THE SHIPS THAT PASS
The next morning was rainy. A quick, violent storm had rushed up from the sea during the night.
Chase, after a sleepless night, came down and, without waiting for his breakfast, hurried out upon the gallery overlooking the harbour. Genevra was there before him, pale, wistful, heavy-eyed—standing in the shelter of a huge pilaster. The wind swept the thin, swishing raindrops across the gallery on both sides of her position. He came up from behind. She was startled by the sound of his voice saying "good-morning."
"Hollingsworth," she said drearily, "do you believe he will come to-day?"
"He?" he asked, puzzled.
"My uncle. The yacht was to call for me not later than to-day."
"I remember," he said slowly. "It may come, Genevra. The day is young."
She clasped his hand convulsively, a desperate revolt in her soul.
"I almost hope that it may not come for me!" she said, her voice shaking with suppressed emotion.
"I am not so selfish as to wish that, dear one," he said, after a moment of inconceivable ecstasy in which his own longing gave the lie to the words which followed.
"It will not come. I feel it in my heart. We shall die here together, Hollingsworth. Ah, in that way I may escape the other life. No, no! What am I saying? Of course I want to leave this dreadful island—this dreadful, beautiful, hateful, happy island. Am I not too silly?" She was speaking rapidly, almost hysterically, a nervous, flickering smile on her face.
"Dear one," he said gently, "the yacht will come. If it should not come to-day, my cruisers will forestall its mission. As sure as there is a sea, those cruisers will come." She looked into his eyes intently, as if afraid of something there. "Oh, I'm not mad!" he laughed. "You brought a cruiser to me one day; I'll bring one to you in return. We'll be quits."
"Quits?" she murmured, hurt by the word.
"Forgive me," he said, humbled.
"Hollingsworth," she said, after a long, tense scrutiny of the sea, "how long will you remain on this island?"
"Perhaps until I die—if death should come soon. If not, then God knows how long."
"Listen to me," she said intensely. "For my sake, you will not stay long. You will come away before they kill you. You will! Promise me. You will come—to Paris? Some day, dear heart? Promise!"
He stared at her beseeching face in wide-eyed amazement. A wave of triumphant joy shot through him an instant later. To Paris! She was asking him—but then he understood! Despair was the inspiration of that hungry cry. She did not mean—no, no!
"To Paris?" he said, shaking his head sadly. "No, dearest one. Not now. Listen: I have in my bag upstairs an offer from a great American corporation. I am asked to assume the management of its entire business in France. My headquarters would be in Paris. My duties would begin as soon as my contract with Sir John Brodney expires. The position is a lucrative one; it presents unlimited opportunities. I am a comparatively poor man. The letter was forwarded to me by Sir John. I have a year in which to decide."
"And you—you will decline?" she asked.
"Yes. I shall go back to America, where there are no princesses of the royal blood. Paris is no place for the disappointed, cast-off lover. I can't go there. I love you too madly. I'd go on loving you, and you—good as you are, would go on loving me. There is no telling what would come of it. It will be hard for me to—to stay away from Paris—desperately hard. Sometimes I feel that I will not be strong enough to do it, Genevra."
"But Paris is huge, Hollingsworth," she argued, insistently, an eager, impelling light in her eyes. "We would be as far apart as if the ocean were between us."
"Ah, but would we?" he demanded.
"It is almost unheard-of for an American to gain entrée to our—to the set in which—well, you understand," she said, blushing painfully in the consciousness that she was touching his pride. He smiled sadly.
"My dear, you will do me the honour to remember that I am not trying to get into your set. I am trying to induce you to come into mine. You won't be tempted, so that's the end of it. Beastly day, isn't it?" He uttered the trite commonplace as if no other thought than that of the weather had been in his mind. "By the way," he resumed, with a most genial smile, "for some queer, un-masculine reason, I took it into my head last night to worry about the bride's trousseau. How are you going to manage it if you are unable to leave the island until—well, say June?"
She returned his smile with one as sweetly detached as his had been, catching his spirit. "So good of you to worry," she said, a defiant red in her cheeks. "You forget that I have a postponed trousseau at home. A few stitches here and there, an alteration or two, some smart summer gowns and hats—Oh, it will be so simple. What is it? What do you see?"
He was looking eagerly, intently toward the long, low headland beyond the town of Aratat.
"The smoke! See? Close in shore, too! By heaven, Genevra—there's a steamer off there. She's a small one or she wouldn't run in so close. It—it may be the yacht! Wait! We'll soon see. She'll pass the point in a few minutes."
Scarcely breathing in their agitation, they kept the glasses levelled steadily, impatiently upon the distant point of land. The smoke grew thicker and nearer. Already the citizens of the town were rushing to the pier. Even before the vessel turned the point, the watchers at the château witnessed a most amazing performance on the dock. Half a hundred natives dropped down as if stricken, scattering themselves along the narrow pier. For many minutes Chase was puzzled, bewildered by this strange demonstration. Then, the explanation came to him like a flash.
The people were simulating death! They were posing as the victims of the plague that infested the land! Chase shuddered at this exhibition of diabolical cunning. Some of them were writhing as if in the death agony. It was at once apparent that the effect of this manifestation would serve to drive away all visitors, appalled and terrified. As he was explaining the ruse to his mystified companion, the nose of the vessel came out from behind the tree-covered point.
An instant later, they were sending wild cries of joy through the château, and people were rushing toward them from all quarters.
The trim white thing that glided across the harbour, graceful as a bird, was the Marquess's yacht!
