Chapter 28

He told, too, of the tempests which throw on the shores of Zeeland's little isles the bodies of strange mummied monsters, part man, part boat; and of still, clear dawnings when the fisherfolk of Domburg can discern, far down under the green water, pagan temples of marble, and gleaming statues more perfect than any fashioned by known sculptors, even the greatest masters, when Greek art was in its prime. He told of the great dyke building, and how, at high tide, the North Sea beats fiercely on Zeeland's locked door. He told of the inundations, and how Schouwen, North and South Beveland, Tholen and Walcheren, had all been devoured by the sea, only to rise up again braver and stronger than before. He told how the men of Zeeland had fought against the men of Spain in the old, bad days; and it was all very interesting and instructive; but how was I to oppose my frail vow against such a tide of information? There were no dykes built round my resolve to propose to Nell within the space of four and twenty hours; and between Alb's eloquence and the L.C.P.'s persistence, it dissolved like a Dutch town in an inundation.

Still I was not as furious as I ought to have been. My steeples and chimneys remained above water, and the sky was so cloudless that I could not despair. It seemed like old times to hear Alb holding forth upon the history, drama, and legend of the little country of which he is so proud, and in spite of myself my heart was warm for him. I rather wondered how Nell had contrived to harden hers so relentlessly against those clear brown features, those deep brown eyes, and the firm mouth which is not cold.

"A good thing for me," thought I, "that she has. And if I don't get a chance to ask her to-day, I'll write a note and beg the L.C.P.--no, I'll get Sister Phyllis to give it to her this evening."

I was arranging the wording of the note, after tea, which we had on deck, when, quite idly at first, my eyes dwelt upon a black speck moving far away, in our wake. It amused me to see the speck grow, for at the moment I had no one to talk to, and Tibe was asleep with his chin on my knee. I lost track of a sentence which was shaping itself nicely in my mind and ought to have been irresistible to Nell, in wondering what the speck would turn out to be, by-and-by.

It was growing fast, which meant that it was moving fast, perhaps faster than we. Could it be a motor-barge? But why should a motor-barge be forging out to sea, where no motor-barges or motor-boats of any sort, except racers, had any need to venture, unless they were navigated to gratify the whim of a wilful American girl?

Now, it did not appear likely that in Dutch waters there could be at this moment an indefinite number of American girls, wilful or otherwise, owning motor-vessels, and wishing to visit Zeeland in them.

If it were not such a fine day, Alb would not have taken the risk with "Mascotte" and "Waterspin," even to please his particular American girl, and if it were not to please her, he would probably not have come in any case. Yet that thing behind us was skimming along too fast to be anything else save a motor-boat. What then was its errand in this wide, lake-like expanse of water, which did not lend itself to the encouragement of promiscuous motor-boats?

It was gaining on us now, for it had no fat "Waterspin" to drag. One might almost think it was following, it came so straight, and--Suddenly my ears and the top of my head felt hot.

I got up, and went to Alb, who was standing silent at the wheel. Before I spoke to him I glanced at the others to see that they were all fully occupied in listening to Robert talk of the house, next door to his mother's in Rotterdam, which he had the intention of buying "as a wedding present for Phyllis."

"Alb," said I, "just throw a look over your shoulder, and say what manner of thing you think that is coming after us."

He threw the look. "I think," he answered slowly, "that it's by way of being Sir Alec MacNairne's 'Wilhelmina.'"

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "you take it pretty calmly." But even as I reproached him, I was conscious of an increase of speed. Alb can regulate this by means of a long lever which goes down through the deck to the motor.

"What makes you think it's Sir Alec?" I asked. "You can't tell yet what the thing looks like."

"Neither can you," said Alb. "You _felt_ what it was. It's the same with me. I feel it's 'Wilhelmina,' and I'm going to try and give her the slip again, if I can. But honestly, if it's she, and she wants to overhaul us, we haven't got much chance weighted down by 'Waterspin.' If it weren't for that, I'd guarantee to let 'Wilhelmina' see nothing but our heels."

"Let's cut 'Waterspin' adrift," I whispered, glaring at poor Toon, who stood steering the squat little barge, with an irritatingly complacent look on his nice face.

