhad been given them to pay their passages either to Europe or America.When they had hoisted their sails and began to bear away towards thesteamer-track, the _Nadine_ cast off from the _Vlodoya_, her screwsbegan to revolve, and the president got his gun loaded.
"I reckon we might have a little gun practice, and see how far thispea-shooter really will carry," he said, looking up at the bridge,with a smile in which neither Sophie nor her father found very muchhumour. "Will you make it five miles, captain?"
The captain rang for full speed.
The _Nadine_ sprang forward with a readiness which showed how utterlyfutile the plot to cripple her had been, and in a few minutes themotionless hull of the _Vlodoya_ was a white speck on the water. Thenshe stopped and swung round. The president adjusted his automaticsights, waited till she rose on the swell, and let go. There was ahiss and a whizz, and then, where the speck was a bright flash blazedout. Two more shells followed in quick succession, and as the lastflash blazed out, Count Valdemar took his glasses down from his eyesand looked at Hardress, and said, with a touch of bitterness in histone:
"She has gone! That is a wonderful gun, viscount."
"Yes," replied Hardress, dryly. "That is a twelve-pounder. We havesome hundred-pounders at the works, as well as a new weapon which mayinterest your excellency very much. It destroys without striking. Ifthe French and Russian North Polar Expedition should chance to pay usa visit, you may perhaps see them both in action."
"And now, president," he went on, "I suppose we may as well shape ourcourse for Boothia Land."
"There is nothing more to wait for that I know of, viscount," hereplied. And so the _Nadine's_ head was swung round to the north-west,her engines were put to their full power, and so she began her voyageto that desolate spot of earth which was soon to become the seat ofthe world-empire.
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