It is needless to describe the joyous gale that swept the château into a maelstrom of emotions. Every one was shouting and talking and laughing at once; every one was calling out excitedly that no means should be spared in the effort to let the yacht know and appreciate the real situation.
"Can the yacht take all of us away?" was the anxious cry that went round and round.
They saw the tug put out to meet the small boat; they witnessed the same old manoeuvres; they sustained a chill of surprise and despair when the bright, white and blue boat from the yacht came to a stop at the command from the tug.
There was an hour of parleying. The beleaguered ones signalled with despairing energy; the flag, limp in the damp air above the château, shot up and down in pitiful eagerness.
But the small boat edged away from close proximity to the tug and the near-by dock. They spoke each other at long and ever-widening range. At last, the yacht's boat turned and fled toward the trim white hull.
Almost before the startled, dazed people on the balcony could grasp the full and horrible truth, the yacht had lifted anchor and was slowly headed out to sea.
It was unbelievable!
With stupefied, incredulous eyes, they saw the vessel get quickly under way. She steamed from the pest-ridden harbour with scarcely so much as a glance behind. Then they shouted and screamed after her, almost maddened by this final, convincing proof of the consummate deviltry against which they were destined to struggle.
Chase looked grimly about him, into the questioning, stricken faces of his companions. He drew his hand across his moist forehead.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said seriously and without the faintest intent to jest, "we are supposed to be dead!"
There was a single shriek from the bride of Thomas Saunders; no sound left the dry lips of the other watchers, who stood as if petrified and kept their eyes glued upon the disappearing yacht.
"They have left me here to die!" came from the stiffened lips of the Princess Genevra. "They have deserted me. God in heaven!"
"Look!" cried Chase, pointing to the dock. Half a dozen glasses were turned in that direction.
The dying and the dead were leaping about in the wildest exhibition of gleeful triumph!
The yacht slipped into the unreachable horizon, the feathery cloud from its stack lying over against the leaden sky, shaped like a finger that pointed mockingly the way to safety.
White-faced and despairing, the watchers turned away and dragged themselves into the splendid halls of the building they had now come to regard as their tomb. Their voices were hushed and tremulous; they were looking at the handwriting on the wall. They had not noticed it there before.
Saunders was bravely saying to his distracted wife, as he led her down the marble hall:
"Don't give up the ship, dear. My word for it, we'll live to see that garden out Hammersmith way. My word for it, dear."
"He's trying so hard to be brave," said Genevra, oppressed by the knowledge that it was her ship that had played them false. "And Agnes? Look, Hollingsworth! She is herself again. Ah, these British women come up under the lash, don't they?"
Lady Deppingham had thrown off her hopeless, despondent air; she was crying out words of cheer and encouragement to those about her. Her eyes were flashing, her head was erect and her voice was rich with inspiration.
"And you?" asked Chase, after a moment. "What of you? Your ship has come and gone and you are still here—with me. You almost wished for this."
"No. I almost wished that it would not come. There is a distinction," she said bitterly. "It has come and it has disappointed all of us—not one alone."
"Do you remember what it was that Saunders said about having lived only a week, all told? The rest was nothing."
"Yes—but you have seen that Saunders still covets life in a garden at Hammersmith Bridge. I am no less human than Mr. Saunders."
All day long the islanders rejoiced. Their shouts could be plainly heard by the besieged; their rifles cracked sarcastic greetings from the forest; bullets whistled gay accompaniments to the ceaseless song: "Allah is great! Allah is good!"
No man in the despised house of Taswell Skaggs slept that night. The guard was doubled at all points open to attack. It was well that the precaution was taken, for the islanders, believing that the enemy's force had been largely reduced by the polluted water, made a vicious assault on the lower gates. There was a fierce exchange of shots and the attackers drew away, amazed, stunned by the discovery that the beleaguered band was as strong and as determined as ever.
At two in the morning, Deppingham, Browne and Chase came up from the walls for coffee and an hour's rest.
"Chase, if you don't get your blooming cruiser here before long, we'll be as little worth the saving as old man Skaggs, up there in his open-work grave," Deppingham was saying as he threw himself wearily into a chair in the breakfast room. They were wet and cold. They had heard Rasula's minions shouting derisively all night long: "Where is the warship? Where is the warship?"
"It will come. I am positive," said Chase, insistent in spite of his dejection. They drank their coffee in silence. He knew that the others—including the native who served them—were regarding him with the pity that one extends to the vain-glorious braggart who goes down with flying colours.
He went out upon the west gallery and paced its windswept length for half an hour or more. Then, utterly fagged, he threw himself into an unexposed chair and stared through tired eyes into the inscrutable night that hid the sea from view. The faithless, moaning, jeering sea!
When he aroused himself with a start, the grey, drizzly dawn was upon him. He had slept. His limbs were stiff and sore; his face was drenched by the fine rain that had searched him out with prankish glee.
The next instant he was on his feet, clutching the stone balustrade with a grip of iron, his eyes starting from his head. A shout arose to his lips, but he lacked the power to give it voice. For many minutes he stood there, rooted to the spot, a song of thanksgiving surging in his heart.
He looked about him at last. He was alone in the gallery. A quaint smile grew in his face; his eyes were bright and full of triumph. After a full minute of preparation, he made his way toward the breakfast room, outwardly as calm as a May morning.
Browne and Deppingham were asleep in the chairs. He shook them vigorously. As they awoke and stared uncomprehendingly at the disturber of their dreams, he said, in the coolest, most matter-of-fact way:
"There's an American cruiser outside the harbour. Get up!"