"Impossible, my dear fellow. But you don't mean it, of course."

"I'm capable of meaning anything," said I. "See here, old Alb, you've pulled me through a lot of things, since you tied yourself round my neck; pull me through this, and you shall be best man at my wedding."

"Who'll be the bride?" he asked, as I stared back at the following craft, which was now too big to be called a speck. It was a black blot upon the water, as upon my hopes.

"The bride?" I repeated. "Why, N--Oh, by Jove! wasn't she the one _you_ wanted at one time? You never would tell which, you know, so you can't blame me."

"Are you engaged to her?" he asked, in rather a queer voice; and I realized how much I was at his mercy, as, fascinated, I watched his brown hand tighten on the wheel. If he liked, he could stop "Mascotte" in mid sea, and let me lie at the mercy of the enemy. _I_ could do nothing. Hendrik would obey him, not me. Even Tibe would not seize him by the throat to please me. Tibe likes and respects Alb even more, strange to say, than he does me.

But, to do Alb justice, he was not slowing down. On the contrary, he was putting on speed, as much, I feared, as "Mascotte" was capable of making.

"I'm not engaged," I admitted; "but I was going to propose to her to-day, if this hadn't happened. For goodness' sake, hurry."

"I wonder you have the cheek to tell me that, and then ask me to hurry. Why should I help you to get her?"

"Do you still want her?" I asked.

"More than I ever wanted or shall want anything else."

"Then it's all up with me!" I groaned.

"Do you mean----"

"I only mean that you can make me lose her. If Alec MacNairne boards us like a pirate, and yells for his Fay, I shall be discovered as a perjured villain, just in the very hour when it's necessary for me to appear most virtuous. Heavens! If this could only have happened _afterwards_. Once I was sure of her, I'd have confessed everything, for I could have made her understand how it was all done for her sake--for love of her."

"And her stepsister," said Alb, bitterly, as he did to the wheel what perhaps he would have liked to do to my throat.

"That was a mere boyish fancy," said I. "I love Nell Van Buren with a man's love. You can stop this boat if you choose to be a revengeful Albatross----"

"I shall not stop the boat," he said, in a grave, hard voice, which made my tone sound light, almost humorous. "I shall not rob you of your chance with her. If it depends upon me, you shall have it."

I really did admire Alb, as he stood there, not looking at me, but straight ahead, as if into a blank future.

"Do you care for her a lot?" I asked, half remorsefully.

"Only more than for the rest of the world put together. But I tell you honestly, I haven't had much hope lately. I suppose I was a conceited ass to make up my mind that nothing should stop me from winning the girl, in spite of herself. Well, she's punished me--shown me my folly. But for all that, I regret nothing. If it were to do over again, I'd come on board this boat and work for her as I have worked, even knowing as I know now that she'd end by disliking me as much as she did in the beginning. You're an attractive fellow to women, Starr."

"Phyllis preferred Robert," I said thoughtfully.

"Yes. I confess I hoped you and Miss Rivers would make a match: then I'd have had nothing to fear from you in the other direction. But it wasn't to be; and she and Bob van Buren will be perfectly happy. You needn't fear I'll turn against you. Depend on me to do my best with the boat--though of course you won't expect help in any other way."

"Of course not," I said.

"Nor need it, I suppose," he added, harshly.

"Perhaps we may be mistaken about the boat being Alec's," I said.

"We both know we're not," said he. "Still--there's my glass. Have a squint through it."

I took up the binocular which the skipper always keeps handy, and had the squint, as he recommended. It was not an encouraging squint, for, though our follower had not been gaining for the last few minutes, all I could see of her made me more confident than before that she was "Wilhelmina." Whether Alec MacNairne was actually in chase of us, or whether it merely happened that he had to-day made up his mind to try Zeeland, in his quest, remained to be seen; but be that as it might, we were in the greatest danger of being overtaken.

