"That's so," said Miss Chrysie, heartily, yet well knowing that they were both awaiting the moment when, as they believed, the arrival of the expeditions would make the present owners of the works prisoners of France and Russia, and that either of them would poison her or put a bullet through her without the slightest hesitation. "Yes; that's so. We've got to live here together for a bit, and I reckon we may as well do it as pleasantly as possible. And now, suppose we go to dinner."
All things considered, the dinner was really a most agreeable function. The principal topic of conversation was, of course, the effect which the starting of the works would produce on the Northern Hemisphere in general and the fleets and armies of Europe in particular. International politics, too, were discussed, not only with freedom, but with a knowledge which would have astonished many a European Minister; but one subject was tabooed by mutual consent, and that was the French and Russian Polar Expeditions, which, if they were really making for Boothia Land, ought to arrive in about a week's time.
The three involuntary guests knew perfectly well that their hosts were expecting them. Their hosts knew that they knew this, and, therefore, as a matter of politeness and mutual convenience, the words "Polar Expedition" were absolutely banished from their conversation. Meanwhile, Port Adelaide had been fast emptying for the time when the colliers and cargo boats could get back, for the time was limited. Only the Nadine and the Washington, a passenger boat capable of about sixteen knots, which had brought the staff up from Halifax, were kept, in addition to a couple of steam launches and a powerful tug sheathed and fitted as an icebreaker.
The Nadine and the Washington constantly patrolled the coast for twenty miles in each direction, on the lookout for the expeditions. Around and inside the works life went on as quietly as though nothing out of the common was happening. The unsetting sun rose and dipped on the southern horizon, and the great engines purred unceasingly, working out the dream of the man whose mangled body lay in a nameless grave on an alien soil.
They had been working for six days when Europe awoke to an uneasy suspicion that, after all, there must have been something in that preposterous circular which the Electrical Power and Storage Trust, of Buffalo, N.Y., had sent out some five weeks before.
On the evening of the fifth day after Miss Chrysie had pulled the lever over in No. 1 engine-room a series of unaccountable accidents happened in the engine-rooms of the French Northern Squadron, which was blockading the mouth of the Elbe. Do what they would, the engineers could not keep the engines working smoothly. Little accidents kept on happening with such frequency that the efforts of the whole staff could scarcely keep the engines in working order; and about the same time the officers on the bridges, noticed that the compasses were beginning to behave in a most extraordinary fashion. Even when the ships were quite stationary, they wavered two or three degrees on either side of north, and as the night wore on the variation increased.
The next morning there happened what, up to then, was the strangest incident in warfare. The Charles Martel, one of the most powerful ironclads in the French fleet, was cruising under easy steam, just out of range of the heavy guns on the canal forts, when the admiral commanding the squadron, who was on the bridge, heard a muffled grinding noise, and felt a shudder run through the vast fabric. The next moment an officer came up from the lower deck, saluted, and gasped:
"Admiral, the port shaft has broken, and we are only going quarter speed!"
He had hardly got the last words out of his mouth before there was another grinding shock, and a dull rattle away down in the vitals of the ship.
"Ah, there is something more!" cried the officer. "They tell me that the engines have been mad all night."