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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Rock in the Baltic, by Robert Barr
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+Title: A Rock in the Baltic
+
+Author: Robert Barr
+
+Release Date: January, 2004  [EBook #4982]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 7, 2002]
+[Date last updated: November 14, 2004]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A ROCK IN THE BALTIC ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was prepared by Jim Weiler, xooqi.com.
+
+
+
+                          A Rock in the Baltic
+
+by Robert Barr, 1906
+  _________________________________________________________________
+
+  CHAPTER I
+
+ THE INCIDENT AT THE BANK
+
+IN the public room of the Sixth National Bank at Bar Harbor in Maine,
+Lieutenant Alan Drummond, H.M.S. "Consternation," stood aside to give
+precedence to a lady. The Lieutenant had visited the bank for the
+purpose of changing several crisp white Bank of England notes into the
+currency of the country he was then visiting. The lady did not appear
+to notice either his courtesy or his presence, and this was the more
+remarkable since Drummond was a young man sufficiently conspicuous
+even in a crowd, and he and she were, at that moment, the only
+customers in the bank. He was tall, well-knit and stalwart, blond as a
+Scandinavian, with dark blue eyes which he sometimes said jocularly
+were the colors of his university. He had been slowly approaching the
+cashier's window with the easy movement of a man never in a hurry,
+when the girl appeared at the door, and advanced rapidly to the bank
+counter with its brass wire screen surrounding the arched aperture
+behind which stood the cashier. Although very plainly attired, her
+gown nevertheless possessed a charm of simplicity that almost
+suggested complex Paris, and she wore it with that air of distinction
+the secret of which is supposed to be the exclusive property of French
+and American women.
+
+The young man saw nothing of this, and although he appreciated the
+beauty of the girl, what struck him at that instant was the expression
+of anxiety on her face, whose apparently temporary pallor was
+accentuated by an abundance of dark hair. It seemed to him that she
+had resolutely set herself a task which she was most reluctant to
+perform. From the moment she entered the door her large, dark eyes
+were fixed almost appealingly on the cashier, and they beheld nothing
+else. Drummond, mentally slow as he usually was, came to the quick
+conclusion that this was a supreme moment in her life, on which
+perhaps great issues depended. He saw her left hand grasp the corner
+of the ledge in front of the cashier with a grip of nervous tension,
+as if the support thus attained was necessary to her. Her right hand
+trembled slightly as she passed an oblong slip of paper through the
+aperture to the calm and indifferent official.
+
+"Will you give me the money for this check?" she asked in a low voice.
+
+The cashier scrutinized the document for some time in silence. The
+signature appeared unfamiliar to him.
+
+"One moment, madam," he said quietly, and retired to a desk in the
+back part of the bank, where he opened a huge book, turned over some
+leaves rapidly, and ran his finger down a page. His dilatory action
+seemed to increase the young woman's panic. Her pallor increased, and
+she swayed slightly, as if in danger of falling, but brought her right
+hand to the assistance of the left, and so steadied herself against
+the ledge of the cashier's counter.
+
+"By Jove!" said the Lieutenant to himself, "there's something wrong
+here. I wonder what it is. Such a pretty girl, too!"
+
+The cashier behind his screen saw nothing of this play of the
+emotions. He returned nonchalantly to his station, and asked, in
+commonplace tones:
+
+"How will you have the money, madam?"
+
+"Gold, if you please," she replied almost in a whisper, a rosy flush
+chasing the whiteness from her face, while a deep sigh marked the
+passing of a crisis.
+
+At this juncture an extraordinary thing happened. The cashier counted
+out some golden coins, and passed them through the aperture toward
+their new owner.
+
+"Thank you," said the girl. Then, without touching the money, she
+turned like one hypnotized, her unseeing eyes still taking no heed of
+the big Lieutenant, and passed rapidly out of the bank, The cashier
+paid no regard to this abandonment of treasure. He was writing some
+hieroglyphics on the cashed check.
+
+"By Jove!" gasped the Lieutenant aloud, springing forward as he spoke,
+sweeping the coins into his hand, and bolting for the door. This was
+an action which would have awakened the most negligent cashier had he
+been in a trance. Automatically he whisked out a revolver which lay in
+an open drawer under his hand.
+
+"Stop, you scoundrel, or I fire!" he shouted, but the Lieutenant had
+already disappeared. Quick as thought the cashier darted into the
+passage, and without waiting to unfasten the low door which separated
+the public and private rooms of the bank, leaped over it, and,
+bareheaded, gave chase. A British naval officer in uniform, rapidly
+overtaking a young woman, quite unconscious of his approach, followed
+by an excited, bareheaded man with a revolver in his grasp, was a
+sight which would quickly have collected a crowd almost anywhere, but
+it happened to be the lunch hour, and the inhabitants of that famous
+summer resort were in-doors; thus, fortunately, the street was
+deserted. The naval officer was there because the hour of the midday
+meal on board the cruiser did not coincide with lunch time on shore.
+The girl was there because it happened to be the only portion of the
+day when she could withdraw unobserved from the house in which she
+lived, during banking hours, to try her little agitating financial
+experiment. The cashier was there because the bank had no lunch hour,
+and because he had just witnessed the most suspicious circumstance
+that his constantly alert eye had ever beheld. Calm and imperturbable
+as a bank cashier may appear to the outside public, he is a man under
+constant strain during business hours. Each person with whom he is
+unacquainted that confronts him at his post is a possible robber who
+at any moment may attempt, either by violence or chicanery, to filch
+the treasure he guards. The happening of any event outside the usual
+routine at once arouses a cashier's distrust, and this sudden flight
+of a stranger with money which did not belong to him quite justified
+the perturbation of the cashier. From that point onward, innocence of
+conduct or explanation so explicit as to satisfy any ordinary man,
+becomes evidence of more subtle guilt to the mind of a bank official.
+The ordinary citizen, seeing the Lieutenant finally overtake and
+accost the hurrying girl, raise his cap, then pour into her
+outstretched hand the gold he had taken, would have known at once that
+here was an every-day exercise of natural politeness. Not so the
+cashier. The farther he got from the bank, the more poignantly did he
+realize that these two in front, both strangers to him, had, by their
+combined action, lured him, pistol and all, away from his post during
+the dullest hour of the day. It was not the decamping with those few
+pieces of gold which now troubled him: it was fear of what might be
+going on behind him. He was positive that these two had acted in
+conjunction. The uniform worn by the man did not impose upon him. Any
+thief could easily come by a uniform, and, as his mind glanced rapidly
+backwards over the various points of the scheme, he saw how effectual
+the plan was: first, the incredible remissness of the woman in leaving
+her gold on the counter; second, the impetuous disappearance of the
+man with the money; and, third, his own heedless plunge into the
+street after them. He saw the whole plot in a flash: he had literally
+leaped into the trap, and during his five or ten minutes' absence, the
+accomplices of the pair might have overawed the unarmed clerks, and
+walked off with the treasure. His cash drawer was unlocked, and even
+the big safe stood wide open. Surprise had as effectually lured him
+away as if he had been a country bumpkin. Bitterly and breathlessly
+did he curse his own precipitancy. His duty was to guard the bank, yet
+it had not been the bank that was robbed, but, at best a careless
+woman who had failed to pick up her money. He held the check for it,
+and the loss, if any, was hers, not the bank's, yet here he was,
+running bareheaded down the street like a fool, and now those two
+stood quite calmly together, he handing her the money, and thus
+spreading a mantle of innocence over the vile trick. But whatever was
+happening in the bank, he would secure two of the culprits at least.
+The two, quite oblivious of the danger that threatened them, were
+somewhat startled by a panting man, trembling with rage, bareheaded,
+and flourishing a deadly weapon, sweeping down upon them.
+
+"Come back to the bank instantly, you two!" he shouted.
+
+"Why?" asked the Lieutenant in a quiet voice.
+
+"Because I say so, for one thing."