In my agitation and fear of losing all, I could not concentrate my mind upon the thinking out of any stratagem to outwit Alec if he came upon us, and I dared not interrupt Alb's task by imploring him to rack his brains. The thing for him to do, I told myself, was to keep ahead of "Wilhelmina" at any price, especially while we were in open water. Once we could gain the region of canals and narrow cross channels, we might slip round a water-corner and disappear. Anything, anything, then, to keep ahead!

"Run down and tell Hendrik to see that there's plenty of water," said Alb. "It won't do for the motor to get hot. Say to him that we're going to have a race."

"I can't make him understand," I wailed.

"I forgot. Well, take the wheel a minute, then----"

"I daren't. If I do, something's sure to go wrong; or I shall snap it short off on its stem."

"You are a helpless chap, I must say."

"So would you be, if I told you to finish one of my pictures, perhaps."

"That's true. Well, say this."

And he uttered useless-sounding words in Dutch, which I repeated after him until I knew them by heart. Then I went below and gabbled them to Hendrik, not more than half wrong, for he seemed to understand. But while the pink youth abandoned the operation of rubbing brass with cotton waste in favor of bailing up water, I stood gazing at the motor, praying it to do its best.

It was hot in the motor's den; so hot that it was no wonder the deck, which formed the roof, often felt warm underfoot. Chump, chump, went the engine, sounding stolid and Dutch and obstinate, as if nothing on earth or water could induce it to go faster than it chose. It even seemed to me as I gazed that it was slowing down, out of spite. I longed to feel its pulses with a stop-watch in the other hand, and make sure. Could it be that, after all, Alb had changed his mind, and meant to betray me? No, it must be a trick of my amateurish fancy.

I assured myself of this two or three times over; but when Hendrik came back with a big pail of water, I saw by his face that I had not been deceived. Something was wrong.

There was no use in trying to question him, since I have no Dutch, and he has no English, except "Thank you," and "Good day." He flew at the motor, his cheeks pinker than ever, and I flew up on deck to find Alb in the act of giving over the wheel to Nell.

He pushed past me with a quick, "Don't stop me. I've got to see what's wrong." And I joined Nell, who looked very proud of herself as skipper.

Every one on deck was alert now, knowing that something had happened, for the first time in all our peaceful watery weeks. They were not yet aware of the pirate in pursuit, or that this day was the one of all others when the motor ought not to fail us: but they knew that, after putting on a fine spurt of speed for some reason or other, the engine had turned suddenly sulky, and was threatening to stop.

"Have I the evil eye?" I asked myself. "Did I 'overlook' the beastly thing when I went below and stared at it?"

"What's the matter?" I inquired of Nell, feeling a certain relief in talking to her, she looked so beautiful and so dependable.

"Don't speak to the man at the wheel," she said, smiling, but keeping her eyes straight ahead.

"Jonkheer Brederode says it's nothing serious; we aren't to worry," remarked the L.C.P. from her deck-chair. "I think it's rather fun to have a nice little accident. It breaks the monotony. And it's really exciting, being out at sea."

"It _is_ rather exciting," said I, signaling danger, with a glance that swept the water as far back as the now plainly visible pursuer.

She may or may not have caught my meaning; but Robert van Buren's eyes chanced at that instant to fall upon the distant craft.

"Ah!" he observed, in a tone of careless interest, for which I could have boxed his ears, "there is another motor-boat, I believe. It is coming as straight as if it were following us."

I saw the L.C.P. give a start. She looked at me, and our eyes would have met had it not been for the blue glasses. She understood, and knew just _how_ exciting her "nice little accident" might turn out to be.

At this moment the motor gave a groan and stopped. As its heart ceased to beat, I was astounded by the apparition of a totally new Alb.

Two minutes ago, at most, he had disappeared in the garb of a self-respecting gentleman with a yachting turn of mind. He reappeared in a suit of Hendrik's blue overalls, and, apparently, nothing else, his feet being bare. In his hand were a hammer and a chisel.

"Motor's all right. It must be the propeller that's wrong. I'm going down to see," he explained, no trace of excitement on his face, no hint of flurry in his voice. Alb is a good plucked one, and for presence of mind and _savoir faire_ I've never met his equal.

