Captain Calamity Part 22

"May I ask, purely as a matter of curiosity, whether you always read your books upside down?"

The volume slipped from the German's hand and he muttered a guttural oath.

"I just picked it up as you came in," he said.

"And did your investigations meet with success?"

"My--I don't understand."

"I mean," went on the Captain, "did you succeed in your efforts to force that deed-box and abstract your confession?"

The prisoner's face changed colour, but he tried to bl.u.s.ter out a denial.

"I--I haven't touched the box," he said.

"Then it's rather strange that your jacket should be smeared with white paint. You see, my bunk was re-painted only this----"

The Captain's remark was cut short, for the German suddenly sprang to his feet and aimed a terrific blow at him with a short, pointed sheath-knife. Calamity was just in time to avoid the weapon, which struck the table with such force that the point snapped off, while the would-be murderer stumbled forward under the impetus of the stroke.

Before he could recover himself, the Captain had seized him by the throat, at the same time calling for Sing-hi.

"The irons out of my drawer," he said when the Chinaman appeared.

Sing-hi opened a drawer, took therefrom a pair of handcuffs and slipped them over the prisoner's wrists.

"You'd better lock the fellow in your pantry for the time being," said Calamity as he went out.

The same night Mr. Fritz Siemann--that is to say, his mortal remains--was lowered into the sea, sewed up in a canvas bag. And, inside that bag, besides the firebars used as sinkers, was the thousand pounds in notes.

Captain Calamity was not the man to break his word.

CHAPTER XVII

THE CONFESSION

During the next three days the work of repairing the _Hawk's_ engines went on unceasingly under McPhulach's supervision. The gunboat, which, it was found, had already been repaired by the Germans, was floated, and arrangements were made for accommodating the prisoners she would have to carry. Calamity christened her _Satellite_, and the name was painted on her stern in big white letters over the word _Gnesen_, which had formerly been there.

On the afternoon of the day preceding Calamity's departure three of the guns in the fort which had escaped damage from the fire were rendered useless, while such stores, ammunition, and coal as could not be taken away were destroyed or flung into the sea. This seeming waste was necessary in order to prevent any stray vessel that might put in there from re-coaling or victualling with what would otherwise have been left.

On the following morning, McPhulach, grimy of person and half-dead from want of sleep, reported that the engines were in working order and that he had a full head of steam in the boilers. A few hours afterwards everything was ready for the departure; the prisoners had been divided into two lots, one being sent aboard the _Satellite_, now under the command of Mr. d.y.k.es, and the other transferred to the _Hawk_, whose after-hold had been fitted up for the purpose.

A blast from the _Hawk's_ syren gave the signal to weigh anchor; the winches rattled, the cables came rumbling up through the hawse-pipes, and the privateer slowly steamed towards the harbour mouth with the _Satellite_ in her wake. As she pa.s.sed the ruined fort with the Union Jack fluttering above it, she fired an irregular salute of three guns, while the _Satellite_, not to be outdone, dipped her flag.

Leaning over the _Hawk's_ stern rail, watching the hissing water being churned into foam by the propeller, was Dora Fletcher. She was still there when the trees which lined the sh.o.r.e had dissolved into a vague green outline that presently took on a bluish tint, and finally became merged in the hills beyond. When the hills themselves faded, became blurred, and melted into the horizon leaving against the sky-line nothing but a dark smudge resembling a low-lying cloud, the girl had not moved from her post, but still continued to gaze with wistful eyes into the distance. Long before the brief twilight cast a cooling shadow across the flaming sky the last vestige of the island had faded out of sight and nothing was to be seen save an unbroken vista of sea that changed from green to grey, was for a few moments transformed into a s.h.i.+mmering expanse of molten gold in the rays of the dying sun, then slowly changed to purple, and so to a deep, unfathomable blue. Darker it grew as the twilight deepened, and when night abruptly blotted out the soft half-lights, the sea became a vast and trembling mirror, reflecting in its depths a thousand twinkling points of light.

