Chapter XIII: At the Zenith of the Night

The yacht stood upon a course almost due west. The lamps in her saloons burned no longer; she carried no light and showed no glow of flame above her funnel. Save for the vibrations of her screw and the buffet of the seas upon her arched bows, no sound followed in her wake. She cut the gathering waves rather than breasted them; she rushed onward through the swell as some living thing come up for breath or to the pursuit of prey. Until this time the arc of light which lay upon the sea as a golden carpet had not spread so far that its rays were shed upon the yacht. She stood out of it to the northward. Her crew watched its path with an excitement not to be described. Men clenched their hands when the great lamp swung round and their eyes were blinded by its fuller radiance. But darkness continued to befriend them. Save in that place where the great lantern gave gold to the waves, night reigned upon the sea. And night might yet deliver the _Esmeralda_ if destiny willed.

“They are standing for the south, sir,” said old John Hook, who was at the wheel. “It’ll be in their heads that we’re running for the German coast--perhaps for the Baltic port. You’ll go by ’em yet with a handful of luck--I’m damned if you won’t!”

Old John, who had shipped for the trip willingly when he heard that an Englishwoman was to be snatched from a Russian prison, trusted to pick up at Stockholm his own brig, then at anchor in Kronstadt harbour. The adventure was no more to him than an hour in the fog at the mouth of the Thames.

“Stop you, sir!” he had exclaimed. “Why, there ain’t no ship in the Baltic as could catch yon bit of a kettle when she’d the mind to show her starn. And if so be as they do, why, ain’t there such things as counsels for to talk to ’em properly and show ’em what’s the colour of your flag? I’d spit on all the skippers in Roosher for a noggin of rum--damn me if I wouldn’t.”

With this proper contempt for all foreigners and their ships (and a bundle containing a lace handkerchief, a photograph and a dirty shirt), John had come aboard the _Esmeralda_. The race from Kronstadt to the open Gulf had been a joy to him. Nor did this sudden appearance of a warship upon the horizon terrify him at all. The yacht had the heels of her. If they were taken, the English Consul at Kronstadt would shake his fist in the face of the Governor, he reasoned, and that would be the end of it. Paul shared nothing of such stolid optimism. The very darkness of the seas about him caused the great white light to stand out like some uncanny beacon set up to remind him that he was still in Russian waters; that Kronstadt knew of his flight and of his purpose.

“She is running to the south, John,” he said gloomily, “but it will not be for long. For the matter of that she is going about now.”

John touched the little wheel and spat emphatically.

“That’s true, by thunder!” he cried; “but what of it, sir? It’ll be a pretty steady hand that picks us off in this light; and we’ve the heels of her, all said and done. You take my word for it, if they’re waiting to take us afore they turn in they won’t finish this watch until the day of judgment.”

Paul smiled.

“You English have a pleasant way of looking at things; we Russians are not so ready.”

“Which is your misfortune, sir, a-begging your pardon. It don’t do to be a Rooshian, not in these days--leastwise not when you can sail under a skipper who reads the noosepapers.”

He touched the wheel again, and the little yacht rose on the crest of a great wave before plunging into the shining darkness of the hollow. The arc ceased to glow while the great ship went about; the curtain of the cloud was unlifted, save at one spot low upon the horizon where a little gate of light, like a wicket-gate to the heaven beyond the envelope, gave promise of a clear sky before the morning. For ten minutes the yacht raced in darkness toward the distant seas of refuge. Then the mighty beams shone out again, and their glory, surpassing the glory of day, fell once more upon the waters. Rippling as with a ripple of molten gold, the wave of radiance flowed on. It made jewels of the wind-tossed spindrift; it focussed upon the black sails of a fishing-boat and showed her labouring and sagging in the trough of the seas; it struck upon the dark hull of a distant steamer, and she stood out in it so that the very men upon her decks were to be counted: and it rested at last upon the _Esmeralda_, gathering her into its aureola, feeling her, as with fingers of light which touched prey and would torture it.

No man spoke in that supreme moment. The hand of old John was still upon the spokes of the wheel; Paul leaned spell-bound against the shrouds and watched the quivering beams; Reuben showed his head above the engine-room hatchway, and the grin still hovered upon his face. Minutes passed and the enchantment was not broken. Full upon them the light rested, discovering every shroud and rope. And the men had no answer to it--no answer save the answer of the _Esmeralda_, which rushed onward toward her goal as though the race were a joy to her--a race from which she would yet reap victory.

Reuben was the first to find his tongue.