As "Mascotte" had slowed down, and then stopped, "Waterspin" came lolloping alongside. Toon, looking scarcely more flustered than his superior, kept the barge from bunting into her consort, fending her off with a pole. Alb, with a rope round his waist to keep him steady at his work under the water, slid over the side of the boat, and groped about with his free hand under the water-line.

"There's something round the screw shaft," he called up to Robert and me. "Queer thing! It feels like a coil of wire. We must have picked it up in the canal by Dordrecht, and ever since it's been slowly winding itself round the shaft, until now it's so tight that the propeller can't work."

"Then all hope's over," I said, with a meaning which he alone--or perhaps the L.C.P.--could understand. "We're caught in a trap."

"This hammer and chisel will gnaw our way out," he answered. "The game isn't up yet. Good-by. I've got to work in Davy Jones's workshop."

Drawing a deep breath, he dropped down under water, which hid him from sight like a roof of thick gray glass. Then, in a few seconds, we heard a knocking, muffled, mysterious, somewhere below that glass roof.

After a time which seemed long to every one, and an age to me, up came Alb's head, wet, black, and glittering.

"Wish I had a diver's helmet," he said, when he had breathed; and promptly dipped out of sight again.

Once more the knocking came. Alb was working hard and loyally for my interests, and against his own, I couldn't help remembering; but meanwhile we were floating idly, losing precious time, while the pirate gained upon us. Fifteen minutes more of this inaction, and he would be on our backs. I almost wished that he were a true pirate, and that it might be a war of knives and cutlasses, instead of wits and tongues. I could be brave enough then; but as a fraudulent nephew detected with his false aunt, so to speak, in his mouth, what wonder if I felt my heart turn to water?

Twice more Alb came up to breathe, and dived again. The last time all was still underneath the water, and a fear came over me that Alb had knocked his head against something, or got a cramp. But he appeared, spluttering, and announced that he had been cutting the wire through with the chisel. There it was in his hand, a thick, ugly coil, dangerous as an octopus.

"Start the motor, Hendrik," he called, even before he had clambered on deck. "Now, ladies, unless you go below you may get a shower bath, for we're going to have a race with the motor-boat that's coming along--just for the fun of the thing, you know--and I can't trust the wheel to any one while I run down and change."

"We shan't mind a wetting," said Nell, whose eyes were shining with something very like admiration. "We want to see the race."

"I would rather you saw it from the cabin windows," said Brederode; and I guessed at once that he had more than one object in hustling the women of the party below. The L.C.P. guessed also, and headed a reluctant procession.

Now the pursuing Vengeance was not five hundred yards behind, and if we had ever doubted that she was "Wilhelmina," we doubted no longer. I could distinctly see a man's figure in the bow, and would have felt safe in staking any sum that it was Sir Alec's.

Alb, dripping like a fountain-statue, stood at the wheel, and as I had never seen him look more attractive, perhaps it was as well for me that Nell had gone below.

"They'll think me a madman when we come to a lock," said he; "but who cares? I'm bound to get you out of this scrape if I can."

Never was sound more melodious in my ears than the quickening throb of the motor. I felt intimate and at home with it, as with the beating of my own heart. On we went, pounding along at recovered speed, and were well into the channel between North and South Beveland, but there also was "Wilhelmina." Oh, for some small side canal into which we could slip and somehow disappear!

As my eyes searched the waste of green water and the low coasts of Beveland, all unexpectedly to me we rounded a point, and there was a half-hidden town, one graceful spire seeming to beckon where safety lay.

"It's Veere," said Alb. "You're sure to have heard of it: all artists have. But the thing of importance to us now is the canal which begins here, crosses the island of Walcheren and goes to Middelburg and Vlissingen. If only we can get in, and shut 'Wilhelmina' out!"

"Can we?" I gasped.

"Look!" he answered. "What luck!"

I looked, and saw from afar two great sea-gates of a monster lock standing open, while into its jaws poured a train of barges, sailing-boats and small steamers, which had been biding their time outside.

"Joy!" I cried. "We're saved."

"Not yet," said Alb, as we dashed on, full speed ahead, going as we had never gone yet. "We may be too late. Quick, run for'rad, haul down the stars and stripes, and hoist the Club flag instead. That'll carry more power even than the whole Navy of the United States, and I mean to use it for all it's worth, right or no right."

