C. N. Williamson & A. N. Williamson: 30+ Murder Mysteries & Adventure Novels (Illustrated). Charles Norris Williamson
speak. "I was weak, yes, but strength comes of great need, I suppose; and already I owed you so much. I had to think and act quickly; besides, it was for myself too."
"Thank heaven it's all over," exclaimed Roger, with a great sigh. "We've a good doctor on board. He'll know how to make you fit once we have you there. And that will be shortly now. See, here's the yacht! In ten minutes you'll be in the stateroom that has been ready for you ever since we left Mentone a few hundred years ago, bound for New Caledonia."
"Yes, your passage was engaged from the first," chuckled George, with an odd little catch in his voice that would have been hysterical if he had been a woman. "And I'll bet something you'll like your quarters. Two lovely ladies took a lot of trouble with them—your sister and mine."
"I don't know what to say, or how to thank you," stammered Maxime. "It goes so far beyond words."
"Just try to live your thanks, if you think they're worth while. I reckon that's what our two sisters would say on the subject. Don't let there be any more talk about dying like there was to-day, that's all, you know. And oh, by Jove! doesn't it feel queer to be gabbling this way, when you remember what we've just come out of—those grinning brutes down there, with their red mouths in their white shirt fronts, so to speak. Ugh! I don't want to think of it, but I'm hanged if I can help it. I say, did those Johnnies' revolvers do any damage here?"
"Dalahaide got a bullet in his shoulder, as if the wound in his back wasn't enough to remember the place by," said Roger. "He says it's nothing, and I hope that's the truth" (he actually did hope it now, at least for the moment); "as for me, I believe they've saved the yacht's barber a little trouble in cutting my hair on the left side, that's all; luckily no harm done to any of our men."
All these scraps of conversation had been flung backward and forward inside five minutes. Then they were at the yacht's side. Maxime, forced to yield to his own weakness in the reaction now, was being helped on board, the others following.
A slim, white figure, ethereal and spirit-like in the sheen of the moon, was waiting to give them welcome. Virginia stood on deck, weeping and laughing, Dr. Grayle by her side.
"Thank heaven! Thank heaven!" she sobbed at sight of Maxime. The cry was for him, the look, the tears, the clasped hands, all for him. Roger and George came together for her in a second thought, and Roger knew; though he was not surprised, because he had guessed her secret, such joy of success as even he, being a man, had felt, was blotted out for him.
Down below, locked into their staterooms, Lady Gardiner and the Countess de Mattos had passed a strange and terrible hour, each in a different way.
To Kate there was little mystery, though much fear. She had sulkily shut herself up, and, not dreaming what was appointed for the night, had finally dropped asleep, while meditating reprisals for the bad treatment she had received that day. But though her suspicions had not gone as far as an actual rescue in dramatic fashion, with the first shot from the prison boat which woke her from a sound sleep, she divined what was happening. Bounding from her berth, while hardly yet awake, she darted to her porthole, which was wide open. It faced the wrong way to afford her a glimpse of what was going on, but she could hear more firing at a distance, doubtless at the prison on the Ile Nou, the ringing of bells, and much tramping overhead on the deck of the yacht. She felt the throb of the engine too, and though the Bella Cuba had been lying quietly at anchor in the harbour when Kate had fallen asleep, now she was moving at a rapid rate through the water, which gurgled past her sides.
Kate had known, of course, that they had not come thousands of miles for nothing, and the moment she was certain that New Caledonia was to be the Bella Cuba's destination she realized that an attempt would be made to save Maxime Dalahaide. She had been anxious to earn the other half of the Marchese Loria's money, and at the same time to pay Virginia and George Trent for their secretiveness, by letting Loria hear of their arrival, at least, even if she could tell him no more. That desire had been thwarted by Dr. Grayle, but Kate considered the act merely postponed. Next time they coaled—since they must coal somewhere before long—she would certainly find a way of wiring to Loria, and probably she would have something much more definite to tell him, that was all. Exactly what that "something" might be, had been rather vague in her mind; but she had thought that Virginia, George, and Roger would most likely have found means to communicate with Dalahaide and give him hope for the future; perhaps they might even try to put in his hands some means of escape, after which the Bella Cuba would linger about in these waters, out of sight of New Caledonia, until he either succeeded in getting away or failed signally to do so. This plan Kate had considered not beyond the bounds of possibility; or (she had told herself) Virginia, who was so enormously, absurdly rich, might be counting upon bribing some lesser prison authority to help the convict to escape. So daring a girl, sure of the power of beauty and wealth, and with millions of pounds to play with, might have conceived such a scheme and have the boldness to carry it out. She could offer any bribe she liked, and—every man was said to have his price. It was conceivable now to Kate that Virginia and Madeleine Dalahaide had had confidences together, and that the mysterious locked stateroom had been specially fitted up for the benefit of the prodigal. It would be like Virginia to have made such a wild plan, and to persuade Roger Broom and George Trent to aid her in carrying it out; yet Kate had not guessed to what desperate lengths they would be ready to go. She had forgotten about the yacht's cannon; but when she heard the shot from the French boat she suddenly remembered them, and wondered, in great terror, whether they would be put to use. She realized that the trio meant to stop at nothing to gain their end and that this end was to have Maxime Dalahaide out of prison at any cost to themselves and others.
Into the midst of her confused deductions broke the yell of a shot from one of the yacht's guns. It was as if the Bella Cuba were alive and had given a tiger-spring out of the water. Kate shrieked with fear, and staggered away from the porthole. Her first thought was to run out of the stateroom and seek refuge somewhere—anywhere. But, with her hand on the bolt with which she had fastened the door, she realized that she was as safe where she was as she could be elsewhere, in the dreadful circumstances—perhaps safer. But she was in deadly terror. As a roar from the French boat was answered by another roar from the yacht, which again shivered and leaped like a wounded thing, her knees gave way under her, and she half fell, half crouched on the floor of the stateroom, shuddering and moaning. The danger seemed as appalling, as hopeless to escape from, as an earthquake which, go where you would, might tear asunder the ground under your feet and bury you alive.
It was clear that the Bella Cuba and the strange, ugly-looking steamboat she had seen in the harbour, with its two unmasked cannon, were waging fierce war upon one another. For all that Lady Gardiner knew, Dalahaide was already on board, and the prison boat was giving chase; yet that could not be true, surely, for suddenly the yacht's engines ceased to move; it was as if her heart had stopped beating. Had the Bella Cuba been struck? Was she sinking? Even if not, one of those horrible cannon-balls might come crashing into the yacht's side at any moment, and every one on board might be instantly killed.
Kate knew not what to do; whether to remain where she was, or to crawl out into the cabin and try to find some one—even the hateful doctor—who would tell her how great the danger was, and what one must do to be saved from it. She forgot all about Loria, and Dalahaide, and her many grievances, and only knew that she wished to be spared from death, no matter whose schemes failed or succeeded, or who else lived or died.
The Countess de Mattos had not been asleep. Her headache, perhaps, had kept her nerves at high tension, and made rest impossible. As she had confessed to Virginia early that morning, on discovering the name of the next landing-place, she did not like New Caledonia. The thought of the place, and the secrets it must hold, oppressed her. She wondered, with a kind of disagreeable fascination which invariably forced her weary mind back to the same subject, whether the convicts' life was very terrible; whether they lived long in this land of exile, or whether they were notoriously short-lived. The climate must be trying, and then there were countless hardships to endure—hardships which must be less bearable to those who had known luxury and refinements. She did not like to dwell upon anything that was painful or even sordid; and when memory persisted in dragging before her reluctant eyes the dead body of any particularly hateful