+
+"That reason is unanswerable," replied the Lieutenant with a slight
+laugh, which further exasperated his opponent. "I think you are
+exciting yourself unnecessarily. May I beg you to put that pistol in
+your pocket? On the cruiser we always cover up the guns when ladies
+honor us with their presence. You wish me to return because I had no
+authority for taking the money? Right: come along."
+
+The cashier regarded this as bluff, and an attempt to give the woman
+opportunity to escape.
+
+"You must come back also," he said to the girl.
+
+"I'd rather not," she pleaded in a low voice, and it was hardly
+possible to have made a more injudicious remark if she had taken the
+whole afternoon to prepare.
+
+Renewed determination shone from the face of the cashier.
+
+"You must come back to the bank," he reiterated.
+
+"Oh, I say," protested the Lieutenant, "you are now exceeding your
+authority. I alone am the culprit. The young lady is quite blameless,
+and you have no right to detain her for a moment."
+
+The girl, who had been edging away and showing signs of flight, which
+the bareheaded man, visibly on the alert, leaned forward ready to
+intercept, seemed to make up her mind to bow to the inevitable.
+Ignoring the cashier, she looked up at the blond Lieutenant with a
+slight smile on her pretty lips.
+
+"It was really all my fault at the beginning," she said, "and very
+stupid of me. I am slightly acquainted with the bank manager, and I am
+sure he will vouch for me, if he is there."
+
+With that she turned and walked briskly toward the bank, at so rapid a
+pace as to indicate that she did not wish an escort. The bareheaded
+official found his anger unaccountably deserting him, while a great
+fear that he had put his foot in it took its place.
+
+"Really," said the Lieutenant gently, as they strode along together,
+"an official in your position should be a good judge of human nature.
+How any sane person, especially a young man, can look at that
+beautiful girl and suspect her of evil, passes my comprehension. Do
+you know her?"
+
+"No," said the cashier shortly. "Do you?"
+
+The Lieutenant laughed genially.
+
+"Still suspicious, eh?" he asked. "No, I don't know her, but to use a
+banking term, you may bet your bottom dollar I'm going to. Indeed, I
+am rather grateful to you for your stubbornness in forcing us to
+return. It's a quality I like, and you possess it in marvelous
+development, so I intend to stand by you when the managerial censure
+is due. I'm very certain I met your manager at the dinner they gave us
+last night. Mr. Morton, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes," growled the cashier, in gruff despondency.
+
+"Ah, that's awfully jolly. One of the finest fellows I've met in ten
+years. Now, the lady said she was acquainted with him, so if I don't
+wheedle an introduction out of him, it will show that a man at a
+dinner and a man in a bank are two different individuals. You were
+looking for plots; so there is mine laid bare to you. It's an
+introduction, not gold, I'm conspiring for."
+
+The cashier had nothing further to say. When they entered the bank
+together he saw the clerks all busily at work, and knew that no
+startling event had happened during his absence. The girl had gone
+direct to the manager's room, and thither the young men followed her.
+The bank manager was standing at his desk, trying to preserve a severe
+financial cast of countenance, which the twinkle in his eyes belied.
+The girl, also standing, had evidently been giving him a rapid sketch
+of what had occurred, but now fell into silence when accuser and
+accomplice appeared.
+
+The advent of the Englishman was a godsend to the manager. He was too
+courteous a gentleman to laugh in the face of a lady who very
+seriously was relating a set of incidents which appealed to his sense
+of humor, so the coming of the Lieutenant enabled him to switch off
+his mirth on another subject, and in reply to the officer's cordial
+"Good-morning, Mr. Morton," he replied:
+
+"Why, Lieutenant, I'm delighted to see you. That was a very jolly song
+you sang for us last night: I'll never forget it. What do you call it?
+Whittington Fair?" And he laughed outright, as at a genial
+recollection.
+
+The Lieutenant blushed red as a girl, and stammered:
+
+"Really, Mr. Morton, you know, that's not according to the rules of
+evidence. When a fellow comes up for trial, previous convictions are
+never allowed to be mentioned till after the sentence. Whiddicomb Fair
+should not be held against me in the present crisis."
+
+The manager chuckled gleefully. The cashier, when he saw how the land
+lay, had quietly withdrawn, closing the door behind him.
+
+"Well, Lieutenant, I think I must have this incident cabled to
+Europe," said Morton, "so the effete nations of your continent may
+know that a plain bank cashier isn't afraid to tackle the British
+navy. Indeed, Mr. Drummond, if you read history, you will learn that
+this is a dangerous coast for your warships. It seems rather
+inhospitable that a guest of our town cannot pick all the gold he
+wants out of a bank, but a cashier has necessarily somewhat narrow
+views on the subject. I was just about to apologize to Miss Amhurst,
+who is a valued client of ours, when you came in, and I hope, Miss
+Amhurst"-- he continued gravely, turning to the girl-- "that you will
+excuse us for the inconvenience to which you have been put."
+
+"Oh, it does not matter in the least," replied the young woman, with
+nevertheless a sigh of relief. "It was all my own fault in so
+carelessly leaving the money. Some time, when less in a hurry than I
+am at the present moment, I will tell you how I came to make the
+blunder."
+
+Meanwhile the manager caught and interpreted correctly an imploring
+look from the Lieutenant.
+
+"Before you go, Miss Amhurst, will you permit me to introduce to you
+my friend, Lieutenant Drummond, of H.M.S. 'Consternation.'"
+
+This ritual to convention being performed, the expression on the
+girl's face showed the renewal of her anxiety to be gone, and as she
+turned to the door, the officer sprang forward and opened it for her.
+If the manager expected the young man to return, he was disappointed,
+for Drummond threw over his shoulder the hasty remark:
+
+"I will see you at the Club this evening," whereupon the genial
+Morton, finding himself deserted, sat down in his swivel chair and
+laughed quietly to himself.
+
+There was the slightest possible shade of annoyance on the girl's face
+as the sailor walked beside her from the door of the manager's room,
+through the public portion of the bank to the exit, and the young man
+noticing this, became momentarily tongue-tied, but nevertheless
+persisted, with a certain awkward doggedness which was not going to
+allow so slight a hint that his further attendance was unnecessary, to
+baffle him. He did not speak until they had passed down the stone
+steps to the pavement, and then his utterance began with a
+half-embarrassed stammer, as if the shadow of displeasure demanded
+justification on his part.
+
+"You-- you see, Miss Amhurst, we have been properly introduced."
+
+For the first time he heard the girl laugh, just a little, and the
+sound was very musical to him.
+
+"The introduction was of the slightest," she said. "I cannot claim
+even an acquaintance with Mr. Morton, although I did so in the
+presence of his persistent subordinate. I have met the manager of the
+bank but once before, and that for a few moments only, when he showed
+me where to sign my name in a big book."
+
+"Nevertheless," urged Drummond, "I shall defend the validity of that
+introduction against all comers. The head of a bank is a most
+important man in every country, and his commendation is really very
+much sought after."
+
+"You appear to possess it. He complimented your singing, you know,"
+and there was a roguish twinkle in the girl's eye as she glanced up
+sideways at him, while a smile came to her lips as she saw the color
+again mount to his cheeks. She had never before met a man who blushed,
+and she could not help regarding him rather as a big boy than a person
+to be taken seriously. His stammer became more pronounced.
+
+"I-- I think you are laughing at me, Miss Amhurst, and indeed I don't
+wonder at it, and I-- I am afraid you consider me even more persistent
+than the cashier. But I did want to tell you how sorry I am to have
+caused you annoyance."
+
+"Oh, you have not done so," replied the girl quickly. "As I said
+before, it was all my own fault in the beginning."
+
+"No, I shouldn't have taken the gold. I should have come up with you,
+and told you that it still awaited you in the bank, and now I beg your
+permission to walk down the street with you, because if any one were
+looking at us from these windows, and saw us pursued by a bareheaded
+man with a revolver, they will now, on looking out again, learn that
+it is all right, and may even come to regard the revolver and the
+hatless one as an optical delusion."
