Chapter 21

As he spoke they shot under the bridge. Above them, to the left, towered the terrace of the castle, and the square face of that great building which has seen so many vicissitudes. Every window was alight. For the castle is used as a barracks now, and the soldiers, having been partially withdrawn from the streets, were going to bed. Soon these lights were left behind, and the outline of the citadel, half buried in trees, could be dimly seen. Then suddenly they left the city behind, and were borne on the breast of the river into the outer darkness beyond.

Kosmaroff sat up.

“Give me a piece of bread,” he said. “I am famished.”

But he received no answer. Prince Martin was asleep.

The sky was beginning to clear. The storm was over, but the flood had yet to come. The rain must have fallen in the Carpathians, and the Vistula came from those mountains. In twenty-four hours there would be not only ice to fear, but uprooted trees and sawn timber from the mills; here and there a mill-wheel torn from its bearings, now and then a dead horse; a door, perhaps, of a cottage, or part of a roof; a few boats; a hundred trophies of the triumph of nature over man, borne to the distant sea on muddy waters.

Kosmaroff found the bread and tore a piece off. Then he made himself as comfortable as he could in the stern of the boat, using one oar as a rudder. But he could not see much. He could only keep the boat heading down stream and avoid the larger floes. Then--wet, tired out, conscious of failure, sick at heart--he fell asleep, too, in the hands of God.

When he awoke he found Martin crouching beside him, wide awake. The prince had taken the oar and was steering. The clouds had all cleared away, and a full moon was high above them. The dawn was in the sky above the level land. They were passing through a plain now, broken here and there by pollarded trees, great spaces of marsh-land, with big, low-roofed farms standing back on the slightly rising ground. It was almost morning.

Kosmaroff sat up, and immediately began to shiver. Martin was shivering too, and handed him the vodka-bottle with a laugh. His spirits were proof even against failure and a hopeless dawn and bitter cold.

“Where are we?” he asked.

Kosmaroff stood up and looked round. They were travelling at a great pace in the company of countless ice-floes, some white with snow, others gray and muddy.

“I know where we are,” he answered, after a pause. “We have passed Wyszogrod. We are nearing Plock. We have come a great distance. I wish my teeth wouldn't chatter.”

“I have secured mine with a piece of bread,” mumbled Martin.

Kosmaroff was looking uneasily at the sky.

“We cannot travel during the day,” he said, after a long examination of the little clouds hanging like lines across the eastern sky. “We shall not be able to cross the frontier at Thorn with this full moon, and I am afraid we are going to have fine weather. We shall soon come to some large islands on this side of Plock. I know a farmer there. We must wait with him until we have promise of a suitable night to pass through Thorn.”

Before daylight they reached the islands. There was no pack now; the ice was afloat and moving onward. All Kosmaroff's skill, all the little strength of both was required to work the boat through the floes towards the land. The farmer took them in willingly enough, and boasted that they could not have found a safer hiding-place in all Poland, which, indeed, seemed true enough. For none but expert and reckless boatmen would attempt to cross the river now.

Nevertheless, Kosmaroff made the passage to the mainland before mid-day, and set off on foot to Plock. He was going to communicate with the prince at Warsaw, and ask him to provide money or means of escape to await them at Dantzic. In two days a reply came, telling them that their escape was being arranged, but they must await further instructions before quitting their hiding-place. After the lapse of four days these further orders came by the same sure channel, which was independent of the Russian post-offices.

The fugitives were to proceed cautiously to Dantzic, to pass through that town at night to the anchorage below Neufahrwasser. Here they would find Captain Cable, in the _Minnie_, anchored in the stream ready for sea. The instructions were necessarily short. There were no explanations whatever. There was no news.

At Plock, Kosmaroff could learn nothing, for nothing was known there. The story of the great plot had been hushed up by the authorities. There are persons living in Warsaw who do not know of it to this day. There are others who know of it and deny that it ever existed. The arms are in use in Central Asia at the present time, though their pattern is already considered antiquated. Any one who may choose to walk along the Czerniakowska will find to-day on the left-hand side of it a large building, once an iron-foundry, now deserted and falling into disrepair. If it be evening-time, he will, as likely as not, meet the patrol from the neighboring hussar barracks, which nightly guards this road and the river-side.

