Chapter XIX: The Quest of the Woman

It was midday and the _Esmeralda_ lay at anchor in the shelter of some outstanding rocks which girdled an island distant three miles from that haven which had witnessed the flight of Marian. Two men of the four who had accompanied her master from Kronstadt were to be seen upon her decks; but so well chosen was her place of hiding, and so wonderfully did the boulders of rock shield her, that her crew were indifferent alike to the presence of a Russian cruiser which lay at anchor in the distant offing, and to the eyes of the neighbouring fishermen whose boats dotted the unruffled surface of the sea.

Of the two upon the deck, one was old John Hook, who leaned heavily upon the bulwarks and exposed his brawny arms and matted hair to the welcome warmth of the spring sun; the other was Reuben, the engineer, who squatted wearily upon a coil of rope.

“Eight bells,” said Reuben, filling a pipe with a seaman’s deliberation, “eight bells, John. By gosh! I’d like to know where we shall be at eight bells to-morrow.”

“To hell with the bells!” replied John Hook, spitting vindictively into the sea. “I’m damned if all you chaps don’t think you’re sky-pilots! It’ll want something more than a Death’s-head Rooshian to put a white choker round me, as sure as my name’s John Hook!”

Reuben continued to cut his tobacco methodically.

“Women are rum-uns, I’m blessed if they’re not,” said he after a spell. “To think as she should have turned it up, in the middle of the night too! Why, if she’d have held on another twelve hours, we’d have put her into Stockholm before morning. What was in her head, that’s what I want to know?”

“Common-sense, that’s what was in her head, mate. She’s a rare plucked ’un if ever I sailed with one! Why, think of a little bit of goods like that, not more’n you could crush in your ’and easy, a little bit of goods like that agen all Rooshia and agen all the world! Where’s she now?--ask yerself. Starvin’ meybe, meybe in one o’ them ground-floor hells they call a prison in these parts. And why’s she dun it? Why, so as they shan’t find her along wi’ him. It’s a cruel thing, mate, a bit of a gal all alone on a shore like this. I’m derned if I wouldn’t sign for a twelvemonth, if that would bring her back agen!”

Reuben lit his pipe and got up to watch the distant warship.

“Well,” said he, “wishin’ ain’t goin’ to bring her back, John, and as for that I’d take my dinner more easy if yon lot would weigh. Supposin’ they’ve no news of us, what are they doing there? Is it to see a fisher fleet? A shilling sail wouldn’t swallow that.”

“Who’s asking of you to swallow it?” asked the other testily. “Of course they’ve got the news; but having the news and sighting us through ten feet of rock’s a different story, ain’t it? Who’s to tell ’em we’re lyin’ here? Are we goin’ to run up a fleg? or is one of them swabs a-fishin’ out there goin’ to beat in a mile to spy us out? Damned if you don’t talk like a babe and sucklin’!”

Reuben smoked angrily and crossed to the other side of the ship.

“I wish the guv’nor was aboard,” said he; “there ain’t no good to be done over yonder, I’ll swear. It’s eight hours since she went now. You want a good eye to spy out eight hours, John.”

“That’s so, mate, always rememberin’ as tides don’t go on like women’s tongues, for ever and ever. If she ain’t gone ashore afore this, she’s somewhere in the flow of this channel, and there we’ll find her. It’ll take more than the skipper of Petersburg to stop me when it’s an English lady that’s between us. I’m derned if I wouldn’t pull his nose for a shilling!”

He added to the volume of the sea again; but Reuben continued to gaze wistfully at the island upon which his master had landed in quest of the little fugitive. Paul had known no resting hour since she was gone. He understood that he had played for the great stake and had lost. He saw himself branded as a traitor by the men who had known him and loved him; cast out from the career of his ambition to these desolate islands; utterly alone at a moment when, with all his heart and soul, he yearned for the love which destiny had robbed him of.

“My little wife!” he had cried when they brought him the news. “I cannot lose you. God help me, I cannot live alone again!”

Haggard and worn and weary with grief, the man, who had dared all for a woman’s love, learned that love was to come no more into his life. The cup had been snatched from his lips at a moment when he had first tasted the sweetness of the draught. He began to remember all that Marian had meant to him. He recalled her tenderness, her prettiness, the delight of that hour when he had whispered his love in the shadow of the bastions of Kronstadt. He swore to God that he would never see the sun again if she were not given back to him; he raged against his destiny; a voice whispered that the woman had left him to carry the plans of the great fortress to England, and there to sell them as she had first intended. To this voice he would not listen; and when the paralysis of despair had passed, a new activity, the activity of the quest, possessed him as a fever. “He would find her,” he said, “though he lived and died on that desolate shore!”

One boat remained to the _Esmeralda_, the dinghy which she carried midships. He ordered them to lower it that no haven or creek or channel might remain unsearched. Reckless, defiant, caring nothing for prudence or pursuit, his voice was raised pitifully in many a rocky harbour and upon many a shore. The moan of the wind alone answered him. The desolate sea was unpitying.

At midday the yacht made an island, prominent amongst the others by reason of a curious girdle of outstanding rocks which defended it. It was here that the men first observed the Russian cruiser lying far out at sea. They warped their ship to one of the boulders of the rock, while their master, headstrong and not to be restrained, went ashore to see if the heights of the new land would help him to discover the missing boat and the little wanderer, whose purpose in flight was now becoming more clear to him. But the journey was fruitless. He looked out from the heights upon a sea dotted with crags and isles; often shining in still lagoons of sunlit water; showing here and there the hulls of fishing boats, but giving no other answer to his question. A great fear--the fear that Marian had, indeed, been taken by the cruiser--began to give place to the supposition that she had found a refuge upon the shore. Nevertheless, he continued to watch and to wait, and would not return to the yacht until the quick eyes of his companion perceived the danger of the place and of the scene.