It was not by any means the first time that Dora Fletcher had seen sea and sky swallow up the land, but for a reason she could not explain even to herself, there seemed to be something unusually depressing in this departure from the island. It was not that it had possessed any particular charm for her; she had seen lands far more beautiful and islands infinitely more picturesque--no, it was not this.

To add to her unaccountable depression came thoughts of her dead father and the great, empty future which lay before her. Now that her father had gone, she reflected, there was no one in all the world to whom she mattered, or who would miss her were she never to return. A sensation of utter loneliness descended upon her, and with it a strange foreboding, none the less disquieting because it was so vague. She felt an urgent desire for human companions.h.i.+p, and, looking round the deck, saw that it was deserted. Smith was on the bridge, but she had no wish to speak to him, even had it been possible. And Mr. d.y.k.es, now aboard the _Satellite_, would not have satisfied this hunger of her soul for fellows.h.i.+p. Her thoughts turned to the Captain, and him she did not dismiss from her mind, but lingered contemplatively upon this strange, taciturn man; so vital, so dominating.

Illogically, she found herself wis.h.i.+ng that this cruise might last for ever; there was something soothing in the thought of her utter dependence on this man's will. For a moment she lingered luxuriously upon the thought of her life ordered and controlled by him, and gave herself up to a delicious feeling of absence from care and responsibility. Suddenly she experienced a revulsion of feeling, and flushed vividly with a sensation of shame. Was it possible, she asked herself angrily, that she was no stronger than some bread-and-b.u.t.ter miss who had lived sheltered all her days? Was she so dismayed because she must start life for herself, that she must needs wish for dependence and protection; in short, a master?

The cool night-wind fanned her hot cheeks and she made an effort to compose herself and reduce the chaos of her thoughts to some sort of order. Unfortunately for her efforts in this direction the door of the little deck-house above the companion-way opened, and turning, she saw the Captain himself.

"Good evening," she said, but for some reason her voice was half-choked and utterly unlike her own.

Something about her, perhaps the unconscious appeal of her graceful figure or the unusual note in her voice, arrested him as he was about to pa.s.s on.

"Good evening," he answered, a little less curtly than was his wont.

She hoped he would go on, but, as if recollecting something, he paused.

"I suppose you know we are bound for Singapore?" he said.

"Yes."

"Have you, by any chance, friends there?"

"No."

"I gathered from the papers you placed in my charge that your home is in England."

"My home is not in England," she answered; "it is here," and she waved her arm dramatically as if to indicate sea and s.p.a.ce.

"At any rate, I presume you will go to England," he said, in nowise affected by her poetic suggestion.

"If I must."

"I can't force you to go anywhere against your will," he answered in the tone of one trying to keep patient. "If you take my advice, you will consult the British Consul."

"You seem very anxious to get rid of me!" exclaimed the girl with sudden bitterness. "Have I been such an enc.u.mbrance since I came on board?"

Calamity gazed at her flushed and angry face with surprise.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean this," she replied impulsively. "Ever since I have been on this s.h.i.+p you've either ignored me or else treated me as if I were a nuisance which had to be tolerated somehow. Yet I've done my share of the work, haven't I?"

The question was flung out like a challenge, and some moments elapsed before the Captain spoke. It was, perhaps, the first time he had ever considered this girl as an ent.i.ty, as anything but an unwelcome pa.s.senger forced upon him by circ.u.mstances.

"What has all this to do with your destination?" he asked at last.

"Everything," she answered, in a voice that trembled with anger and indignation. "You ask me where I want to be sent, as though I were a--a----" her voice failed, and to the Captain's astonishment no less than her own, she burst into a pa.s.sion of tears.

"You had better come to my cabin," said Calamity, when she had regained control of herself, and he led the way down the companion.

She felt abashed and humiliated now, and, metaphorically, kicked herself for her foolishness. Yet even so, she realised that this sudden burst of emotion had not been anger at his treatment of her, so much as despair at the thought that she must soon pa.s.s out of his life as utterly as though she had never been; that to him, henceforward, she would be something less, even, than a memory.