After receiving their final instructions, Kosmaroff and Martin had to wait two days until the weather changed--until the moon, now well on the wane, did not rise before midnight.

At last they set out, in full daylight, on a high river still encumbered by ice. It was much warmer during the day now; but the evenings were cold, and a thick mist usually arose from the marsh-lands. This soon enveloped them, and they swept on unseen. None could have followed them into the mist, for none had Kosmaroff's knowledge of the river.

The frontier-line is some miles above the ancient city of Thorn. It is strictly guarded by day and night. The patrol-boats are afloat at every hour. Kosmaroff had arranged to arrive at this spot early in the night, before the mists had been dispelled by the coming of the moon.

Even he could only guess at their position. Once they dared to approach the shore in order to discover some landmark. But they navigated chiefly by sound. The whistle of a distant train, the sound of church clocks, the street cries of a town--these were Kosmaroff's degrees of latitude.

“We are getting near,” he said, in little more than a whisper. “What is the time?”

It was nearly eleven o'clock. If they got past the frontier they would sweep through Thorn before mid-night. The river narrows here, and goes at a great pace. It is still of a vast width--one of the largest rivers in Europe.

The mist was very thick here.

“Listen!” whispered Kosmaroff, suddenly. And they heard the low, regular thud of oars. It was the patrol-boat.

Almost immediately a voice, startlingly near, called upon them to halt. They crouched low in the boat. In a mist it is very difficult to locate sound. They looked round in all directions. The voice seemed to have come from above. It was raised again, and seemed to be behind them this time.

“Stop, or we fire!” it said, in Russian. Then followed a sharp whistle, which was answered by two or three others. There were at least three boats close at hand, seeking to locate each other before they fired.

Immediately afterwards the firing began, and was taken up by the more distant boats. A bullet splashed in the water close behind Kosmaroff's oar, with a sharp spit like that of an angry cat. Martin gave a suppressed laugh. Kosmaroff only smiled.

Then two bullets struck the boat simultaneously, one on the stern-post, fired from behind, the other full on the side amidships, where Martin lay concealed.

Neither of the two men moved or made a sound. Kosmaroff leaned forward and peered into the fog. The patrol-boats were behind now, and the officers were calling to each other.

“What was it--a boat or a floating tree?” they heard them ask each other.

Kosmaroff was staring ahead, but he saw Martin make a quick movement in the bottom of the boat.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“A bullet,” answered Martin. “It came through the side of the boat, low down. It struck me in the back--the spine. I cannot move my legs. But I have stopped the water from coming in. I have my finger in the hole the bullet made below the water-line. I can hold on till we have passed through Thorn.”

He spoke in his natural voice, quite cheerfully. They were not out of danger yet. Kosmaroff could not quit the steering-oar. He glanced at Martin, and then looked ahead again uneasily.

Martin was the first to speak. He raised himself on his elbow, and with a jerk of the wrist threw something towards Kosmaroff. It was an envelope, closed and doubled over.

“Put that in your pocket,” he said. And Kosmaroff obeyed.

“You know Miss Cahere, who was at the Europe?” asked Martin, suddenly, after a pause.

Kosmaroff smiled the queer smile that twisted his face all to one side.

“Yes, I know her.”

“Give her that, or get it to her,” said Martin.

“But--”

“Yes,” said Martin, answering the unasked question, “I am badly hit, unless you can do something for me after we are past Thorn.”

And his voice was still cheerful.

XXXVI

CAPTAIN CABLE SOILS HIS HANDS

Cartoner was preparing to leave St. Petersburg when he received a letter from Deulin. The Frenchman wrote from Cracow, and mentioned in a rather rambling letter that Wanda was staying with a relative in that ancient city. He also thought it probable that she would make a stay in England pending the settlement of certain family affairs.

“I suppose,” wrote Deulin, “that you will soon be on your way home. I think it likely we shall both be sent to Madrid before long. At all events, I hope we may meet somewhere. If you are passing through Dantzic on your homeward journey, you will find your old friend Cable there.”