“They have put out a boat, sir,” said the man; “what’s more, that’s a signal gun.”

A puff of white smoke floated up from the deck of the distant cruiser, and anon the muted roar of a gun was to be heard. Paul delayed no longer upon the island, but hastened to regain his ship and there to consult with those who, in their rough way, offered him so precious a sympathy.

“Well!” cried old John, merrily, when the dinghy came to view. “Ye have news, sir?”

Paul shook his head.

“The cruiser is putting off a boat; that is my news, John.”

“To hell with the boat! What’s a boat got to do with us?”

Paul laughed sadly while he swung up on to the deck of the _Esmeralda_.

“You are good fellows,” he said, “and you have been true friends to me. It is no good to deceive you any more, and it would be wrong to bring trouble upon you. I am the one to answer for this business, and I am ready to answer. What happens now is nothing to me. But you, my friends, you must all go ashore and leave me to make my answer alone.”

John Hook thrust his hands deep into his trousers’ pockets.

“Look here, sir,” he said determinedly; “if it’s questions, I’m on that job. And let me arst you this--am I a Britisher or am I a furringer?”

He looked appealingly to the others, who said knowingly--

“Ay, ay; that’s the question, John.”

Paul laughed again.

“I do not care what you are,” said he; “it is sufficient that you have been my friends.”

“And friends we’ll remain. Leave you here alone! Is my name John Hook? Is my port Swansea, or ain’t it? Am I goin’ ashore because a lot of lubbers cruise round and fire off a popgun? I’m derned if I don’t blush like a gal to hear you say so, sir!”

Paul held out his hand and shook the great rough paw of the English seaman.

“I wish you were my countryman,” he said. “If you will not go ashore, you shall stay with me to the end, and it shall be as God wills. I have few friends now. I have no longer a country.”

His voice failed him, and he turned away, pretending to watch the coming boat which was now being rowed rapidly toward the shore. It was as though the messenger of destiny winged across the sea. The hand of Fate appeared to be thrust out towards him. There was sunlight for his eyes to-day, but to-morrow there would be darkness--the darkness of the pitiless reckoning. He saw himself carried back to Kronstadt in ignominy. He would stand alone, he said. The little head, which should have nestled upon his shoulder, was to comfort him no more. And he had no longer a reproach upon his lips. The friendship of the stout hearts that sailed with him was a thing precious to him beyond words.

The _Esmeralda_ had been warped to a rock sufficiently high to conceal her mast from any passing ship. The hands clambered upon this rock when the dinghy was hauled up; and therefrom they watched the long-boat which the Russian warship had lowered. Phlegmatic as they were in word and deed, the steady approach of the strange craft set their hearts beating with suppressed excitement. They could not turn their eyes away; they watched her foot by foot as she drew toward them. Some even whispered schemes for their defence; others spoke of the skipper’s pistol and of their own good knives. John Hook alone cried out upon such an idea, and his word prevailed.

“There’s twenty men yonder if there’s one,” said he doggedly; “supposing as this is their port, do you think they’re bringing umbrellas with them? My eyes and limbs, that’s a woman’s notion! And who’s goin’ to sit here for a Rooshian swab to play marbles with him? Not me, by thunder! But I’ll tell you what, mates, if we cast off, and back out while they’re coming round, there’ll be three hundred yards between us before they wake up to it. And there won’t be nobody on deck besides me for them to play at pigeons with. It’s for the guv’nor to say; but I know what I should do if old Death’s-head yonder was coming down my street.”

“Ay, ay; John’s right,” cried the other.

“I leave it to you,” exclaimed Paul, indifferently; “I care no longer. The time for that has passed.”

They cast the ship free at the words and stood with boat-hooks to steady her. So great was the silence of doubt and expectancy that the sound of the men breathing was like a whisper of voices. Yard by yard the strange craft crept into the bay. They could see the cutlasses her men carried, could read the name upon her prow. The agony of doubt was scarce to be endured when the lieutenant in charge of the boat cried an easy, and his crew ceased to row. Then indeed Paul said that the hour was at hand, that the dream was done with.

For twenty seconds, perhaps, the long-boat lay still upon the lagoon. The men, watching and waiting upon the decks of the _Esmeralda_, shut their eyes and stood like figures of bronze. But that was the supreme moment; and when they had counted twenty, their hearts began to quicken with a tremulous hope. For the oars were dipped again; and going about suddenly, the Russian boat made off towards the further side of the island. The sigh of relief from the watchers was almost a nervous titter. Paul found that his forehead was wet and cold with icy perspiration.

“It is not for us after all. I do not understand,” he said.

“But I do,” cried John Hook excitedly. “Look yonder, sir. D’ye see that white barge with three masts? It’s a leper ship, I reckon. The monks aboard ’em load with lepers as we load with coal. They go from island to island until they’ve took a cargo, and then they head north for the ’orspital. That’s what brings old Death’s-head this way. He must have a patient for ’em.”

It was as he said. The cruiser’s boat was rowed straight to a lumbering barge-like ship which had appeared suddenly in the centre of the lagoon. Twenty minutes later the small boat was but a speck in the offing, and the men of the _Esmeralda_ were at dinner.