I darted to the bow and changed the flags, fumbling in my haste; then, when the talisman was floating bravely, I hurried back to Alb, who was imperiously clanging our bell with one hand, and steering with the other.

I stood ready with the long boat-hook, not daring to look back and see what speed "Wilhelmina" might be making. Toon was alert on "Waterspin," with a coiled rope in his hand. All the boats were in the lock now, and the sound of our bell, and the colors of the Club flag alone kept the lock-keeper from closing the great gate-jaws. Time was up: we must make a spurt for it if we were not to exhaust his patience. We could see him beckoning eagerly, and with a rush we were at the gates, in the tail of the long procession. It was only as I knew they were slowly, inexorably closing behind us that I could bring myself to look back. There was "Wilhelmina" just coming into sight round the point, Alec MacNairne gesticulating wildly, a figurehead "come alive," and furious.

XXXV

"Great Scott, but that was a narrow shave!" I sighed in ecstasy. "He's out of it now."

"He may be out of the lock, but we're not out of the wood," said Alb.

He had slowed down, reversed the engine, and quietly passed into a water-lane between some huge barges, looking not a whit disconcerted by the curious gaze of the barge-folk who wondered at his bare feet and soaked overalls.

"Why, what can he do?" I asked. "He'll have to wait an hour before the lock opens again."

"You'll see presently what he can do," said Alb. "At least, you will if he has any sense. It will be time for us to crow by-and-by--if ever."

I burned to ask what he meant by these ominous prognostications; but he began to jabber in Dutch to our staring water-neighbors. Any stranger would have thought him in the pleasantest mood in the world. He had a friendly nod for the brown-faced skipper of a smoking tug, a few words for another, and smiles for every one.

"I'm telling them that I've a wager on, and begging their kind help to win it," he explained to me, as gradually he pushed "Mascotte" and "Waterspin" through, and ahead of, the other craft. "I'm saying nothing about the Club flag; but they can see it, and they all know what it means. But, to save rows, I'm being extra polite, and, you see, it pays. Nobody yet has resented our getting ahead, though theirs is the right of precedence."

On we went toward the top of the lock, sneaking, sidling, pushing, here and there thanks to a good-natured, helping hand, here and there thanks to a shout from the lock-keeper to a sulky bargeman. On the lock-keeper the sight of the Club flag had a magic effect, and he evidently intended to make its rights respected, no doubt counting on a five gulden "tip" at the end.

Ignorant of the perils at which Alb had hinted, the time seemed intolerably long as the water foamed in through the upper sluice-gates, filling the lock inch by inch, and lifting its load of creaking boats and tugs. When we entered the lower gates, we could see only the green and slimy wall of the lock; but by-and-by we found ourselves looking over green fields to a picturesque old town no more than a stone's throw away.

Alb's pleasantries and the might of the Club flag had brought us near to the top of the lock, and I had begun to hope that his dark prophecies were not to be fulfilled, when I jumped at the sound of a shout from shore.

The voice was the voice of Alec MacNairne, and turning my head with a start, I saw his tall figure tearing toward us on the narrow parapet made by the edge of the lock.

"That's what you meant?" I quavered.

"That's what I meant," answered Alb. But his hand was on the starting lever, and the upper gates had begun to swing back.

Alb was looking particularly debonair, and taking pattern by him, I turned away from my aunt's husband, pretending that I had neither seen nor heard him.

"Hi, you there! Starr--Brederode! Scoundrels!" he roared at our backs.

"If he jumps into one of these boats and gets across to us!" I murmured.

"He will if he can, but----"

Before Alb could finish his sentence the first half of my fear was verified. Sir Alec gathered himself for a spring, and leaping across the narrow water-lane between his parapet and the nearest barge, landed with a crash on the gunwale.

At that sound my heart seemed to stop for repairs; for there were two barges in front of us, the biggest in the lock, and we had not been able to pass them before the doors began to open. Now we could not escape until they had floated out into the canal, and, meanwhile, there might be a little private tragedy in high life on board "Mascotte."