C. N. Williamson & A. N. Williamson: 30+ Murder Mysteries & Adventure Novels (Illustrated). Charles Norris Williamson
of convicts, who may poison us in sheer spite because we are more fortunate than they. Could we not turn round, and get back to Sydney without starving?"
"No, it couldn't be managed," said Virginia.
Manuela turned pleading eyes upon Roger and George. They were men; they knew more about such things than women; besides she could usually make men do what she wished. But for once she found creatures of the opposite sex who were not to be melted by her pleading. They agreed with Virginia that it was impossible now to avoid New Caledonia.
"And how long shall we stay?" plaintively inquired the Countess, when she had been obliged to resign herself to the inevitable, which, to her credit, she did with a very pretty grace. "Shall we leave again to-night, with our poisoned food?"
"Wait till you have seen the rocks in the harbour," answered George. "If they're as bad as the book says, they must be something to see. Anyhow, it's only possible to get in or out between sunrise and sunset. I'm afraid, Countess, you'll have to put up with it till to-morrow."
"Oh!" Manuela sighed a long sigh. She asked no more questions, she made no more protests. She turned her back upon New Caledonia, and appeared to dismiss the land of lost souls from her mind.
"Well," said Roger, when he and Virginia had walked away, leaving the Countess and George Trent to the flirtation which was so embittering the daily life of Lady Gardiner. "Well, was I right or wrong about this woman?"
"Wrong," firmly answered Virginia.
"You say that still, after the way she took your grand coup? But this is only because you hate giving up, beaten."
"I'm not beaten yet," the girl returned doggedly. "I hoped for something different—yes, I admit that. But her game means as much to her as ours does to us. She's playing it for all it's worth. If she weren't such a wretch, I should have admired her pluck. How she held her ground! Taken by surprise as she was, almost her first thought was whether we had purposely caught her in this trap, or whether she had only an avenging fate to thank for such a terrible and startling coincidence. I saw that, at least, in her eyes and her face, Roger, though I didn't see all I had been looking for. Think what she must have been feeling! She helped to send an innocent man who had loved and trusted her into this exile, worse than death. She thought herself free from him forever, because he was at the other end of the world, dead-alive, in the grave where she buried him. Suddenly she finds herself looking at that grave, unable to escape. At any moment it may open, and the dead appear to accuse her. What a situation!"
"What an imagination!" exclaimed Roger. "Dear child, you have let it carry you away as far from the truth as you've carried this woman from her home—this woman whom you've so audaciously kidnapped."
"Wait," said Virginia, her voice trembling. "I haven't done with her. This is only the first turn of the thumbscrew. She doesn't dream yet of the ordeal she'll have to go through."
"May have to go through," quietly amended Roger Broom.
"You mean—oh, Roger, don't you think we'll succeed in what we've come for so far, so very far?"
Virginia, with tears sparkling in uplifted eyes, was irresistible.
"I hope it, dear," the man who loved and wanted her said, gravely. "I never thought it, you know. But the way hasn't seemed far to me, because I have been with you and the time will not have been wasted for me if we fail, because it has kept me by your side. I shall think, 'I have done what I could, and it has pleased Virginia.'"
"It has made Virginia grateful for all her life long," said the girl softly, "and whatever happens she will never forget. You have done so much already! Disapproving my plan, still you loyally did all you could to forward it. You used your influence to get us the one chance here, without which we could hope to do nothing. You wrote to the French Ambassador in London, the English Ambassador in France, and finally, when our interests were so twisted up in masses of official red-tape that it seemed they could never get disentangled, you ran on to Paris yourself to call on the Minister of the Colonies. If it had not been for the permit you got from him, we might as well have given up coming here, for all the prison doors would have been shut to us. Now, through him, and through you, they will be open, and our first step is clear. All this made me feel hopeful, when we were far away; I felt sure that we should succeed. But now that we have come these thousands of miles in our poor little boat; now that we have arrived at the end of the world and our real work is still before us, my heart suddenly sinks down—down. I'm frightened—I'm almost ill: and your words and your face are so grave, Roger! Your very tenderness and kindness make it worse, for somehow, it's as if you thought there might be a good-bye. It makes me realize that, after all, the greatest danger is to be run by you and George. You have both come for my sake; and—you are going to risk your lives."
"Risk your lives!" repeated a voice; and turning quickly, Virginia and her cousin saw Lady Gardiner, who had lately developed a rather stealthy way of creeping noiselessly behind her friends.
Virginia's mood was not one to promote presence of mind. She was speechless; but Roger stepped in to the breach.
"We were talking of a swim that George and I propose to have in these pleasant waters," he remarked. "There are supposed to be a good many sharks about, and Virginia is advising prudence."
"Oh!" breathed Lady Gardiner. "She is quite right. We will all join our persuasions to hers. But the Countess tells me this island is actually New Caledonia, the French penal settlement. Isn't that where your friend Miss Dalahaide's brother is imprisoned?"
"I believe so," said Virginia.
"How exciting! And how well you've kept the secret of this expedition! Is there any chance of our coming across the interesting murderer?"
"Don't call him that!" Virginia cried hotly. "How do you suppose that it would be possible for us to come across him? Do tourists who go to Portland 'come across' prisoners who have been convicted of murder—whether innocent or not? Noumea isn't the only port we have visited. It is on our way. We shall stop a day or two, and then—we shall go on somewhere else."
"Quite so," drily returned Lady Gardiner.
It was noon when they slowly steamed into the beautiful harbour of Noumea, and before them lay the crime-cursed land, fair with the fatal fairness of deadly nightshade.
There, for nearly five years, Maxime Dalahaide had not lived, but existed. To give him back to life, she had come thousands of miles and spent more than twenty thousand pounds. What would they find that he had become, if those precious documents which Roger had obtained proved as potent as they hoped? Would his brain and heart have been strong enough to bear the hopeless agony, the shame, the hideous associations of those years which to him must have seemed a century of despair; or would he have fallen under the burden?
Virginia shivered as if with cold, as she fancied a hard, official voice announcing that Number So-and-So was dead.
Chapter VII.
The Gates Open
The Countess de Mattos had a headache which was so severe, she announced, that it would prevent her from landing; besides, she was not interested in convicts. Lady Gardiner, on the contrary, was greatly interested. Never had she been more alert; never had her black eyes been so keen. She wanted to go everywhere; she wanted to see everything. She thought Noumea a charming place; she had "really no sympathy for the prisoners." One might commit a crime solely for the pleasure of being sent here.
The party of five went ashore, and Kate's principal preoccupation seemed to be to keep as close to Virginia as possible. She had the air of expecting some choice excitement, which she might miss if the girl were lost sight of for a moment. But nothing in the manner of Virginia or her brother or cousin suggested that they had come to this strange spot "at the end of the world" with any object save that of amusement. They behaved just as they had behaved at Sydney, or any other port at which they had called.