CHAPTER XVI
Donovan was no more than moderately interested in what his daughter told him about the strange steamer. She mentioned the fact that the Captain spoke English with precise correctness.
“They’re an educated people, the Germans,” said Donovan. “I reckon there’s ten of them know English for one American knows German. Couldn’t do business with us if they didn’t learn to talk so as we can understand them. That’s the reason. It isn’t fancy trimmings they’re out for, but business; and they’re getting it. I wouldn’t call them a smart people. They haven’t got the punch of our business men; but they’re darned persevering.”
“It can’t be business that brings him here,” said the Queen.
“No,” said Donovan. “Salissa is not a business centre. It’s my opinion that steamer is having trouble with her engines and has come in here to tinker a bit; or maybe she’s short of water; or the captain’s taken a notion that he’d like some fresh fish and a few dozen eggs. It doesn’t seem to me that we need fret any about what brings him here.”
The Queen was not satisfied. She sat for some time on her balcony looking at the steamer. With the help of a pair of glasses she could watch what was going on. The long hose which she had seen in the morning was got on deck and coiled in three great heaps. Then the men knocked off work for breakfast. After that they became active again. One end of the hose was lowered into a boat. It seemed to the Queen to be a rubber hose like those used by firemen. The boat rowed towards the cave. Another boat lay close to the steamer’s bow and received a loop of the hose, taking some of the strain and drag off the first boat. She too rowed towards the cave. A third boat followed in the same way. The Queen saw that the hose was being carried into the depths of the cave, drooping into the water between the boats, but sufficiently supported to be dragged on. The work was very slow, but it was carried on steadily, methodically.
The Queen was much interested in what she saw. After awhile she became very curious. The proceedings of the men on the steamer were difficult to understand. There seemed no reason why they should tug a large quantity of rubber hose into the cave. It was a senseless thing to do. Then it occurred to her that the cave was hers, part of an island of which she was Queen, which her father had bought for her from its legal owner. Any householder would feel himself entitled to investigate the doings of a party of strangers who appeared suddenly and pushed a rubber hose through his drawing-room window. They might be the servants of the gas company or officials sent by the water board, or sanitary inspectors, but the owner of the house would want to satisfy himself about them. The Queen felt that she had every right to find out what von Moll’s men were doing.
She called Kalliope and they went off together in their boat, rowing across the bay towards the steamer.
Kalliope was excited. She talked rapidly in her own language, turning round now and then and pointing towards the steamer. It was plain that she had something which she very much wanted to say, something about the strange steamer. The Queen’s curiosity increased. She thought for a moment of turning back to the palace. There she would find Smith and he would interpret for her. Then she remembered Smith’s odd mistake in translating his own German in the morning. She determined not to ask his help. Kalliope, hopeless of explaining herself in Megalian, fell back on her small store of English words. She kept on saying “Mucky ship,” which conveyed nothing at all to the Queen, except the obvious fact that the steamer was there. She also repeated the words “Once more.”