+
+Again the girl laughed.
+
+"I am quite unknown in Bar Harbor, having fewer acquaintances than
+even a stranger like yourself, therefore so far as I am concerned it
+does not in the least matter whether any one saw us or not. We shall
+walk together, then, as far as the spot where the cashier overtook us,
+and this will give me an opportunity of explaining, if not of
+excusing, my leaving the money on the counter. I am sure my conduct
+must have appeared inexplicable both to you and the cashier, although,
+of course, you would be too polite to say so."
+
+"I assure you, Miss Amhurst--"
+
+"I know what you would say," she interrupted, with a vivacity which
+had not heretofore characterized her, "but, you see, the distance to
+the corner is short, and, as I am in a hurry, if you don't wish my
+story to be continued in our next--"
+
+"Ah, if there is to be a next--" murmured the young man so fervently
+that it was now the turn of color to redden her cheeks.
+
+"I am talking heedlessly," she said quickly. "What I want to say is
+this: I have never had much money. Quite recently I inherited what had
+been accumulated by a relative whom I never knew. It seemed so
+incredible, so strange-- well, it seems incredible and strange yet--
+and I have been expecting to wake and find it all a dream. Indeed,
+when you overtook me at this spot where we now stand, I feared you had
+come to tell me it was a mistake; to hurl me from the clouds to the
+hard earth again."
+
+"But it was just the reverse of that," he cried eagerly. "Just the
+reverse, remember. I came to confirm your dream, and you received from
+my hand the first of your fortune."
+
+"Yes," she admitted, her eyes fixed on the sidewalk.
+
+"I see how it was," he continued enthusiastically. "I suppose you had
+never drawn a check before."
+
+"Never," she conceded.
+
+"And this was merely a test. You set up your dream against the hard
+common sense of a bank, which has no dreams. You were to transform
+your vision into the actual, or find it vanish. When the commonplace
+cashier passed forth the coin, their jingle said to you, 'The supposed
+phantasy is real,' but the gold pieces themselves at that supreme
+moment meant no more to you than so many worthless counters, so you
+turned your back upon them."
+
+She looked up at him, her eyes, though moist, illumined with pleasure
+inspired by the sympathy in his tones rather than the import of his
+words. The girl's life heretofore had been as scant of kindness as of
+cash, and there was a deep sincerity in his voice which was as
+refreshing to her lonesome heart as it was new to her experience. This
+man was not so stupid as he had pretended to be. He had accurately
+divined the inner meaning of what had happened. She had forgotten the
+necessity for haste which had been so importunate a few minutes
+before.
+
+"You must be a mind-reader," she said.
+
+"No, I am not at all a clever person," he laughed. "Indeed, as I told
+you, I am always blundering into trouble, and making things
+uncomfortable for my friends. I regret to say I am rather under a
+cloud just now in the service, and I have been called upon to endure
+the frown of my superiors."
+
+"Why, what has happened?" she asked. After their temporary halt at the
+corner where they had been overtaken, they now strolled along together
+like old friends, her prohibition out of mind.
+
+"Well, you see, I was temporarily in command of the cruiser coming
+down the Baltic, and passing an island rock a few miles away, I
+thought it would be a good opportunity to test a new gun that had been
+put aboard when we left England. The sea was very calm, and the rock
+most temptsome. Of course I knew it was Russian territory, but who
+could have imagined that such a point in space was inhabited by
+anything else than sea-gulls."
+
+"What!" cried the girl, looking up at him with new interest. "You
+don't mean to say you are the officer that Russia demanded from
+England, and England refused to give up?"
+
+"Oh, England could not give me up, of course, but she apologized, and
+assured Russia she had no evil intent. Still, anything that sets the
+diplomatists at work is frowned upon, and the man who does an act
+which his government is forced to disclaim becomes unpopular with his
+superiors."
+
+"I read about it in the papers at the time. Didn't the rock fire back
+at you?"
+
+"Yes, it did, and no one could have been more surprised than I when I
+saw the answering puff of smoke."
+
+"How came a cannon to be there?"
+
+"Nobody knows. I suppose that rock in the Baltic is a concealed fort,
+with galleries and gun-rooms cut in the stone after the fashion of our
+defences at Gibraltar. I told the court-martial that I had added a
+valuable bit of information to our naval knowledge, but I don't
+suppose this contention exercised any influence on the minds of my
+judges. I also called their attention to the fact that my shell had
+hit, while the Russian shot fell half a mile short. That remark nearly
+cost me my commission. A court-martial has no sense of humor."
+
+"I suppose everything is satisfactorily settled now?"
+
+"Well, hardly that. You see, Continental nations are extremely
+suspicious of Britain's good intentions, as indeed they are of the
+good intentions of each other. No government likes to have-- well,
+what we might call a 'frontier incident' happen, and even if a country
+is quite in the right, it nevertheless looks askance at any official
+of its own who, through his stupidity, brings about an international
+complication. As concerns myself, I am rather under a cloud, as I told
+you. The court-martial acquitted me, but it did so with reluctance and
+a warning. I shall have to walk very straight for the next year or
+two, and be careful not to stub my toe, for the eyes of the Admiralty
+are upon me. However, I think I can straighten this matter out. I have
+six months' leave coming on shortly, which I intend to spend in St.
+Petersburg. I shall make it my business to see privately some of the
+officials in the Admiralty there, and when they realize by personal
+inspection what a well-intentioned idiot I am, all distrust will
+vanish."
+
+"I should do nothing of the kind," rejoined the girl earnestly, quite
+forgetting the shortness of their acquaintance, as she had forgotten
+the flight of time, while on his part he did not notice any
+incongruity in the situation. "I'd leave well enough alone," she
+added.
+
+"Why do you think that?" he asked.
+
+"Your own country has investigated the matter, and has deliberately
+run the risk of unpleasantness by refusing to give you up. How, then,
+can you go there voluntarily? You would be acting in your private
+capacity directly in opposition to the decision arrived at by your
+government."
+
+"Technically, that is so; still, England would not hold the position
+she does in the world to-day if her men had not often taken a course
+in their private capacity which the government would never have
+sanctioned. As things stand now, Russia has not insisted on her
+demand, but has sullenly accepted England's decision, still quite
+convinced that my act was not only an invasion of Russia's domain, but
+a deliberate insult; therefore the worst results of an inconsiderate
+action on my part remain. If I could see the Minister for Foreign
+Affairs, or the head of the Admiralty in St. Petersburg face to face
+for ten minutes, I'd undertake to remove that impression."
+
+"You have great faith in your persuasive powers," she said demurely.
+
+The Lieutenant began to stammer again.
+
+"No, no, it isn't so much that, but I have great faith in the Russian
+as a judge of character. I suppose I am imagined to be a venomous,
+brow-beating, truculent Russophobe, who has maliciously violated their
+territory, flinging a shell into their ground and an insult into their
+face. They are quite sincere in this belief. I want to remove that
+impression, and there's nothing like an ocular demonstration. I like
+the Russians. One of my best friends is a Russian."
+
+The girl shook her head.
+
+"I shouldn't attempt it," she persisted. "Suppose Russia arrested you,
+and said to England, 'We've got this man in spite of you'?"
+
+The Lieutenant laughed heartily.
+
+"That is unthinkable: Russia wouldn't do such a thing. In spite of all
+that is said about the Russian Government, its members are gentlemen.
+Of course, if such a thing happened, there would be trouble. That is a
+point where we're touchy. A very cheap Englishman, wrongfully
+detained, may cause a most expensive campaign. Our diplomatists may
+act correctly enough, and yet leave a feeling of resentment behind.
+Take this very case. Britain says coldly to Russia:
+
+"'We disclaim the act, and apologize.'