“She’s the _Peter Veliky_, of Revel,” he said quietly; “I could pick her out of a thousand. She carries four twelve-inch, and her speed’s fourteen--in the books.”

“To hell with the books!” cried John Hook. “The question is, what’s her speed here, and when is she going to show it?”

Reuben’s grin was yet broader.

“She is going to show it now, John; if you want to dance, there’s the music.”

A gun boomed out above the moaning of the wind, and its smoke hung for an instant, like an envelope of vapour above the decks of the _Peter Veliky_. Then a woman’s voice was heard, and Paul turned quickly to find Marian standing at his side.

“I could not stay below,” she said, “it suffocates me--and I saw the light, Paul.”

She slipped her hand into his and stood with him. She feared no longer for herself, but for the man who had risked life and honour that she might be free.

“You will never make a sailor, Marian,” Paul answered; “you do not know how to obey.”

“I have come here to learn, dearest; I could not stay down there with yesterday for my friend.”

Paul pointed to the distant ship whose blinding lantern moved slowly across the spuming sea.

“There is our to-morrow,” he said grimly. “I did not wish you to know that. I thought that you would sleep and wake where no one could harm you; but now--we shall dance, as Reuben says.”

She laughed to conceal her excitement.

“Who can harm me here when you are with me?” she asked--and then, less heroically, “Did you not say that the _Esmeralda_ was the fastest yacht in the Baltic?”

Paul took her face between his rough hands and kissed it.

“Little woman,” he said, “if I had your heart! You give me courage always. Indeed, good luck goes with you, Marian; we are leaving them already.”

The ships were abreast now, a mile of sparkling sea racing between them. But the _Peter Veliky_ was no match for the yacht which Yarrow had built. The _Esmeralda_ forged ahead from the first. She held her course unflinchingly even when the gun sent flame again across the water and a shell fell hissing into the waves behind her. She steamed on in the envelope of night, seeking to shake the light from her as quarry might shake a dog.

“To hell with the books!” cried old John Hook in the fervour of the moment. “There ain’t a ship in Roosher which is going to catch her this night, a-begging your pardon for the expression, miss.”

“Oh, it is true, it is true!” cried Marian, clasping her hands joyfully. “To-morrow we shall be at Stockholm. What a thing to tell little Dick!”

Her eyes blazed; the magic of combat, that inexplicable fever, which gives scorn of death had touched them. She stood entranced, a little slim figure, upon which the white beams fell picturesquely. When the man looked upon her he forgot all else but the morrow which should put her in his arms and dower him with her love while life was.

“We will tell the story together, little girl,” he said; “but there is something else to say before then, and the music has not finished.”

A second shot hissed above the sea and was swallowed up in a fountain of foam which rose up so close to the _Esmeralda_ that the faces of her crew were wetted as by driven rain. It drew a curse from old John, but the girl laughed fearlessly. She could not realise the meaning of the tragedy which was being played. To her it was no more than some great set scene in a theatre where wondrous lights coloured the enchanted waters, and demons danced impotently before the gates of the house impregnable. She did not believe that anything on earth could harm a ship manned by English sailors and built in London city. And she had an abounding confidence in her lover. He would save her--that had been her thought from the beginning of the terrible days.

“Paul,” she asked, turning to him with a gesture of love, “when shall we be in London?”

“In four days’ time, little one.”

“And then----”

“And then--it will be your turn to command. I have no plans; I have not thought of it.”

“There is no need to think, dearest. I shall make England a home to you indeed. We will live for that. We will talk of to-night often. You shall tell Dick how they fired at us. He will not believe, but it will be good to remember. You do not regret, Paul?”

“Regret--with you at my side, and the day to dawn, and the little yacht to carry me--how should I regret? It is life to look into your eyes, Marian!”

She answered with a half caress, and he led her to the poop, where together they watched the wake of water behind them aglow with phosphorescent brilliance and the jewelled spray of the white-capped waves. For a moment the danger seemed to be passing. The ships were no longer abreast; the great aureola scarce touched them; silence fell upon the sea, and the guns of the _Peter Veliky_ ceased to speak. Anon the yacht plunged into the welcome shadow, and all the pent-up gladness of those who had waged the fight so dauntlessly broke out and was not to be restrained. A great cheer--an English cheer--went ringing across the sea. It was the answer of the four to the four hundred aboard the _Peter Veliky_.

“Outsteamed, by God!” cried old John Hook. “I said there warn’t no Rooshian as could touch her.”