As Andy stood at the rail watching the other vessel pass, Roberta stopped at his side. “You look quite desperate in your planning for me,” she rallied. “Tell me, what is the present program, per your arrangement? Am I to do a dive with you and swim for that boat, and double back to England?”
The relief wireless operator, halting, excused Andy from reply. “That’s the Wellington—an old hooker, and slow, but still popular. First, second, and steerage always full. Economical’s the word with her. Every ship’s supposed to have two men for the wireless, since the Titanic; but they manage most of the time—as this trip—with one. They’d wake up their man to get help if anything happened to them; but from about ten p. m. to say five a. m., another ship in trouble would have a great time calling them.”
Andy gazed long at the ship, the great idea dawning. “Excuse us,” he said to Roberta. “My friend,” he announced to the operator, “something tells me that you and I need only go again into executive session to get immediate results.”
Roberta, watching for him to come into the dining saloon, waited in vain till the stewards ceased to serve. Likewise, after going to her chair on deck, she looked for him without result. There now was a good sea running—nothing to trouble a large ship, but quite enough to send most of the passengers below. The wind, blowing down from the Arctic Sea, was quite cold and damp, though the air still was clear. Roberta rose, with her coat buttoned about her, and tramped the tipping, wind-swept decks.
The salt spray was flying; she felt its sting on her face, tasted it on her lips. She went to the forward rail and clung to it as the Cumberland rolled and rose and dipped and rolled again as it bore steadily into the darkness ahead. It had become so late that the stewards had turned out all the deck lights except the single yellow glows over the companionways; and these now were dimmer and failing, incrusted with salt. And no light or sign of any other ship showed about all the black horizon. The Corinthian never had been near enough for her lights to show at night; the Wellington long had been lost in the purple darkness astern. The skies clouded over; no glint came down from the stars. The Cumberland rolled on to America alone, only the wireless—the rasp of which could be heard from the cabin—told where they were to other ships. Roberta drew in deep breaths of delight at the desolateness of the ocean, the openness and freedom of the wide water. Suddenly, with a recollection, she shuddered.
“What is it?” Andy’s voice surprised her. She felt his strong fingers steadying her arm.
“I don’t want to be taken back to England to jail!” she confessed to him before she could prevent herself. “I believed I didn’t mind; I thought it would be part of the fun. But tonight”—she hesitated as to how to express it—“feel that wind, breathe it! It’s all open, all free! I want to feel it like that whenever I’d like to. I don’t want to be locked up!”
“I don’t want you to, either.” His grasp on her tightened. “And you’re not going to be. No one’s going to take you back to jail in England or anywhere else. We’re going to be landed without any one troubling us, just as I planned. Then you can go anywhere you want to.”
“How are we going to get ashore before the Corinthian docks?”
He laughed confidently. “I will get you!”