CHAPTER XXIX.

ASHLEY LAGS SUPERFLUOUS.

“If she is the property of the revolutionists, gentlemen, with her phenomenal speed she can run the strictest blockade the Spaniards can institute, can land arms, ammunition and re-enforcements at will, and practically snap her fingers at the whole Spanish navy.”

The speaker is Capt. Meade and the place the officers’ mess table on board the America. Naturally the one topic of conversation is the strange yacht and her remarkable performance.

“Yes,” continues the captain, impressively, “I believe that the result of the insurrection may hang on the fate of that steamer. My sympathies as an individual, I do not hesitate to say, are with the rebels. But my duty as an officer impels me to notify the War Department of the departure of the Semiramis and the flaunting of the Cuban flag. However, I hardly think the warning will harm her, even if it should set the entire Spanish navy in pursuit.”

“Do you think the yacht is bound for Cuba now?” inquires Ashley, with an unpleasant sensation in the vicinity of the fifth rib.

“Certainly. She is apparently coaled and equipped for a long voyage. She set low enough in the water to carry quite a cargo, too. Oh, yes; she is off for the West Indies sure enough.”

Ashley relapses into a reverie and the burden of his thoughts is something like this: “Louise Hathaway, Cyrus Felton and this mysterious Van Zandt on the same steamer and bound for Cuba! How and why?” He mechanically pulls at his cigar. Finally, as the signal for breaking up of the dinner party is given by the commander, he murmurs: “What will John Barker say?”

The America has completed her run; and now, her officers and the naval experts aboard having expressed their satisfaction with her performance, the cruiser is steaming back to her dock. The shrill salutes of the many steam craft in the harbor greet the ears of Ashley as he accompanies the officers to the deck. The sun is shining in a haze of cold gray. The March air, a few hours ago so clear and warm, is dull and marrow-piercing. Ashley shivers and buttons his coat more closely about him.

A few moments more, and the cruiser is slowing down preparatory to making her pier, and Jack seeks Capt. Meade to express his thanks. The latter shakes his hand cordially and remarks: “Better come on our next cruise, my boy; we may have another try at the black yacht. The navy expert says it was rumored in official circles that if this trial was satisfactory the America is to be ordered immediately to Cuba to protect American interests. Good news, if true, eh?”

Ashley allows that if the captain says it is good news, good news it certainly must be; and a half-defined hope is forming in his mind as he steps once more on terra firma.

“After I turn in my story on the trial trip I shall proceed to hunt up some possible light on the latest twist in the Hathaway tangle,” he meditates, as he sets his face toward the lights of Gotham town. “Felton and Miss Hathaway were booked to sail on the City of Callao on Saturday; yet I discover them to-day headed southward on the Semiramis. Miss Hathaway must have left some explanation, and it is barely possible that Barker may know something about the sudden departure. I should not be a particle surprised if John, too, were aboard the Semiramis. Nothing will ever surprise me again. But if Barker got left I shall probably find him sitting on the steps of the Hemisphere office, in a state of mind bordering on the profane.”

But fate decrees that many days shall elapse ere the detective and his newspaper friend again clasp each other by the hand; days big with exciting events that the serene Ashley dreams not of as he saunters down Newspaper Row.

From his box in the office Ashley extracts a letter, evidently hastily written and sealed. The address is in Barker’s handwriting, and Ashley tears it open. He reads:

“My Dear Ashley: I start for Cuba at 12 o’clock via Key West. Write this just before the train starts. Felton has eluded me—thanks to your infernal French ball—and sailed for Cuba on City of Havana at 11 o’clock. Don’t know whether he got wind of contemplated arrest or not. If I have good luck at Key West will be in H. as soon as he. May trail him to the son and bag both at once. In any event, do not intend to lose sight of him again till he is safely landed in Vermont. I may run across your Mrs. Harding, and if I do will try my luck at making her tell what she knows of young Felton, on threat of exposing her as a Spanish spy. Good scheme, eh? Must close, train starting; will write from Cuba. Hastily,

“Barker.”

“So Cuba is to be the scene of the next act of the Raymond tragedy,” Jack thinks. “How suddenly all the characters have betaken themselves to the southern isle, and how events have crowded on each other the last day or two! First, news that young Felton is in Cuba; then appear Cyrus Felton and Louise Hathaway in the city; then the mysterious woman of the Raymond hotel, and the stranger of the mountain gorge—and all of these are at this moment en route to Cuba. Only Derrick Ames and Helen Hathaway remain to be accounted for, and if Barker’s theory is correct, and they, too, are in Cuba, what a situation and what a complication! I must be there at the finish. The paper really needs a war correspondent in the ever-faithful isle, and I’ve half a mind to ask for the assignment.”

