The Iron Pirate Part 10

"I burnt it to answer the signal yonder."

"But that was no affair of ours!"

He shrugged his shoulders, and muttered something about custom and something else, which he meant to be impudent. Yet in another moment he made effort to recall himself, and met me with an open, smiling face which covered anger. I began to upbraid myself for the folly of it, bursting out thus when there was no call for show; and I turned the talk to other things, searching to learn about him and his past; yet it was without reward, for he fenced in speech with all the point of a close Scotsman. But we came down the bridge together when the new watch was set; and he took a gla.s.s of wine with me in the saloon.

It was all well acted, a fine pretence of common civility, yet I believe that we two then took acquaintance of each other in the fullest measure; and he learnt, though he did not show it, that in the game of eavesdropping there may be two that play.

When I turned in at last, the little wind there was had fallen away, so that the yacht was almost without motion; save, indeed, that long roll from which an ocean-going s.h.i.+p is rarely free. I had the electric light in my cabin with a tap on the end of my bunk, mighty convenient for reading and waking; but I was full of sleep in spite of what had been above, and I turned out the lamp directly I fell upon my bed.

I think I must have slept very heavily for an hour, when a great sense of unrest and waking weariness took me, and I lay, now dozing, now dreaming, so that in all my dreams I saw the face of Paolo. I seemed to walk the deck of the _Celsis_, yet was Paolo there more strong and masterful than I; again I went to the stoke-hole, and he was charging the men with much authority; I hurried thence to the saloon, and in my silly dream I thought to see Captain Black upon the one hand and Paolo on the other, and a great friends.h.i.+p of manner and discourse between them.

Again I slept the black sleep; but it pa.s.sed into other visions, so that in one of them I seemed to be lying awake in my own cabin, and the man Paolo stood over me, looking straight into my eyes; and when I would have risen up to question him I was powerless, held still in every limb, living, yet without life or speech--a horrid dream from which I seemed to rouse myself only at the touch of something cold upon my outstretched hand; and then at last I opened my eyes and saw, during the veriest reality of time, that others looked down into mine. I saw them for some small part of a second, yet in the faint light that came from the port I recognised the face and the form, and was certain of them; for the man who had been watching me as I slept was Paolo.

A quick sense of danger waked me thoroughly then. I put my hand to the tap of the electric light and the white rays flooded the cabin. But the cabin was empty and Roderick's dog sat by my trunk, and had, I could see, been licking my hand as I lay.

I knew not how to make out the meaning of it; but I was trembling from the horror of the dream, and went above in my flannels. It was dawn then; and day was coming up out of the sea, cold and bearing mists, which lay low over the long restful waves. Dan was aft on the quarter-deck, and the first officer was on the bridge, but I looked into Paolo's bunk, and he slept there, in so heavy a sleep that I began to doubt altogether the truth of what I had believed. How could this man have left my cabin as he had done, and yet now be berthed in his own? The dream had cheated me, as dreams often do.

But more sleep was not to be thought of. I fell to talk with Dan, and paced the deck with him, asking what was his opinion of our new second mate.

He scratched his head before he answered, and looked wise, as he loved to look--

"Lord, sir, it's not for me to be spoutin' about them as is above me; but you ask me a fair question, and I'll give you a fair answer. In course, I ain't the party to be thinking ill of any man--not Dan, which is plain and English, though some as is scholars say it should be Dan'el; but what I do know, I know--you won't be contradictin' that, will you?"

I told him to get on with it; but he was woefully deliberate, cutting tobacco to chew, and hitching himself up before he was under weigh again.

"Now," he said at last, "the fact about our second is this, in my opinion--which ain't mine, but the whole of 'em--he's no more'n a s.h.i.+p with a voice under the fore-hatch----"

I laughed at him as I asked, "And what's the matter with a s.h.i.+p like that? Why shouldn't there be a voice under the fore-hatch, Dan?"

He lit his pipe behind the aft skylight, and then answered, as he puffed clouds of smoke to the lee-side--

"Well, you see, sir, as there ain't n.o.body a-livin' in that perticler place, you don't go for to look to hearin' of voices, or, in plain lingo, there's something queer about it."

