Stealthily he crept away to the rail, to stand grasping it and staring across the water with unseeing eyes at the gay old city twinkling back with her thousand eyes of light. The cool night breeze, sweeping down unhindered over the level Netherlands from the bleak North Sea, was comforting to his throbbing temples. By degrees his head cleared, his rioting pulses subsided, he could think; and he did.
Over there, across the water, in the dingy and disreputable Hôtel du Commerce, Dorothy waited in her room, doubtless the prey of unnumbered nameless terrors, while aboard the brigantine her fate was being decided by a council of three unspeakable scoundrels, one of whom, professing himself her father, openly declared his intention of using her to further his selfish and criminal ends.
His first and natural thought, to steal away to her and induce her to accompany him back to England, Kirkwood perforce discarded. He could have wept over the realization of his unqualified impotency. He had no money,—not even cab-fare from the hotel to the railway station. Something subtler, more crafty, had to be contrived to meet the emergency. And there was one way, one only; he could see none other. Temporarily he must make himself one of the company of her enemies, force himself upon them, ingratiate himself into their good graces, gain their confidence, then, when opportunity offered, betray them. And the power to make them tolerate him, if not receive him as a fellow, the knowledge of them and their plans that they had unwittingly given him, was his.
And Dorothy, was waiting....
He swung round and without attempting to muffle his footfalls strode toward the companionway. He must pretend he had just come aboard.
Subconsciously he had been aware, during his time of pondering, that the voices in the cabin had been steadily gaining in volume, rising louder and yet more loud, Mulready's ominous, drink-blurred accents dominating the others. There was a quarrel afoot; as soon as he gave it heed, Kirkwood understood that Mulready, in the madness of his inflamed brain, was forcing the issue while Calendar sought vainly to calm and soothe him.
The American arrived at the head of the companionway at a critical juncture. As he moved to descend some low, cool-toned retort of Calendar's seemed to enrage his confederate beyond reason. He yelped aloud with wrath, sprang to his feet, knocking over a chair, and leaping back toward the foot of the steps, flashed an adroit hand behind him and found his revolver.
"I've stood enough from you!" he screamed, his voice oddly clear in that moment of insanity. "You've played with me as long as you will, you hulking American hog! And now I'm going to show—"
As he held his fire to permit his denunciation to bite home, Kirkwood, appalled to find himself standing on the threshold of a tragedy, gathered himself together and launched through the air, straight for the madman's shoulders.
As they went down together, sprawling, Mulready's head struck against a transom and the revolver fell from his limp fingers.