+
+"Now, it would be much more to the purpose if she said genially:
+
+"'We have in our employment an impetuous young fool with a thirst for
+information. He wished to learn how a new piece of ordnance would act,
+so fired it off with no more intention of striking Russia than of
+hitting the moon. He knows much more about dancing than about foreign
+affairs. We've given him a month's leave, and he will slip across
+privately to St. Petersburg to apologize and explain. The moment you
+see him you will recognize he is no menace to the peace of nations.
+Meanwhile, if you can inculcate in him some cold, calm common-sense
+before he returns, we'll be ever so much obliged.'"
+
+"So you are determined to do what you think the government should have
+done."
+
+"Oh, quite. There will be nothing frigidly official about my
+unauthorized mission. I have a cousin in the embassy at St.
+Petersburg, but I shan't go near him; neither shall I go to an hotel,
+but will get quiet rooms somewhere that I may not run the risk of
+meeting any chance acquaintances."
+
+"It seems to me you are about to afford the Russian Government an
+excellent opportunity of spiriting you off to Siberia, and nobody
+would be the wiser."
+
+Drummond indulged in the free-hearted laugh of a youth to whom life is
+still rather a good joke.
+
+"I shouldn't mind studying the Siberian system from the inside if they
+allowed me to return before my leave was up. I believe that sort of
+thing has been exaggerated by sensational writers. The Russian
+Government would not countenance anything of the kind, and if the
+minor officials tried to play tricks, there's always my cousin in the
+background, and it would be hard luck if I couldn't get a line to him.
+Oh, there's no danger in my project!"
+
+Suddenly the girl came to a standstill, and gave expression to a
+little cry of dismay.
+
+"What's wrong?" asked the Lieutenant.
+
+"Why, we've walked clear out into the country!"
+
+"Oh, is that all? I hadn't noticed."
+
+"And there are people waiting for me. I must run."
+
+"Nonsense, let them wait."
+
+"I should have been back long since."
+
+They had turned, and she was hurrying.
+
+"Think of your new fortune, Miss Amhurst, safely lodged in our friend
+Morton's bank, and don't hurry for any one."
+
+"I didn't say it was a fortune: there's only ten thousand dollars
+there."
+
+"That sounds formidable, but unless the people who are waiting for you
+muster more than ten thousand apiece, I don't think you should make
+haste on their account."
+
+"It's the other way about, Mr. Drummond. Individually they are poorer
+than I, therefore I should have returned long ago. Now, I fear, they
+will be in a temper."
+
+"Well, if anybody left me two thousand pounds, I'd take an afternoon
+off to celebrate. Here we are in the suburbs again. Won't you change
+your mind and your direction; let us get back into the country, sit
+down on the hillside, look at the Bay, and gloat over your wealth?"
+
+Dorothy Amhurst shook her head and held out her hand.
+
+"I must bid you good-by here, Lieutenant Drummond. This is my shortest
+way home."
+
+"May I not accompany you just a little farther?"
+
+"Please, no, I wish to go the rest of the way alone."
+
+He held her hand, which she tried to withdraw, and spoke with
+animation.
+
+"There's so much I wanted to say, but perhaps the most important is
+this: I shall see you the night of the 14th, at the ball we are giving
+on the 'Consternation'?"
+
+"It is very likely," laughed the girl, "unless you overlook me in the
+throng. There will be a great mob. I hear you have issued many
+invitations."
+
+"We hope all our friends will come. It's going to be a great function.
+Your Secretary of the Navy has promised to look in on us, and our
+Ambassador from Washington will be there. I assure you we are doing
+our best, with festooned electric lights, hanging draperies, and all
+that, for we want to make the occasion at least remotely worthy of the
+hospitality we have received. Of course you have your card, but I wish
+you hadn't, so that I might have the privilege of sending you one or
+more invitations."
+
+"That would be quite unnecessary," said the girl, again with a slight
+laugh and heightened color.
+
+"If any of your friends need cards of invitation, won't you let me
+know, so that I may send them to you?"
+
+"I'm sure I shan't need any, but if I do, I promise to remember your
+kindness, and apply."
+
+"It will be a pleasure for me to serve you. With whom shall you come?
+I should like to know the name, in case I should miss you in the
+crowd."
+
+"I expect to be with Captain Kempt, of the United States Navy."
+
+"Ah," said the Lieutenant, with a note of disappointment in his voice
+which he had not the diplomacy to conceal. His hold of her hand
+relaxed, and she took the opportunity to withdraw it.
+
+"What sort of a man is Captain Kempt? I shall be on the lookout for
+him, you know."
+
+"I think he is the handsomest man I have ever seen, and I know he is
+the kindest and most courteous."
+
+"Really? A young man, I take it?"
+
+"There speaks the conceit of youth," said Dorothy, smiling. "Captain
+Kempt, U.S.N., retired. His youngest daughter is just two years older
+than myself."
+
+"Oh, yes, Captain Kempt. I-- I remember him now. He was at the dinner
+last night, and sat beside our captain. What a splendid story-teller
+he is!" cried the Lieutenant with honest enthusiasm.
+
+"I shall tell him that, and ask him how he liked your song. Good-by,"
+and before the young man could collect his thoughts to make any reply,
+she was gone.
+
+Skimming lightly over the ground at first, she gradually slackened her
+pace, and slowed down to a very sober walk until she came to a
+three-storied so-called "cottage" overlooking the Bay, then with a
+sigh she opened the gate, and went into the house by the servant's
+entrance.
+
+  CHAPTER II
+
+ IN THE SEWING-ROOM
+
+THREE women occupied the sewing-room with the splendid outlook: a
+mother and her two daughters. The mother sat in a low rocking-chair, a
+picture of mournful helplessness, her hands listlessly resting on her
+lap, while tears had left their traces on her time-worn face. The
+elder daughter paced up and down the room as striking an example of
+energy and impatience as was the mother of despondency. Her comely
+brow was marred by an angry frown. The younger daughter stood by the
+long window, her forehead resting against the pane, while her fingers
+drummed idly on the window sill. Her gaze was fixed on the blue Bay,
+where rested the huge British warship "Consternation," surrounded by a
+section of the United States squadron seated like white swans in the
+water. Sails of snow glistened here and there on the bosom of the Bay,
+while motor-boats and what-not darted this way and that impudently
+among the stately ships of the fleet.
+
+In one corner of the room stood a sewing-machine, and on the long
+table were piles of mimsy stuff out of which feminine creations are
+constructed. There was no carpet on the floor, and no ceiling
+overhead; merely the bare rafters and the boards that bore the pine
+shingles of the outer roof; yet this attic was notable for the
+glorious view to be seen from its window. It was an ideal workshop.
+
+The elder girl, as she walked to and fro, spoke with nervous
+irritation in her voice.
+
+"There is absolutely no excuse, mamma, and it's weakness in you to
+pretend that there may be. The woman has been gone for hours. There's
+her lunch on the table which has never been tasted, and the servant
+brought it up at twelve."
+
+She pointed to a tray on which were dishes whose cold contents bore
+out the truth of her remark.
+
+"Perhaps she's gone on strike," said the younger daughter, without
+removing her eyes from H.M.S. "Consternation." "I shouldn't wonder if
+we went downstairs again we'd find the house picketed to keep away
+blacklegs."
+
+"Oh, you can always be depended on to talk frivolous nonsense," said
+her elder sister scornfully. "It's the silly sentimental fashion in
+which both you and father treat work-people that makes them so
+difficult to deal with. If the working classes were taught their
+place--"
+
+"Working classes! How you talk! Dorothy is as much a lady as we are,
+and sometimes I think rather more of a lady than either of us. She is
+the daughter of a clergyman."
+
+"So she says," sniffed the elder girl.
+
+"Well, she ought to know," replied the younger indifferently.
+
+"It's people like you who spoil dependents in her position, with your
+Dorothy this and Dorothy that. Her name is Amhurst."
+
+"Christened Dorothy, as witness godfather and godmother," murmured the
+younger without turning her head.
+
+"I think," protested their mother meekly, as if to suggest a
+compromise, and throw oil on the troubled waters, "that she is
+entitled to be called Miss Amhurst, and treated with kindness but with
+reserve."