"And that's your opinion, Dan?"

"As true as this fog's a-liftin' to windward."

I looked as he jerked his thumb to port, and, sure enough, the curtain of the fog was drawn up from the sea as the wind's wand scattered it.

Glorious and joy-giving the sun arose, and the whole horizon-bound expanse of rolling, green water lay beneath us. There is something of G.o.d in every daybreak, as most men admit, but I know nothing against the glory of a morn upon the Atlantic for bringing home to a man the delight in mere existence. The very sense of strength which the breeze bears, the limitless deep green of the unmeasured seas, the great arch of the zenith, the clear view of the sun's march, the purity and the stillness and the mastery of it all, the consciousness of the puny power of man, the mind message recalling the sublimity and the awe of the unseen Power beyond--all these things impress you, move in you the deepest thoughts, turn you from the little estimates of self as Nature only can in the holiest of her moods, which are sought yet never found in the cities. Nor can I ever welcome the breath of the great sea's vigour and refuse to listen to her voice, which comes with so powerful a message, even as a message from the great Unknown, whose hand controls, and whose spirit is on, the waters.

The sound of a gun-shot to leeward awoke me from my thoughts. The fog was yet lying there upon the sea, and for some while none of us, expectant as we were, could discern aught. But, fearing that some vessel lay in distress, we put the helm up and went half-speed for a time. We had cruised thus for five minutes or more when a terrific report burst upon our ears, and this time to the alarm of every man who trod deck. For this second report was not that of a small gun such as crippled s.h.i.+ps may use, but the thunderous echoing of a great weapon which a man-of-war only could carry.

The sound died away slowly; but in the same minute the fog lifted; and I saw, away a mile on the starboard bow, a spectacle which brought a great flush upon my face, and let me hear the sound of my own heart beating.

CHAPTER IX.

I FALL IN WITH THE NAMELESS s.h.i.+P.

There were two great s.h.i.+ps abreast of each other, and they were steaming with so great a pressure of steam that the dark green water was cleaved into two huge waves of foam before their bows; and the spray ran right over their fo'castles and fell in tons upon their decks.

The more distant of the two s.h.i.+ps was long in shape and dark in colour; she had four masts upon which topsails and staysails were set, and two funnels painted white, but marked with the anchor which clearly set her down to be one of the famous Black Anchor fleet. My powerful spygla.s.s gave me a full view of her decks, which I saw to be dark with the figures of pa.s.sengers and crew all crowding to the port side, wherefrom the other s.h.i.+p was approaching her.

Yet was it this other s.h.i.+p which drew our gaze rather than the great steamer which seemed to be pursued. Almost of the same length as the pa.s.senger steamer, which she now approached obliquely, she rode the long swell with perfect grace, and many of her deck-houses and part of her prow shone with the brightness of pure gold. Full the sun fell upon her in a sheen of s.h.i.+mmering splendour, throwing great reflected lights which dazzled the eye so that it could scarce hold any continued gaze upon her. And, indeed, every ornament on her seemed to be made of the precious metal, now glowing to exceeding brilliance in the full power of the sunlight.

She was a very big s.h.i.+p, as I have said, and she had all the shape of a s.h.i.+p of war, while the turrets fore and aft of her capacious funnel showed the muzzles of two big guns. I could see by my gla.s.s a whole wealth of armament in the foretop of her short mast forward; and high points in her fo'castle marked the spot where many other machine guns were ready for action. At her towering and lofty prow there was indicated clearly the curve of the ram which now ploughed the dark water and curdled it into the fountains of foam which fell upon her decks; while amids.h.i.+ps, the outline of a conning-tower showed more clearly for what aggressive purpose she had been designed. There was at this spot, too, a great deck erection, with a gallery and a bridge for navigation; but no men showed upon the platform, and, for the matter of that, no soul trod her decks, so far as our observation went. Yet her speed was such as I do not believe any s.h.i.+p achieved before. I have spent many years upon the sea; have crossed the Atlantic in some of the most speedy of those cruisers which are the just pride of a later-day s.h.i.+pbuilding art; I have raced in torpedo-boats over known miles; but of this I have no measure of doubt, that the speed of which that extraordinary vessel then proved herself capable was such as no other that ever swam could for one moment cope with. Now rising majestically on the long roll of the swell, now falling into the concave of the sea, she rushed onward towards the steamer she was evidently pursuing as though driven by all the furies of the deep.