This last sentence was partly disfigured by a peculiar-shaped blot. The writer had evidently dropped his pen, all laden with ink, upon the letter as he wrote it. And Cartoner knew that this was the kernel, as it were, of this chatty epistle. He was bidden to make it convenient to go to Dantzic and to see Captain Cable there.

He arrived in Dantzic early in the morning, and did not go to a hotel. He left his luggage at the station and walked down to the Lange Brucke, where the river steamers start for Neufahrwasser.

The boats ran every hour, and Cartoner had not long to wait. He was not pressed for time, however, on his homeward journey, as he was more or less his own master while travelling, and could break his journey at Dantzic quite as easily as at Berlin.

Neufahrwasser is slowly absorbing the commerce of Dantzic, and none but small vessels go up the river to the city now. Captain Cable was deeply versed in those by-paths of maritime knowledge which enable small vessels to hold their own in these days of monopoly.

Cartoner knew that he would find the _Minnie_ not in dock, but in one of the river anchorages, which are not only cheaper, but are more convenient for a vessel wanting to go to sea at short notice. And Captain Cable had a habit of going to sea at short notice.

Cartoner was not far wrong. For his own steamer passed the _Minnie_ just above Neufahrwasser, where the river is broad and many vessels lie in mid-stream. The _Minnie_ was deeply laden and lay anchored bow and stern, with the rapid tide rustling round her chains. She was ready for sea. Cartoner could see that. But she flew no bluepeter nor heralded her departure, as some captains, and especially foreigners, love to do. It adds to their sense of importance, and this was a modern quality little cultivated by Captain Cable. Neither was his steam aggressively in evidence. The _Minnie_ did not catch the eye of the river-side idler, but conveyed the impression that she was a small, insignificant craft minding her own business, and would be much obliged if you would mind yours.

Cartoner had to walk back by the river-side and then take a boat from the steps opposite to the anchorage. He bade the boatman wait while he clambered on board. Captain Cable had been informed of the approach of a shore boat, and was standing squarely on his own iron main-deck when Cartoner put his leg across the rail.

“Come below,” he said, without enthusiasm. “It wasn't you that I was expecting. I tell you that.”

Cartoner followed the captain into the little, low cabin, which smelled of petroleum, as usual. The _Minnie_ was a hospitable ship, according to her facilities, and her skipper began by polishing a tumbler with a corner of the table-cloth. Then he indicated the vacant swing-back bench at the far side of the table, and sat down opposite to Cartoner himself.

“Was up the Baltic,” he explained. “Pit props. Got a full cargo on board. Got an offer such as a poor sailorman couldn't afford to let slip to come to Dantzic and wait here till two gents came aboard. That's all I'm going to tell you.”

“That's all I want to know,” answered Cartoner.

“But, dammy, it's not all I want to know!” shouted Cable, suddenly, with a bang of his little, thick fist on the table. “I've been thinking since I lay here--been sleeping badly, and took the anchor watch meself--what I want to know is whether I'm to be treated gentlemanly!”

“In what way?” inquired Cartoner, gently. And the sound of his voice seemed to pacify the captain.

“Of course,” he admitted, “I'm not a gentleman, I know that; but in seafaring things I'll be treated as such. Truth is, I'm afraid it's something to do with this news from St. Petersburg. And I don't take any bombmen on board my ship, and that's flat.”

“I think I can assure you on that point,” said Cartoner. “Nobody who had to do with the assassination of the Czar is likely to be in Dantzic. But I do not know whom you are to take on board here.”

“May be as you can guess,” suggested the captain.

“Yes, I think I can guess,” admitted Cartoner, with his slow smile.

“But you won't tell me?”

“No. When do you expect them?”

“I'll answer that and ask you another,” said Captain Cable, getting a yellow decanter from a locker beneath the table. “That's port--ship-chandler's port. I won't say it's got a bokay, mind.”

For Captain Cable's hospitality was not showy or self-sufficient.

“I'll answer that and ask you another. I expected them last night. They'll likely come down with the tide, soon after midnight to-night. And now I'll ask you, what brought you aboard this ship, here in Dantzic River, Mr. Cartoner?”

“A letter from a Frenchman you know as well as I do--Paul Deulin. Like to read it?”

