The Vultures Part 50

He sent the hands below at ten o'clock, saying he would keep the anchor watch himself. He wanted no forecastle gossip, he said to Cartoner, and did not trouble to explain that he had kept the watch three nights in succession on that account. Cartoner and he walked the deck side by side, treading softly for the sake of the sleepers under deck. For the same reason, perhaps, they were silent.

Once only Captain Cable spoke in little more than a whisper.

"Hope he is pleased with himself," he said, as he stood at the stern rail, looking up river, as it happened, towards Cracow. "For it is his doing, you and me waiting his orders here this cold night. They're tricky--the French. He's a tricky man."

"Yes," admitted Cartoner, who knew that the captain spoke of Deulin, "he is a tricky man."

After this they walked backward and forward for an hour without speaking. Then Captain Cable suddenly raised his hand and pointed into the night.

"There's a boat yonder," he said, "coming down quiet, under the lee of the land."

They stood listening, and presently heard the sound of oars used with great caution. A boat was crossing the river now and coming towards them. Captain Cable went forward and took a coil of rope. He clambered laboriously to the rail and stood there, watching the shadowy shape of the boat, which was now within hail. It was swinging round on the tide with perfect calculation and a most excellent skill.

"Stand by," said Captain Cable, gruffly, and the coils of his rope uncurled against the sky, to fall in a straight line across the boat.

Cartoner could see a man catch the rope neatly and make it fast with two turns. In a moment the boat came softly nestling against the steamer as a kitten may nestle against its mother.

The man, who seemed to be the sole occupant, stood up, resting his hand on the rail of the _Minnie_. His head came up over the rail, and he peered into Cartoner's face.

"You!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," answered Cartoner, watching his hands, for there was a sort of exultation in Kosmaroff's voice, as if fate had offered him a chance which he never expected.

Cable came aft and stood beside Cartoner.

"I want to go to sea this tide," he said. "Where is the other man?"

"The other man is Prince Martin Bukaty," was the answer. "Help me to lift him on board."

"Why can't he come on board himself?"

"Because he is dead," answered Kosmaroff, with a break in his voice. And he lurched forward against the rail. Cartoner caught him by one arm and held him up.

"I am so weak!" he murmured, "so weak! I am famished!"

Cartoner lifted him bodily over the rail, and Cable received him, half fainting, in his arms. The next moment Cartoner was kneeling in the boat that rode alongside. He slowly raised Martin, and with an effort held him towards the captain, who was sitting astride on the rail. Thus they got him on board and carried him to the cabin. They pa.s.sed through it to that which was grandly called the captain's state-room. They laid him on the locker which served for a bed, while Kosmaroff, supporting himself against the bulkhead, watched them in silence.

The captain glanced at Martin, and then, catching sight of Kosmaroff's face, he hurried to the cabin, to return in a minute with the inevitable decanter, yellow with age and rust.

"Here," he said, "drink that. Eat a bit o' biscuit. You're done."

Kosmaroff did as he was told. His eyes had the unmistakable glitter of starvation and exhaustion. They were fixed on Cartoner's face, with a hundred unasked questions in them.

"How did it happen?" asked Cartoner, at length.

"They fired on us crossing the frontier, and hit him. Pity it was not me. He is a much greater loss than I should have been. That was the night before last. He died before the morning."

"Tut! tut!" muttered Captain Cable, with an unwritable expression of pity. "There was the makings of a man in him," he said--"the makings of a man!"

And what Captain Cable held worthy of the name of man is not so common as to be lost to the world with indifference. He stood reflecting for a moment while Kosmaroff ate the s.h.i.+p's biscuit offered to him in the lid of a box, and Cartoner stared thoughtfully at the flickering lamp.

"I'll take him out to sea and bury him there," said Cable, at length, "if so be as that's agreeable to you. There's many a good man buried at sea, and when my time comes I'll ask for no better berth."

"That is the only thing to be done," said Cartoner.

Kosmaroff glanced towards the bed.

"Yes," he said, "that will do. He will lay quiet enough there."

And all three, perhaps, thought of all that they were to bury beneath the sea with this last of the Bukatys.

Captain Cable was the first to move. He turned and glanced at the clock.

"I'll turn the hands out," he said, "and we'll get to sea on the ebb.

But I'll have to send ash.o.r.e for a pilot."

"No," answered Kosmaroff, rising and finis.h.i.+ng his wine, "you need not do that. I can take you out to sea."

The captain nodded curtly and went on deck, leaving Kosmaroff and Cartoner alone in the cabin in the silent presence of the man who had been the friend of both.

"Will you answer me a question?" asked Kosmaroff, suddenly.

"If I can," was the reply, economical of words.

"Where were you on the 13th of March?"

Cartoner reflected for a moment, and then replied:

"In St. Petersburg."

"Then I do not understand you," said Kosmaroff. "I don't understand how we failed. For you know we have failed, I suppose?"

"I know nothing," answered Cartoner. "But I conclude you have failed, since you are here--and he is there."

And he pointed towards Martin.

"Thanks to you."

"No, I had nothing to do with it," said Cartoner.

"You cannot expect me to believe that."

"I do not care," replied the English diplomat, gently, "whether you believe it or not."

Kosmaroff moved towards the door. He carefully avoided pa.s.sing near Cartoner, as if too close a proximity might make him forget himself.

"I will tell you one thing," he said, in a hard, low voice. "It will not do for you to show your face in Poland. Don't ever forget that I will take any chance I get to kill you! There is not room for you and me in Poland!"