+
+"Tush!" exclaimed the elder indignantly, indicating her rejection of
+the compromise.
+
+"I don't see," murmured the younger, "why you should storm, Sabina.
+You nagged and nagged at her until she'd finished your ball-dress. It
+is mamma and I that have a right to complain. Our dresses are almost
+untouched, while you can sail grandly along the decks of the
+'Consternation' like a fully rigged yacht. There, I'm mixing my
+similes again, as papa always says. A yacht doesn't sail along the
+deck of a battleship, does it?"
+
+"It's a cruiser," weakly corrected the mother, who knew something of
+naval affairs.
+
+"Well, cruiser, then. Sabina is afraid that papa won't go unless we
+all have grand new dresses, but mother can put on her old black silk,
+and I am going if I have to wear a cotton gown."
+
+"To think of that person accepting our money, and absenting herself in
+this disgraceful way!"
+
+"Accepting our money! That shows what it is to have an imagination.
+Why, I don't suppose Dorothy has had a penny for three months, and you
+know the dress material was bought on credit."
+
+"You must remember," chided the mother mildly, "that your father is
+not rich."
+
+"Oh, I am only pleading for a little humanity. The girl for some
+reason has gone out. She hasn't had a bite to eat since breakfast
+time, and I know there's not a silver piece in her pocket to buy a bun
+in a milk-shop."
+
+"She has no business to be absent without leave," said Sabina.
+
+"How you talk! As if she were a sailor on a battleship-- I mean a
+cruiser."
+
+"Where can the girl have gone?" wailed the mother, almost wringing her
+hands, partially overcome by the crisis. "Did she say anything about
+going out to you, Katherine? She sometimes makes a confidant of you,
+doesn't she?"
+
+"Confidant!" exclaimed Sabina wrathfully.
+
+"I know where she has gone," said Katherine with an innocent sigh.
+
+"Then why didn't you tell us before?" exclaimed mother and daughter in
+almost identical terms.
+
+"She has eloped with the captain of the 'Consternation,'" explained
+Katherine calmly, little guessing that her words contained a color of
+truth. "Papa sat next him at the dinner last night, and says he is a
+jolly old salt and a bachelor. Papa was tremendously taken with him,
+and they discussed tactics together. Indeed, papa has quite a distinct
+English accent this morning, and I suspect a little bit of a headache
+which he tries to conceal with a wavering smile."
+
+"You can't conceal a headache, because it's invisible," said the
+mother seriously. "I wish you wouldn't talk so carelessly, Katherine,
+and you mustn't speak like that of your father."
+
+"Oh, papa and I understand one another," affirmed Katherine with great
+confidence, and now for the first time during this conversation the
+young girl turned her face away from the window, for the door had
+opened to let in the culprit.
+
+"Now, Amhurst, what is the meaning of this?" cried Sabina before her
+foot was fairly across the threshold.
+
+All three women looked at the newcomer. Her beautiful face was aglow,
+probably through the exertion of coming up the stairs, and her eyes
+shone like those of the Goddess of Freedom as she returned steadfastly
+the supercilious stare with which the tall Sabina regarded her.
+
+"I was detained," she said quietly.
+
+"Why did you go away without permission?"
+
+"Because I had business to do which could not be transacted in this
+room."
+
+"That doesn't answer my question. Why did you not ask permission?"
+
+The girl slowly raised her two hands, and showed her shapely wrists
+close together, and a bit of the forearm not covered by the sleeve of
+her black dress.
+
+"Because," she said slowly, "the shackles have fallen from these
+wrists."
+
+"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," said Sabina, apparently
+impressed in spite of herself, but the younger daughter clapped her
+hands rapturously.
+
+"Splendid, splendid, Dorothy," she cried. "I don't know what you mean
+either, but you look like Maxine Elliott in that play where she--"
+
+"Will you keep quiet!" interrupted the elder sister over her shoulder.
+
+"I mean that I intend to sew here no longer," proclaimed Dorothy.
+
+"Oh, Miss Amhurst, Miss Amhurst," bemoaned the matron. "You will
+heartlessly leave us in this crisis when we are helpless; when there
+is not a sewing woman to be had in the place for love or money. Every
+one is working night and day to be ready for the ball on the
+fourteenth, and you-- you whom we have nurtured--"
+
+"I suppose she gets more money," sneered the elder daughter bitterly.
+
+"Oh, Dorothy," said Katherine, coming a step forward and clasping her
+hands, "do you mean to say I must attend the ball in a calico dress
+after all? But I'm going, nevertheless, if I dance in a morning
+wrapper."
+
+"Katherine," chided her mother, "don't talk like that."
+
+"Of course, where more money is in the question, kindness does not
+count," snapped the elder daughter.
+
+Dorothy Amhurst smiled when Sabina mentioned the word kindness.
+
+"With me, of course, it's entirely a question of money," she admitted.
+
+"Dorothy, I never thought it of you," said Katherine, with an
+exaggerated sigh. "I wish it were a fancy dress ball, then I'd borrow
+my brother Jack's uniform, and go in that."
+
+"Katherine, I'm shocked at you," complained the mother.
+
+"I don't care: I'd make a stunning little naval cadet. But, Dorothy,
+you must be starved to death; you've never touched your lunch."
+
+"You seem to have forgotten everything to-day," said Sabina severely.
+"Duty and everything else."
+
+"You are quite right," murmured Dorothy.
+
+"And did you elope with the captain of the 'Consternation,' and were
+you married secretly, and was it before a justice of the peace? Do
+tell us all about it."
+
+"What are you saying?" asked Dorothy, with a momentary alarm coming
+into her eyes.
+
+"Oh, I was just telling mother and Sab that you had skipped by the
+light of the noon, with the captain of the 'Consternation,' who was a
+jolly old bachelor last night, but may be a married man to-day if my
+suspicions are correct. Oh, Dorothy, must I go to the ball in a dress
+of print?"
+
+The sewing girl bent an affectionate look on the impulsive Katherine.
+
+"Kate, dear," she said, "you shall wear the grandest ball dress that
+ever was seen in Bar Harbor."
+
+"How dare you call my sister Kate, and talk such nonsense?" demanded
+Sabina.
+
+"I shall always call you Miss Kempt, and now, if I have your
+permission, I will sit down. I am tired."
+
+"Yes, and hungry, too," cried Katherine. "What shall I get you,
+Dorothy? This is all cold."
+
+"Thank you, I am not in the least hungry."
+
+"Wouldn't you like a cup of tea?"
+
+Dorothy laughed a little wearily.
+
+"Yes, I would," she said, "and some bread and butter."
+
+"And cake, too," suggested Katherine.
+
+"And cake, too, if you please."
+
+Katherine skipped off downstairs.
+
+"Well, I declare!" ejaculated Sabina with a gasp, drawing herself
+together, as if the bottom had fallen out of the social fabric.
+
+Mrs. Captain Kempt folded her hands one over the other and put on a
+look of patient resignation, as one who finds all the old landmarks
+swept away from before her.
+
+"Is there anything else we can get for you?" asked Sabina icily.
+
+"Yes," replied Dorothy, with serene confidence, "I should be very much
+obliged if Captain Kempt would obtain for me a card of invitation to
+the ball on the 'Consternation.'"
+
+"Really!" gasped Sabina, "and may not my mother supplement my father's
+efforts by providing you with a ball dress for the occasion?"
+
+"I could not think of troubling her, Miss Kempt. Some of my customers
+have flattered me by saying that my taste in dress is artistic, and
+that my designs, if better known, might almost set a fashion in a
+small way, so I shall look after my costume myself; but if Mrs.
+Captain Kempt were kind enough to allow me to attend the ball under
+her care, I should be very grateful for it."
+
+"How admirable! And is there nothing that I can do to forward your
+ambitions, Miss Amhurst?"
