Captain Cable followed the motion of his companion's finger.
“I've heard of him,” he said. “And I heard his voice—sort of soft-spoken—on Hamburg quay one night, many years ago. That is why I refused the job and came out with you.”
XXV
THE CAPTAIN'S STORY
More especially in northern countries nature lays her veto upon the activity of men, and winter calls a truce even to human strife. Cartoner awaited orders in London, for all the world was dimly aware of something stirring in the north, and no one knew what to expect or where to look for the unexpected.
It was a cold winter that year, and the Baltic closed early. Captain Cable chartered the Minnie in the coasting trade, and after Christmas he put her into one of the cheaper dry-docks down the river towards Rotherhithe. His ship was, indeed, in dry-dock when the captain opened with the Brothers of Liberty those negotiations which came to such a sudden and untoward end.
Paul Deulin wrote one piteous letter to Cartoner, full of abuse of the cold and wet weather. “If the winter would only set in,” he said, “and dry things up and freeze the river, which has overflowed its banks almost to the St. Petersburg Station, on the Praga side, life would perhaps be more endurable.”
Then the silence of the northern winter closed over him too, and Cartoner wrote in vain, hoping to receive some small details of the Bukatys and perhaps a mention of Wanda's name. But his letters never reached Warsaw, or if they travelled to the banks of the Vistula they were absorbed into that playful post-office where little goes in and less comes out.
There were others besides Cartoner who were wintering in London who likewise laid aside their newspaper with a sigh half weariness, half relief, to find that their parts of the world were still quiet.