From his desk Ashley takes a bulky package of manuscript, glances through it, and with a sigh replaces it within an inner compartment. “The Raymond mystery story, the newspaper beat of the year,” is not to be used yet.

But the account of the trial trip of the America must be written, and soon the sheaves of yellow paper are being rapidly covered by Jack’s flying pen.

At last it is finished, and with a grunt of satisfaction Jack arranges the scattered sheets and proceeds to the desk of the city editor.

“Ah, Ashley,” remarks that dignitary, glancing at the manuscript and without raising his eyes; “trial trip was a success, wasn’t it? Yes; well, I have a little something here that I wish you would look up. You have done so much Cuban stuff lately that you are more familiar with the ground than any other man on the staff. The Washington wire states that a vessel, the Isabel, that was to have sailed from here to-day, has been detained at her moorings, foot of Twenty-third Street. She is suspected of having arms and ammunition for the Cuban rebels on board. The information was filed by the Spanish minister. Just look up the local end of the story, find out who fitted out the steamer, where she was ostensibly to clear for, etc. You had better see your filibuster friend, Manada. He might give you something on it.”

“Blast Cuba!” mutters Jack, as he leaves the office. “Everything is Cuba now. Talk about Tantalus! His case wasn’t a marker to mine. Here are all the characters in a drama in which I am interested gone to Cuba, while I lag superfluous on the stage, doomed to write up stuff about the confounded island and its affairs at long range. Besides, I haven’t fairly got back my land legs, and now I must jaunt up the North River two or three miles. Well, there is no use kicking, I suppose. Guess I will look up Don Manada first, though.”

Ashley’s annoyance dissipates rapidly, however, and he has recovered his customary serenity when he tenders his card to the clerk at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, to be taken to Don Manada’s rooms.

“Don Manada has left, sir” the clerk tells him. “He had his effects removed early this morning and stated that he might not return for some months.”

“Where has he gone, do you know?”

“To Cuba, I think.”

Jack turns away. “To Cuba, of course. Everybody with whom I have business to-day has gone to Cuba. If that filibustering vessel, the Isabel, has not eluded the officers and sailed for Cuba by the time I reach her wharf, I shall be mightily surprised. No; I have decided to be surprised at nothing hereafter. The Isabel! There’s another coincidence—the first name of Mrs. Harding or Mrs. Winthrop or whatever it is—the woman of the Raymond Hotel. Well, here goes for the Isabel.”

It is cold, foggy, dark and altogether disagreeable as Jack alights from the car at the foot of Twenty-third Street and picks his way down the long wharf to where he is informed the detained steamer is docked. She is still there; he sees her smokestacks and masts outlined against the sky. A single lantern is alight on the vessel, but the gang-plank has been hauled in.

“Steamer ahoy!” Ashley calls, and after several repetitions of the hail a gruff voice sounds from the gloom in the vicinity of the lantern.

“Ashore, there! What do you want?”

“Is this the Isabel?”

“Yes,” is the brief reply.

“Well, I want to talk with you a moment. Can’t you run out a plank and hold that lantern nearer, so I can see to come aboard? I am from the Hemisphere.”

There is a moment’s hesitation and then the lantern approaches the steamer’s side and a plank is extended to the pier.

“Now, all I want to find out is about the alleged seizure of the vessel,” begins Jack, thrusting a cigar into the fist that releases the lantern.

“There ain’t much to say,” is the reply. “I am a United States deputy marshal and was placed in charge of the vessel this noon. Whether her cargo contains arms and ammunition I can’t say for sure, as she is not to be searched till to-morrow, but from the remarks dropped by some of the crew I’ll bet a hat the cargo has been taken off. One of the crew was considerably under the weather when I came aboard and I gathered from his talk that some of the Isabel’s cargo was shifted to another steamer, a long, black craft, some time after midnight or early this morning.”

“What was the name of the other steamer?” inquires Ashley, a sudden suspicion entering his mind.

“Blessed if I know,” replies the deputy marshal.

“The Semiramis, I’ll wager $4 to a nickel,” mutters Ashley, as he thanks the marshal and goes ashore.