+
+"I am going to the ball merely as a looker-on, and perhaps you might
+smile at me as you pass by with your different partners, so that
+people would say I was an acquaintance of yours."
+
+After this there was silence in the sewing room until Katherine,
+followed by a maid, entered with tea and cakes. Some dress materials
+that rested on a gypsy table were swept aside by the impulsive
+Katherine, and the table, with the tray upon it, was placed at the
+right hand of Dorothy Amhurst. When the servant left the room,
+Katherine sidled to the long sewing table, sprang up lightly upon it,
+and sat there swinging a dainty little foot. Sabina had seated herself
+in the third chair of the room, the frown still adding severity to an
+otherwise beautiful countenance. It was the younger daughter who
+spoke.
+
+"Now, Dorothy, tell us all about the elopement."
+
+"What elopement?"
+
+"I soothed my mother's fears by telling her that you had eloped with
+the captain of the 'Consternation.' I must have been wrong in that
+guess, because if the secret marriage I hoped had taken place, you
+would have said to Sabina that the shackles were on your wrists
+instead of off. But something important has happened, and I want to
+know all about it."
+
+Dorothy made no response to this appeal, and after a minute's silence
+Sabina said practically:
+
+"All that has happened is that Miss Amhurst wishes father to present
+her with a ticket to the ball on the 'Consternation,' and taking that
+for granted, she requests mother to chaperon her, and further
+expresses a desire that I shall be exceedingly polite to her while we
+are on board the cruiser."
+
+"Oh," cried Katherine jauntily, "the last proviso is past praying for,
+but the other two are quite feasible. I'd be delighted to chaperon
+Dorothy myself, and as for politeness, good gracious, I'll be polite
+enough to make up for all the courteous deficiency of the rest of the
+family.
+
+  'For I hold that on the seas,
+   The expression if you please
+   A particularly gentlemanly tone implants,
+   And so do his sisters and his cousins and his aunts.'
+
+Now, Dorothy, don't be bashful. Here's your sister and your cousin and
+your aunt waiting for the horrifying revelation. What has happened?"
+
+"I'll tell you what is going to happen, Kate," said the girl, smiling
+at the way the other ran on. "Mrs. Captain Kempt will perhaps consent
+to take you and me to New York or Boston, where we will put up at the
+best hotel, and trick ourselves out in ball costumes that will be the
+envy of Bar Harbor. I shall pay the expense of this trip as partial
+return for your father's kindness in getting me an invitation and your
+mother's kindness in allowing me to be one of your party."
+
+"Oh, then it isn't an elopement, but a legacy. Has the wicked but
+wealthy relative died?"
+
+"Yes," said Dorothy solemnly, her eyes on the floor.
+
+"Oh, I am so sorry for what I have just said!"
+
+"You always speak without thinking," chided her mother.
+
+"Yes, don't I? But, you see, I thought somehow that Dorothy had no
+relatives; but if she had one who was wealthy, and who allowed her to
+slave at sewing, then I say he was wicked, dead or alive, so there!"
+
+"When work is paid for it is not slavery," commented Sabina with
+severity and justice.
+
+The sewing girl looked up at her.
+
+"My grandfather, in Virginia, owned slaves before the war, and I have
+often thought that any curse which may have been attached to slavery
+has at least partly been expiated by me, as foreshadowed in the Bible,
+where it says that the sins of the fathers shall affect the third or
+fourth generations. I was thinking of that when I spoke of the
+shackles falling from my wrists, for sometimes, Miss Kempt, you have
+made me doubt whether wages and slavery are as incompatible as you
+appear to imagine. My father, who was a clergyman, often spoke to me
+of his father's slaves, and while he never defended the institution, I
+think the past in his mind was softened by a glamor that possibly
+obscured the defects of life on the plantation. But often in
+depression and loneliness I have thought I would rather have been one
+of my grandfather's slaves than endure the life I have been called
+upon to lead."
+
+"Oh, Dorothy, don't talk like that, or you'll make me cry," pleaded
+Kate. "Let us be cheerful whatever happens. Tell us about the money.
+Begin 'Once upon a time,' and then everything will be all right. No
+matter how harrowing such a story begins, it always ends with lashin's
+and lashin's of money, or else with a prince in a gorgeous uniform and
+gold lace, and you get the half of his kingdom. Do go on."
+
+Dorothy looked up at her impatient friend, and a radiant cheerfulness
+chased away the gathering shadows from her face.
+
+"Well, once upon a time I lived very happily with my father in a
+little rectory in a little town near the Hudson River. His family had
+been ruined by the war, and when the plantation was sold, or allowed
+to go derelict, whatever money came from it went to his elder and only
+brother. My father was a dreamy scholar and not a business man as his
+brother seems to have been. My mother had died when I was a child; I
+do not remember her. My father was the kindest and most patient of
+men, and all I know he taught me. We were very poor, and I undertook
+the duties of housekeeper, which I performed as well as I was able,
+constantly learning by my failures. But my father was so indifferent
+to material comforts that there were never any reproaches. He taught
+me all that I know in the way of what you might call accomplishments,
+and they were of a strangely varied order-- a smattering of Latin and
+Greek, a good deal of French, history, literature, and even dancing,
+as well as music, for he was an excellent musician. Our meager income
+ceased with my father's life, and I had to choose what I should do to
+earn my board and keep, like Orphant Annie, in Whitcomb Riley's poem.
+There appeared to be three avenues open to me. I could be a governess,
+domestic servant, or dressmaker. I had already earned something at the
+latter occupation, and I thought if I could set up in business for
+myself, there was a greater chance of gaining an independence along
+that line than either as a governess or servant. But to do this I
+needed at least a little capital.
+
+"Although there had been no communication between the two brothers for
+many years, I had my uncle's address, and I wrote acquainting him with
+the fact of my father's death, and asking for some assistance to set
+up in business for myself, promising to repay the amount advanced with
+interest as soon as I was able, for although my father had never said
+anything against his elder brother, I somehow had divined, rather than
+knew, that he was a hard man, and his answering letter gave proof of
+that, for it contained no expression of regret for his brother's
+death. My uncle declined to make the advance I asked for, saying that
+many years before he had given my father two hundred dollars which had
+never been repaid. I was thus compelled, for the time at least, to
+give up my plan for opening a dressmaking establishment, even on the
+smallest scale, and was obliged to take a situation similar to that
+which I hold here. In three years I was able to save the two hundred
+dollars, which I sent to my uncle, and promised to remit the interest
+if he would tell me the age of the debt. He replied giving the
+information, and enclosing a receipt for the principal, with a very
+correct mathematical statement of the amount of interest if compounded
+annually, as was his legal right, but expressing his readiness to
+accept simple interest, and give me a receipt in full."
+
+"The brute!" ejaculated Katherine, which remark brought upon her a
+mild rebuke from her mother on intemperance of language.
+
+"Well, go on," said Katherine, unabashed.
+
+"I merely mention this detail," continued Dorothy, "as an object
+lesson in honesty. Never before since the world began was there such a
+case of casting bread upon the waters as was my sending the two
+hundred dollars. My uncle appears to have been a most methodical man.
+He filed away my letter which contained the money, also a typewritten
+copy of his reply, and when he died, it was these documents which
+turned the attention of the legal arm who acted for him to myself, for
+my uncle had left no will. The Californian firm communicated with
+lawyers in New York, and they began a series of very cautious
+inquiries, which at last resulted, after I had furnished certain
+proofs asked for, in my being declared heiress to my uncle's estate."
+
+"And how much did you get? How much did you get?" demanded Katherine.
+
+"I asked the lawyers from New York to deposit ten thousand dollars for
+me in the Sixth National Bank of this town, and they did so. It was to
+draw a little check against that deposit, and thus learn if it was
+real, that I went out to-day."
+
+"Ten thousand dollars," murmured Katherine, in accents of deep
+disappointment. "Is that all?"
+
+"Isn't that enough?" asked Dorothy, with a twinkle in her eyes.
