No further words were needed to inform Bhagwan Singh's intended victim of the main issue of the plot against her. She saw clearly that the enormous resources of the Maharajah, aided by Travers Nugent's subtle scheming, had been called into play to avenge her refusal of his preposterous offer of marriage in the conservatory of Brabazon House at the beginning of the London season. The broad lines of the conspiracy stood out in their grim significance, and the minor details of it did not seem to matter. The one thing that concerned her was the part played in it by the man who had so quickly come into her life, and to whom she had given her love.
"Where is Mr. Chermside?" she forced herself to ask.
"Nursing his broken head," was the brutal reply. "You mustn't set any store on having him for a travelling companion. He's going to make the voyage on the silent system, in a cabin of his own. I can't have an impetuous young lunatic like him loose on such a quiet ship as the Cobra."
"It was Mr. Chermside who attacked the crew of the launch just now?"
"No other, but mark you, he never had the ghost of a chance. Bully Cheeseman is equal to taking on half a dozen such shavers as that, and with his pretty temper it's a wonder he didn't shoot. It would have served the dirty turncoat right, but he'll get it hotter by waiting—hot as hell on this ship, and hotter still when Bhagwan Singh gets his claws into him, from what I hear of his Highness."
It was a trait in Simon Brant's warped temperament to rejoice in the infliction of pain, mental and physical. His brutal answer was designed to create a distress that he could gloat over. But it missed its mark. Violet received it, outwardly at least, with cold disdain.
"Thank you," she said, betraying no emotion save by a little catch in her breath. "I think that I am now fully informed on all necessary points; and I shall be obliged if you will leave me. One moment, please. Is this the apartment I am to occupy? Where is the sleeping accommodation?"
Brant, who had hoped for the luxury of seeing a woman in tears, had begun to open the door, but at her bidding he turned, and the chagrin in his horrible face changed to a grudging admiration which made it infinitely more horrible. The pose of the superb figure, the disgusted scorn in the coolly appraising eyes, the level tones of the musical voice, all reduced him to a temporary servility that would have been unbearingly nauseous to a weaker character, capable of a personal interest in the vile instrument of her persecution. But Violet Maynard, having grasped the main facts, was able to regard Captain Simon Brant from an entirely detached point of view.
"I will send the stewardess to you, miss," he said quite humbly. "She has been selected on purpose to be of service to you during the voyage, and if you have any cause of complaint do not fail to let me know."
He was gone at last, and if the devil ever gets his tail between his legs his disciple followed his master's example in the going. But Brant's subdued mood only lasted till he had shut the saloon door. He went storming up on to the bridge, and vented some of his spleen on Cheeseman for being half a point off his course. "We must keep out of the regular steamer tracks," he growled in conclusion. "There's nothing at sea fast enough to catch us, but the less we're sighted the better for us afterwards."