A Splendid Hazard, Harold MacGrath [websites to read books for free txt] 📗

voice or eye.

"When do you expect to go?" Fitzgerald put this question to the admiral.

"As soon as we can coal up and provision. Laura, I've just got to smoke. Will you gentlemen join me?" The two young men declined. "We can go straight to Funchal in the Madieras and re-coal. With the club-ensign up nobody will be asking questions. We can telegraph the Herald whenever we touch a port. Just a pleasure-cruise." The admiral fingered the Legion of Honor. "And here was Alladin's Lamp hanging up in my chimney!" He broke in laughter. "By cracky! that man Donovan knows his business. He's gone without putting back the bricks. He has mulcted me for two days' work."

"But crossing in the yacht," hesitated Fitzgerald. He wished to sound this man Breitmann. If he suggested obstacles and difficulties it would be a confirmation of the telegram and his own singular doubts.

"It is likely to be a rough passage," said Breitmann experimentally.

"He doesn't want me to go." Fitzgerald stroked his chin slyly.

"We have crossed the Atlantic twice in the yacht," Laura affirmed with a bit of pride; "once in March too, and a heavy sea half the way."

"Enter me as cabin-boy or supercargo," said Fitzgerald. "If you don't you'll find a stowaway before two days out."

"That's the spirit." The admiral drew strongly on his cigar. He had really never been so excited since his first sea-engagement. "And it comes in so pat, Laura. We were going away in a month anyway. Now we can notify the guests that we've cut down the time two weeks. I tell you what it is, this will be the greatest cruise I ever laid a course to."

"Guests?" murmured Fitzgerald, unconsciously poaching on Breitmann's thought.

"Yes. But they shall know nothing till we land in Corsica. And in a day or two this fellow would have laid hands on these things and we'd never been any the wiser."

"And may we not expect more of him?" said Breitmann.

"Small good it will do him."

"Corsica," repeated the girl dreamily.

"Ay, Napoleon. The Corsican Brothers' daggers and vendetta, the restless island! It is full of interest. I have been there." Breitmann smiled pleasantly at the girl, but his thought was unsmiling. Versed as he was in reading at a glance expression, whether it lay in the eyes, in the lips, or the hands, he realized with chagrin that he had made a misstep somewhere. For some reason he would have given much to know, Fitzgerald was covertly watching him.

"You have been there, too, have you not, Mr. Fitzgerald?" asked Laura.

"Oh, yes; but never north of Ajaccio."

"Laura, what a finishing touch this will give to my book." For the admiral was compiling a volume of treasures found, lost and still being hunted. "All I can say is, that I am really sorry that the money wasn't used for the purpose intended."

"I do not agree there," said Fitzgerald.

"And why not?" asked Breitmann.

"France is better off as she is. She has had all the empires and monarchies she cares for. Wonderful country! See how she has lived in spite of them all. There will never be another kingdom in France, at least not in our generation. There's a Napoleon in Belgium and a Bourbon in England; the one drills mediocre soldiers and the other shoots grouse. They will never go any further."

The secretary spread his fingers and shrugged. "If there was only a direct descendant of Napoleon!"

"Well, there isn't," retorted Fitzgerald, dismissing the subject into limbo. "And much good it would do if there was."

"This treasure would rightly be his," insisted Breitmann.

"It was put together to bring Napoleon back. There is no Napoleon to bring back."

"In other words, the money belongs to the finder?"

"Exactly."

"Findings is keepings," the admiral determined. "That's Captain Flanagan's rule."

The girl could bring together no reasons for the mind inclining to the thought that between the two young men there had risen an antagonism of some sort, nothing serious but still armed with spikes of light in the eyes and a semi-truculent angle to the chin. Fitzgerald was also aware of this apparency, and it annoyed him. Still, sometimes instinct guides more surely than logic. After all, he and Breitmann were only casual acquaintances. There had never been any real basis for friendship; and the possibility of this had been rendered nil by the telegram. One can not make a friend of a man who has lied gratuitously.

"Now, Mr. Breitmann," interposed the admiral pacifically, for he was too keen a sailor not to have noted the chill in the air, "suppose we send off those letters? Here, I'll write the names and addresses, and you can finish them up by yourself. Please call up Captain Flanagan at Swan's Hotel and tell him to report this afternoon." The admiral scribbled out the names of his guests, gathered up the precious documents, and put them into his pocket. "Come along now, my children; we'll take the air in the garden and picture the Frenchman's brig rocking in the harbor."

"It is all very good of you," said Fitzgerald, as the trio eyed the yacht from the terrace.

"Nonsense! The thing remains that all these years you ignored us."

"I have been, and still am, confoundedly poor. There is a little; I suppose I could get along in a hut in some country village; but the wandering life has spoiled me for that."