As we watched her, held rooted to our places as men who are looking upon some strange and uncanny picture, the gun in her foremost turret belched out flame and smoke, and we observed the rise and fall of a sh.e.l.l, which cut the water a cable's length ahead of the straining steamer and sank hissing beneath the sea. At that moment she ran up a flag upon her signal mast, and, as I read it with my gla.s.s, I saw that it was the flag of the Chilian Republic.

Now, indeed, the pursuit became so engrossing that my own men began to sing out, and this reminded me that every soul aboard the _Celsis_ had watched with me when I first set eyes on the nameless s.h.i.+p. I turned to our skipper, who stood near on the hurricane deck, and saw that he in turn was looking hard at me. Roderick had come up from his cabin, but rested at the top of the companion ladder in so dazed a mood that no speech came from him. The first officer had scarce his wits about him to steer our own course, and the whole of the hands forward in a little group upon the fo'castle now called out their views, then turned to ask what it meant.

It was a matter of satisfaction to me that Mary still slept, and I looked for the appearance of Paolo with some question. But he remained below through it all. And at that I wondered more.

The skipper was the first to speak.

"That s.h.i.+p yonder," said he, jerking his thumb to starboard; "is it any business of ours?"

"None that I know of," I replied; "but it's a mighty fine sight, skipper, don't you think, a Chilian wars.h.i.+p running after a liner in broad daylight? What's your opinion?"

He shrugged his shoulders disdainfully, and took another sight through his gla.s.s. Then he answered me--

"It's a fine sight enough, G.o.d knows, but I would give half I'm worth to be a hundred miles away from it"; and here he suddenly wheeled, and, facing me roughly, he asked--

"Do you want me to get this boat into port again?"

"Of course. Is there any great need to answer a question like that?"

"At the moment, yes; for, with your pleasure, I'm going to put up the helm and sheer off. I'm not a man that loves fighting myself, and, with a s.h.i.+p and crew to look after, I've no business in any affair of that sort; but it's for you to say."

Before I could answer him, Roderick moved from his place and came up on the bridge where we stood.

"Hold on a bit, skipper," he cried, "as we are, if you please; why, man, it's a sight I wouldn't miss for a fortune."

The skipper searched him with his eyes with a keen, lasting gaze, that implied his doubt of the pair of us. His voice had a fine ring of sarcasm in it when he replied after the silence; but all he said was, "It's your affair," and then turned to the first officer.

"Don't you think he was right?" I asked Roderick in a low voice, when the chief's back was turned, but he whispered again--

"Not yet--we must see more of it; and they're too much occupied to hunt after us. We'll be away long before those two have settled accounts; and, look now, I can see a man on the bridge of the yellow s.h.i.+p. Do you mark him?"

I had my gla.s.s to my eye in a moment, and the light was so full upon the vessel, which must then have been a mile and a half away from us, that I could prove his words; for, sure enough, there was now someone moving upon the bridge, and, as I fixed my powerful lens, I thought that I could recognise the shape of a man; but I would not speak my mind to Roderick until I had a nearer view.

"You are right," I answered; "but what sort of a man I will tell you presently. Did you ever see anything like the pace that big s.h.i.+p is showing? She must be moving at twenty-five knots."

"Yes, it's amazing; and what's more, there isn't a show of smoke at her funnel."

This was true, but I had not noticed it. Throughout the strange scene we saw, this vessel of mystery never gave one sign that men worked at her furnaces below. Neither steam nor smoke came from her, no evidence, even the most trifling, of that terrible power which was then driving her through the seas at such a fearful speed.