+
+"No, you deserve ten times as much, and I'm not going to New York or
+Boston at your expense to buy new dresses. Not likely! I will attend
+the ball in my calico."
+
+Dorothy laughed quietly, and drew from the little satchel she wore at
+her side a letter, which she handed to Katherine.
+
+"It's private and confidential," she warned her friend.
+
+"Oh, I won't tell any one," said Katherine, unfolding it. She read
+eagerly half-way down the page, then sprang to her feet on the top of
+the table, screaming:
+
+"Fifteen million dollars! Fifteen million dollars!" and, swinging her
+arms back and forth like an athlete about to leap, sprang to the
+floor, nearly upsetting the little table, tray and all, as she
+embraced Dorothy Amhurst.
+
+"Fifteen millions! That's something like! Why, mother, do you realize
+that we have under our roof one of the richest young women in the
+world? Don't you see that the rest of this conference must take place
+in our drawing-room under the most solemn auspices? The idea of our
+keeping such an heiress in the attic!"
+
+"I believe," said Sabina, slowly and coldly, "that Mr. Rockefeller's
+income is--"
+
+"Oh, blow Mr. Rockefeller and his income!" cried the indignant younger
+sister.
+
+"Katherine!" pleaded the mother tearfully.
+
+  CHAPTER III
+
+ ON DECK
+
+THROUGHOUT the long summer day a gentle excitement had fluttered the
+hearts of those ladies, young, or not so young, who had received
+invitations to the ball on board the "Consternation" that night. The
+last touches were given to creations on which had been spent skill,
+taste, and money. Our three young women, being most tastefully and
+fashionably attired, were in high spirits, which state of feeling was
+exhibited according to the nature of each; Sabina rather stately in
+her exaltation; Dorothy quiet and demure; while Katherine, despite her
+mother's supplications, would not be kept quiet, but swung her
+graceful gown this way and that, practising the slide of a waltz, and
+quoting W. R. Gilbert, as was her custom. She glided over the floor in
+rhythm with her chant.
+
+  "When I first put this uniform on
+   I said, as I looked in the glass,
+   'It's one to a million
+    That any civilian
+    My figure and form will surpass.'"
+
+Meanwhile, in a room downstairs that good-natured veteran Captain
+Kempt was telling the latest stories to his future son-in-law, a young
+officer of the American Navy, who awaited, with dutiful impatience,
+the advent of the serene Sabina. When at last the ladies came down the
+party set out through the gathering darkness of this heavenly summer
+night for the private pier from which they were privileged, because of
+Captain Kempt's official standing, to voyage to the cruiser on the
+little revenue cutter "Whip-poor-will," which was later on to convey
+the Secretary of the Navy and his entourage across the same
+intervening waters. Just before they reached the pier their steps were
+arrested by the boom of a cannon, followed instantly by the sudden
+apparition of the "Consternation" picked out in electric light; masts,
+funnel and hull all outlined by incandescent stars.
+
+"How beautiful!" cried Sabina, whose young man stood beside her. "It
+is as if a gigantic racket, all of one color, had burst, and hung
+suspended there like the planets of heaven."
+
+"It reminds me," whispered Katherine to Dorothy, "of an overgrown
+pop-corn ball," at which remark the two girls were frivolous enough to
+laugh.
+
+"Crash!" sounded a cannon from an American ship, and then the white
+squadron became visible in a blaze of lightning. And now all the
+yachts and other craft on the waters flaunted their lines of fire, and
+the whole Bay was illuminated like a lake in Fairyland.
+
+"Now," said Captain Kempt with a chuckle, "watch the Britisher. I
+think she's going to show us some color," and as he spoke there
+appeared, spreading from nest to mast, a huge sheet of blue, with four
+great stars which pointed the corners of a parallelogram, and between
+the stars shone a huge white anchor. Cheers rang out from the crew of
+the "Consternation," and the band on board played "The Star-Spangled
+Banner."
+
+"That," said Captain Kempt in explanation, "is the flag of the United
+States Secretary of the Navy, who will be with us to-night. The
+visitors have kept very quiet about this bit of illumination, but our
+lads got on to the secret about a week ago, and I'll be very much
+disappointed if they don't give 'em tit for tat."
+
+When the band on the "Consternation" ceased playing, all lights went
+out on the American squadron, and then on the flagship appeared from
+mast to mast a device with the Union Jack in the corner, a great red
+cross dividing the flag into three white squares. As this illumination
+flashed out the American band struck up the British national anthem,
+and the outline lights appeared again.
+
+"That," said the captain, "is the British man-o'-war's flag."
+
+The "Whip-poor-will" speedily whisked the party and others across the
+sparkling waters to the foot of the grand stairway which had been
+specially constructed to conduct the elect from the tide to the deck.
+It was more than double as broad as the ordinary gangway, was carpeted
+from top to bottom, and on every step stood a blue-jacket, each as
+steady as if cast in bronze, the line forming, as one might say, a
+living handrail rising toward the dark sky.
+
+Captain Kempt and his wife went first, followed by Sabina and her
+young man with the two girls in their wake.
+
+"Aren't those men splendid?" whispered Katherine to her friend. "I
+wish each held an old-fashioned torch. I do love a sailor."
+
+"So do I," said Dorothy, then checked herself, and laughed a little.
+
+"I guess we all do," sighed Katherine.
+
+On deck the bluff captain of the "Consternation," in resplendent
+uniform, stood beside Lady Angela Burford of the British Embassy at
+Washington, to receive the guests of the cruiser. Behind these two
+were grouped an assemblage of officers and very fashionably dressed
+women, chatting vivaciously with each other. As Dorothy looked at the
+princess-like Lady Angela it seemed as if she knew her; as if here
+were one who had stepped out of an English romance. Her tall, proudly
+held figure made the stoutish captain seem shorter than he actually
+was. The natural haughtiness of those classic features was somewhat
+modified by a pro tem smile. Captain Kempt looked back over his
+shoulder and said in a low voice:
+
+"Now, young ladies, best foot forward. The Du Maurier woman is to
+receive the Gibson girls."
+
+"I know I shall laugh, and I fear I shall giggle," said Katherine, but
+she encountered a glance from her elder sister quite as haughty as any
+Lady Angela might have bestowed, and all thought of merriment fled for
+the moment; thus the ordeal passed conventionally without Katherine
+either laughing or giggling.
+
+Sabina and her young man faded away into the crowd. Captain Kempt was
+nodding to this one and that of his numerous acquaintances, and
+Katherine felt Dorothy shrink a little closer to her as a tall,
+unknown young man deftly threaded his way among the people, making
+directly for the Captain, whom he seized by the hand in a grasp of the
+most cordial friendship.
+
+"Captain Kempt, I am delighted to meet you again. My name is
+Drummond-- Lieutenant Drummond, and I had the pleasure of being
+introduced to you at that dinner a week or two ago."
+
+"The pleasure was mine, sir, the pleasure was mine," exclaimed the
+Captain with a cordiality equal to that with which he had been
+greeted. He had not at first the least recollection of the young man,
+but the Captain was something of an amateur politician, and possessed
+all a politician's expertness in facing the unknown, and making the
+most of any situation in which he found himself.
+
+"Oh, yes, Lieutenant, I remember very well that excellent song you--"
+
+"Isn't it a perfect night?" gasped the Lieutenant. "I think we are to
+be congratulated on our weather."
+
+He still clung to the Captain's hand, and shook it again so warmly
+that the Captain said to himself:
+
+"I must have made an impression on this young fellow," then aloud he
+replied jauntily:
+
+"Oh, we always have good weather this time of year. You see, the
+United States Government runs the weather. Didn't you know that? Yes,
+our Weather Bureau is considered the best in the world."
+
+The Lieutenant laughed heartily, although a hollow note intervened,
+for the young man had got to the end of his conversation, realized he
+could not shake hands for a third time, yet did not know what more to
+say. The suavity of the politician came to his rescue in just the form
+the Lieutenant had hoped.