"Fake pride," rebuked the girl.

"I suppose it is."

"Your father had none. Long after the smash he'd hunt me up for a week's fishing. Isn't she a beauty?" pointing to the yacht.

"She is," the young man agreed, with his admiration leveled at the lovely profile of the girl.

"Let me see," began the admiral; "there will be Mr. and Mrs. Coldfield, first-class sailors, both of them. What's the name of that singer who is with them?"

"Hildegarde von Mitter."

"Of the Royal Opera in Munich?" asked Fitzgerald.

"Yes. Have you met her? Isn't she lovely?"

"I have only heard of her."

"And Arthur Cathewe," concluded the admiral.

"Cathewe? That will be fine," Fitzgerald agreed aloud. But in his heart he swore he would never forgive Arthur for this trick. And he knew all the time! "He's the best friend I have. A great hunter, with a reputation which reaches from the Carpathians to the Himalayas, from Abyssinia to the Congo."

"He is charming and amusing. Only, he is very shy."

At four that afternoon Captain Flanagan presented his respects. The admiral was fond of the old fellow, a friendship formed in the blur of battle-smoke. He had often been criticized for officering his yacht with such a gruff, rather illiterate man, when gentlemen were to be had for the asking. But Flanagan was a splendid seaman, and the admiral would not have exchanged him for the smartest English naval-reserve afloat. There was never a bend in Flanagan's back; royalty and commonalty were all the same to him. And those who came to criticize generally remained to admire; for Flanagan was the kind of sailor fast disappearing from the waters, a man who had learned his seamanship before the mast.

"Captain, how long will it take us to reach Funchal in the Madieras?"

"Well, Commodore, give us a decent sea an' we can make 'er in fourteen days. But I thought we wus goin' t' th' Banks, sir?"

"Changed my plans. We'll put out in twelve days. Everything shipshape?"

"Up to the buntin', sir, and down to her keel. I sh'd say about six-hundred tons; an' mebbe twelve days instead of fourteen. An' what'll be our course after Madeery, sir?"

"Ajaccio, Corsica."

"Yessir."

If the admiral had said the Antarctic, Flanagan would never have batted an eye.

"You have spoken the crew?"

"Yessir; deep-sea men, too, sir. Halloran 'll have th' injins as us'l, sir. Shall I run 'er up t' N' York fer provisions? I got your list."

"Triple the order. I'll take care of the wine and tobacco."

"All right, sir."

"That will be all. Have a cigar."

"Thank you, sir. What's the trouble?" extending a pudgy hand toward the chimney.

"I'll tell you all about that later. Send up that man Donovan again." It occurred to the admiral that it would not be a bad plan to cover Mr. Donovan's palm. They had forgotten all about him. He had overheard.

Very carefully the captain put away the cigar and journeyed back to the village. He regretted Corsica. He hated Dagos, and Corsica was Dago; thieves and cut-throats, all of them.

This long time Breitmann had despatched his letters and gone to his room, where he remained till dinner. He was a servant in the house. He must not forget that. He had been worse things than this, and still he had not forgotten. He had felt the blush of shame, yet he had remembered, and white anger had embossed the dull scars; it was impossible that he should forget.

He had grown accustomed, even in this short time, to the window overlooking the sea, and he leaned that late afternoon with his arms resting on the part where the two frames joined and locked. The sea was blue and gentle breasted. Flocks of gulls circled the little harbor and land-birds ventured daringly forth.

With what infinite care and patience had he gained this place! What struggles had ensued! Like one of yonder birds he had been blown about, but even with his eyes hunting for this resting. He had found it and about lost it. A day or so later! He had come to rob, to lie, to pillage, any method to gain his end; and fate had led him over this threshold without dishonor, ironically. Even for that, thank God!

Dimly he heard Fitzgerald whistling in his room across. The sound entered his ear, but not his trend of thought. God in Heaven what a small place this earth was! In his hand, tightly clutched, was a ball of paper, damp from the sweat of his palm. He had gnawed it, he had pressed it in despair. Cathewe was a man, and he was not afraid of any man living. Besides, men rarely became tellers of tales. But the woman: Hildegarde von Mitter! How to meet her, how to look into her great eyes, how to hear the sound of her voice!

He flung the ball of paper into the corner. She could break him as one breaks a dry and brittle reed.


CHAPTER XII

M. FERRAUD INTRODUCES HIMSELF.

"Yessir, Mr. Donovan," said Captain Flanagan, his peg-leg crossed and one hand abstractedly polishing the brass ferrule; "Yessir, the question is, what did y' hear?"

Mr. Donovan caressed his beer-glass and reflected. The two were seated in the office of Swan's Hotel. "Well, I took them