And Cartoner laid the letter before Captain Cable, who smiled contemptuously. He knew what was expected of a gentleman better than even to glance at it as it lay before him in its envelope.

“No, I wouldn't,” he answered. He scratched his head reflectively, and looked beneath his bushy brows at Cartoner as if he expected the ship-chandler's port to have an immediate effect of some sort.

“Got your luggage in the boat alongside?” he asked, at length.

“No. It's at the station.”

“Then let me send a hand ashore for it. Got three Germans furard. You'll come aboard and see this thing through, I hope.”

“Thank you,” answered Cartoner. He handed Captain Cable the ticket for his luggage.

“Mate's receipt?” inquired the captain.

And Cartoner nodded. The captain pushed the decanter towards his guest as he rose to go and give the necessary orders.

“No stint of the wine,” he said, and went out on deck.

When he came back he laid the whole question aside, and devoted himself to the entertainment of his guest. They both slept in the afternoon. For the captain had been up all night, and fully expected to see no bed the following night.

“If they come down with the tide we'll go to sea on the same ebb,” he said, as he lay down on his state-room locker and composed himself to sleep.

He sent the hands below at ten o'clock, saying he would keep the anchor watch himself. He wanted no forecastle gossip, he said to Cartoner, and did not trouble to explain that he had kept the watch three nights in succession on that account. Cartoner and he walked the deck side by side, treading softly for the sake of the sleepers under deck. For the same reason, perhaps, they were silent.

Once only Captain Cable spoke in little more than a whisper.

“Hope he is pleased with himself,” he said, as he stood at the stern rail, looking up river, as it happened, towards Cracow. “For it is his doing, you and me waiting his orders here this cold night. They're tricky--the French. He's a tricky man.”

“Yes,” admitted Cartoner, who knew that the captain spoke of Deulin, “he is a tricky man.”

After this they walked backward and forward for an hour without speaking. Then Captain Cable suddenly raised his hand and pointed into the night.

“There's a boat yonder,” he said, “coming down quiet, under the lee of the land.”

They stood listening, and presently heard the sound of oars used with great caution. A boat was crossing the river now and coming towards them. Captain Cable went forward and took a coil of rope. He clambered laboriously to the rail and stood there, watching the shadowy shape of the boat, which was now within hail. It was swinging round on the tide with perfect calculation and a most excellent skill.

“Stand by,” said Captain Cable, gruffly, and the coils of his rope uncurled against the sky, to fall in a straight line across the boat.

Cartoner could see a man catch the rope neatly and make it fast with two turns. In a moment the boat came softly nestling against the steamer as a kitten may nestle against its mother.

The man, who seemed to be the sole occupant, stood up, resting his hand on the rail of the _Minnie_. His head came up over the rail, and he peered into Cartoner's face.

“You!” he exclaimed.

“Yes,” answered Cartoner, watching his hands, for there was a sort of exultation in Kosmaroff's voice, as if fate had offered him a chance which he never expected.

Cable came aft and stood beside Cartoner.

“I want to go to sea this tide,” he said. “Where is the other man?”

“The other man is Prince Martin Bukaty,” was the answer. “Help me to lift him on board.”

“Why can't he come on board himself?”

“Because he is dead,” answered Kosmaroff, with a break in his voice. And he lurched forward against the rail. Cartoner caught him by one arm and held him up.

“I am so weak!” he murmured, “so weak! I am famished!”

Cartoner lifted him bodily over the rail, and Cable received him, half fainting, in his arms. The next moment Cartoner was kneeling in the boat that rode alongside. He slowly raised Martin, and with an effort held him towards the captain, who was sitting astride on the rail. Thus they got him on board and carried him to the cabin. They passed through it to that which was grandly called the captain's state-room. They laid him on the locker which served for a bed, while Kosmaroff, supporting himself against the bulkhead, watched them in silence.

The captain glanced at Martin, and then, catching sight of Kosmaroff's face, he hurried to the cabin, to return in a minute with the inevitable decanter, yellow with age and rust.

“Here,” he said, “drink that. Eat a bit o' biscuit. You're done.”

Kosmaroff did as he was told. His eyes had the unmistakable glitter of starvation and exhaustion. They were fixed on Cartoner's face, with a hundred unasked questions in them.

