A Traitor's Wooing

by Headon Hill

It was, indeed, a "tall order," coming from a minx in her teens to a naval officer enjoying his first independent command, being no less than to employ one of his Majesty's ships on a private enterprise. An enterprise, too, which an ingenious counsel, before a judge of less than average intelligence, might very easily contort and twist into an act of piracy. None knew better than Reggie Beauchamp that for one ship to stop another on the high seas, and do things to her by armed force unbacked by supreme authority was a serious matter indeed.

And yet that was the task which the sunny-haired maiden, with eager red lips to the telephone at the other end of the county, had set him. So graphically had Enid done her bit of descriptive 'phoning that he was under no illusions as to what he had to do. Violet Maynard had been "carried off" in a large steam yacht which had just started from Ottermouth for India. In a few hours' time at most the yacht would be off Plymouth. Enid was aware that the Snipe was leaving port very early every morning for gun practice, and she implored him and threatened him in the same breath to intercept the yacht and rescue Miss Maynard. The few words which Enid had added as to the fate in store for the victim of the outrage had decided Reggie to make the attempt, even at the hazard of his career.

But he was by no means assured that he would succeed. The whole vile scheme must have been planned with deadly deliberation, and with the resources of vast wealth behind it. The vessel chosen for such a lawless errand would certainly be of high speed, and would avoid the regular steamer tracks. The little Snipe, for all her thirty-knot engines, might well be outpaced by the craft bought or chartered by Bhagwan Singh's agent; but before he could put that vital question to the test he would have to find her—no easy matter in the crowded waters of the Channel, when he had no description of her to guide him, and he was entirely in the dark as to the course she would steer.

But in all things pertaining to his profession the young commander was astute beyond his years, and, having once decided to treat the Maharajah's yacht as a hostile ship, he made his calculations as thoroughly as if his promotion depended on stopping her. As soon as he stepped aboard his destroyer he routed out of their bunks the two men on whose co-operation he would have to rely, one being the only other commissioned officer, Second-Lieutenant Ellison, and the other the petty officer who was acting as gunner, a smart young fellow by name Parsons.

Having tersely explained to them the situation, and at greater length demonstrated that his would be the sole responsibility for what he proposed to do, he succeeded in rousing their enthusiasm, and from that moment he was loyally served by both. The three promptly constituted themselves a council of war in the poky little mess-room, and Ned Parsons was ready with some valuable advice.

"You'll pardon me, sir," he said with a friendly grin, "but if it was my girl instead of yours who was on that yacht I shouldn't fumble for my tactics—not for a single minute."

"It isn't my girl—only a friend of my girl," Reggie corrected him. "But no matter as to that. What would the tactics be, Parsons? You were always a helpful chap."

"Well, you see, sir, I'm thinking, as every man on the ship will be, how to get you out of this without blame," replied the acting gunner. "I don't know the lady that these blackguards are making off with, but if it was my Nettle there'd be only one way to it. I'd lay the Snipe as close as may be to the yacht and trust the girl to do the rest. She'd holler for help, or clout the helmsman over the head, or do something that would justify us in interfering, and in asking questions afterwards. But there! she's a fair cough-drop, though only a draper's assistant at Weymouth."

Reggie had to smile in the midst of his dilemma. The idea of the stately Violet Maynard "clouting the helmsman," or even "hollering for help," was not to be imagined. Still, the notion of getting as close as possible to the yacht and trusting to some stroke of good fortune making it unnecessary to fire on her was a good one. Enid had mentioned on the telephone that by some inexplicable means Leslie Chermside was also on the steamer, and Reggie was as good a judge of men as he was a sailor. That there was some mystery about the reserved young soldier he was shrewdly convinced, but he did not think that his presence on the fugitive yacht was due to collusion with the enemies of the girl he was popularly believed to be in love with. Chermside, he argued, might be trusted, given the chance, to fill the part which would have fallen to Ned Parsons' "cough drop," if she had been on board.

"Very well," he said. "We will start as passive resisters anyway, and trust to luck afterwards. Now as to the course this steamer is likely to steer. She will want to keep clear of vessels bound for Plymouth which might report a craft making down Channel at high speed. For that reason she would leave the Eddystone well to the northward, and she won't travel more than ordinarily fast at first. That being so, if we up anchor at once and choose the sea beyond the Eddystone for our firing practice this morning we ought to sight her before she has slipped away to the westward."