“How did it happen?” asked Cartoner, at length.

“They fired on us crossing the frontier, and hit him. Pity it was not me. He is a much greater loss than I should have been. That was the night before last. He died before the morning.”

“Tut! tut!” muttered Captain Cable, with an unwritable expression of pity. “There was the makings of a man in him,” he said--“the makings of a man!”

And what Captain Cable held worthy of the name of man is not so common as to be lost to the world with indifference. He stood reflecting for a moment while Kosmaroff ate the ship's biscuit offered to him in the lid of a box, and Cartoner stared thoughtfully at the flickering lamp.

“I'll take him out to sea and bury him there,” said Cable, at length, “if so be as that's agreeable to you. There's many a good man buried at sea, and when my time comes I'll ask for no better berth.”

“That is the only thing to be done,” said Cartoner.

Kosmaroff glanced towards the bed.

“Yes,” he said, “that will do. He will lay quiet enough there.”

And all three, perhaps, thought of all that they were to bury beneath the sea with this last of the Bukatys.

Captain Cable was the first to move. He turned and glanced at the clock.

“I'll turn the hands out,” he said, “and we'll get to sea on the ebb. But I'll have to send ashore for a pilot.”

“No,” answered Kosmaroff, rising and finishing his wine, “you need not do that. I can take you out to sea.”

The captain nodded curtly and went on deck, leaving Kosmaroff and Cartoner alone in the cabin in the silent presence of the man who had been the friend of both.

“Will you answer me a question?” asked Kosmaroff, suddenly.

“If I can,” was the reply, economical of words.

“Where were you on the 13th of March?”

Cartoner reflected for a moment, and then replied:

“In St. Petersburg.”

“Then I do not understand you,” said Kosmaroff. “I don't understand how we failed. For you know we have failed, I suppose?”

“I know nothing,” answered Cartoner. “But I conclude you have failed, since you are here--and he is there.”

And he pointed towards Martin.

“Thanks to you.”

“No, I had nothing to do with it,” said Cartoner.

“You cannot expect me to believe that.”

“I do not care,” replied the English diplomat, gently, “whether you believe it or not.”

Kosmaroff moved towards the door. He carefully avoided passing near Cartoner, as if too close a proximity might make him forget himself.

“I will tell you one thing,” he said, in a hard, low voice. “It will not do for you to show your face in Poland. Don't ever forget that I will take any chance I get to kill you! There is not room for you and me in Poland!”

“If I am sent there I shall go,” replied Cartoner. And there crept to one side of Kosmaroff's face that slow smile which seemed to give him pain.

“I believe you will.”

Then he went to the door. For Captain Cable could be heard on deck giving his orders, and already the winches were at work. But the Pole paused on the threshold and looked back. Then he came into the cabin again with his hand in the pocket of his threadbare workman's jacket.

“Look here,” he said, bringing out a folded envelope and laying it on the cabin-table between them. “A dead man's wish. Get that to Miss Cahere. There is no message.”

Cartoner took up the envelope and put it in his pocket.

“I shall not see her, but I will see that she gets it,” he said.

The dawn was in the sky before the _Minnie_ swept out past the pier-head light of Neufahrwasser. It was almost daylight when she slowed down in the bay to drop her pilot. Kosmaroff's boat was towing astern, jumping and straining in the wash of the screw. They hauled it up under the quarter, and in the dim light of coming day Cable and Cartoner drew near to the Pole, who had just quitted the wheel.

The three men stood together for a moment in silence. There was much to be said. There was a multitude of questions to be asked and answered. But none of the three had the intention of doing either one or the other.

“If you want a passage home,” said Cable, gruffly, “cut your boat adrift. You're welcome.”

“Thank you,” was the answer. “I am going back to Poland to try again.”

He turned to Cartoner, and peered in the half-light into the face of the only man he had had dealings with who had not been afraid of him. “Perhaps we shall meet again soon,” he said, “in Poland.”

“Not yet,” replied Cartoner. “I am under orders for Madrid.”

Kosmaroff stood by the rail for a moment, looking down into his boat. Then he turned suddenly to Cartoner, and made him a short, formal bow.

“Good-bye,” he said.

Cartoner nodded, and said nothing.