+
+"Lieutenant Drummond, allow me to introduce my wife to you."
+
+The lady bowed.
+
+"And my daughter, Katherine, and Miss Amhurst, a friend of ours--
+Lieutenant Drummond, of the 'Consternation.'"
+
+"I wonder," said the Lieutenant, as if the thought had just occurred
+to him, "if the young ladies would like to go to a point where they
+can have a comprehensive view of the decorations. I-- I may not be the
+best guide, but I am rather well acquainted with the ship, you know."
+
+"Don't ask me," said Captain Kempt. "Ask the girls. Everything I've
+had in life has come to me because I asked, and if I didn't get it the
+first time, I asked again."
+
+"Of course we want to see the decorations," cried Katherine with
+enthusiasm, and so bowing to the Captain and Mrs. Kempt, the
+Lieutenant led the young women down the deck, until he came to an
+elevated spot out of the way of all possible promenaders, on which had
+been placed in a somewhat secluded position, yet commanding a splendid
+view of the throng, a settee with just room for two, that had been
+taken from some one's cabin. A blue-jacket stood guard over it, but at
+a nod from the Lieutenant he disappeared.
+
+"Hello!" cried Katherine, "reserved seats, eh? How different from a
+theatre chair, where you are entitled to your place by holding a
+colored bit of cardboard. Here a man with a cutlass stands guard. It
+gives one a notion of the horrors of war, doesn't it, Dorothy?"
+
+The Lieutenant laughed quite as heartily as if he had not himself
+hoped to occupy the position now held by the sprightly Katherine. He
+was cudgelling his brain to solve the problem represented by the adage
+"Two is company, three is none." The girls sat together on the settee
+and gazed out over the brilliantly lighted, animated throng. People
+were still pouring up the gangways, and the decks were rapidly
+becoming crowded with a many-colored, ever-shifting galaxy of
+humanity. The hum of conversation almost drowned the popular
+selections being played by the cruiser's excellent band. Suddenly one
+popular selection was cut in two. The sound of the instruments ceased
+for a moment, then they struck up "The Stars and Stripes for Ever."
+
+"Hello," cried Katherine, "can your band play Sousa?"
+
+"I should say we could," boasted the Lieutenant, "and we can play his
+music, in a way to give some hints to Mr. Sousa's own musicians."
+
+"To beat the band, eh?-- Sousa's band?" rejoined Katherine, dropping
+into slang.
+
+"Exactly," smiled the Lieutenant, "and now, young ladies, will you
+excuse me for a few moments? This musical selection means that your
+Secretary of the Navy is on the waters, and I must be in my place with
+the rest of the officers to receive him and his staff with all
+ceremony. Please promise you will not leave this spot till I return: I
+implore you."
+
+"Better put the blue-jacket on guard over us," laughed Katherine.
+
+"By Jove! a very good idea."
+
+Dorothy saw all levity depart from his face, giving way to a look of
+sternness and command. Although he was engaged in a joke, the
+subordinate must see no sign of fooling in his countenance. He said a
+sharp word to a blue-jacket, who nimbly sprang to the end of the
+settee, raised his hand in salute, and stiffened himself to an
+automaton. Then the girls saw the tall figure of the Lieutenant
+wending its way to the spot where the commander stood.
+
+"I say, Dorothy, we're prisoners. I wonder what this Johnny would do
+if we attempted to fly. Isn't the Lieutenant sumptuous?"
+
+"He seems a very agreeable person," murmured Dorothy.
+
+"Agreeable! Why, he's splendid. I tell you, Dorothy, I'm going to have
+the first dance with him. I'm the eldest. He's big enough to divide
+between two small girls like us, you know."
+
+"I don't intend to dance," said Dorothy.
+
+"Nonsense, you're not going to sit here all night with nobody to speak
+to. I'll ask the Lieutenant to bring you a man. He'll take two or
+three blue-jackets and capture anybody you want."
+
+"Katherine," said Dorothy, almost as severely as if it were the elder
+sister who spoke, "if you say anything like that, I'll go back to the
+house."
+
+"You can't get back. I'll appeal to the guard. I'll have you locked up
+if you don't behave yourself."
+
+"You should behave yourself. Really, Katherine, you must be careful
+what you say, or you'll make me feel very unhappy."
+
+Katherine caught her by the elbow, and gave it an affectionate little
+squeeze.
+
+"Don't be frightened, Miss Propriety, I wouldn't make you unhappy for
+the world. But surely you're going to dance?"
+
+Dorothy shook her head.
+
+"Some other time. Not to-night. There are too many people here. I
+shouldn't enjoy it, and-- there are other reasons. This is all so new
+and strange to me: these brilliant men and beautiful women-- the
+lights, the music, everything-- it is as if I had stepped into another
+world; something I had read about, or perhaps dreamed about, and never
+expected to see."
+
+"Why, you dear girl, I'm not going to dance either, then."
+
+"Oh, yes, you will, Katherine; you must."
+
+"I couldn't be so selfish as to leave you here all alone."
+
+"It isn't selfish at all, Katherine. I shall enjoy myself completely
+here. I don't really wish to talk to any one, but simply to enjoy my
+dream, with just a little fear at the bottom of my heart that I shall
+suddenly wake up, rubbing my eyes, in the sewing room."
+
+Katherine pinched her.
+
+"Now are you awake?"
+
+Dorothy smiled, still dreaming.
+
+"Hello!" cried Katherine, with renewed animation, "they've got the
+Secretary safe aboard the lugger, and they seem to be clearing the
+decks for action. Here is my dear Lieutenant returning; tall even
+among tall men. Look at him. He's in a great hurry, yet so polite, and
+doesn't want to bump against anybody. And now, Dorothy, don't you be
+afraid. I shall prove a perfect model of diffidence. You will be proud
+of me when you learn with what timidity I pronounce prunes and prism.
+I think I must languish a little at him. I don't know quite how it's
+done, but in old English novels the girls always languished, and
+perhaps an Englishman expects a little languishment in his. I wonder
+if he comes of a noble family. If he doesn't, I don't think I'll
+languish very much. Still, what matters the pomp of pageantry and
+pride of race-- isn't that the way the poem runs? I love our dear
+little Lieutenant for himself alone, and I think I will have just one
+dance with him, at least."
+
+Drummond had captured a camp-stool somewhere, and this he placed at
+right angles to the settee, so that he might face the two girls, and
+yet not interrupt their view. The sailor on guard once more faded
+away, and the band now struck up the music of the dance.
+
+"Well," cried Drummond cheerfully, "I've got everything settled. I've
+received the Secretary of the Navy: our captain is to dance with his
+wife, and the Secretary is Lady Angela's partner. There they go!"
+
+For a few minutes the young people watched the dance, then the
+Lieutenant said:
+
+"Ladies, I am disappointed that you have not complimented our
+electrical display."
+
+"I am sure it's very nice, indeed, and most ingenious," declared
+Dorothy, speaking for the first time that evening to the officer, but
+Katherine, whose little foot was tapping the deck to the dance music,
+tossed her head, and declared nonchalantly that it was all very well
+as a British effort at illumination, but she begged the young man to
+remember that America was the home of electricity.
+
+"Where would you have been if it were not for Edison?"
+
+"I suppose," said the Lieutenant cheerfully, "that we should have been
+where Moses was when the candle went out-- in the dark."
+
+"You might have had torches," said Dorothy. "My friend forgets she was
+wishing the sailors held torches on that suspended stairway up the
+ship's side."
+
+"I meant electric torches-- Edison torches, of course."
+
+Katherine was displeased at the outlook. She was extremely fond of
+dancing, and here this complacent young man had planted himself down
+on a camp stool to talk of electricity.
+
+"Miss Kempt, I am sorry that you are disappointed at our display. Your
+slight upon British electrical engineering leaves us unscathed,
+because this has been done by a foreign mechanic, whom I wish to
+present to you."
+
+"Oh, indeed," said Katherine, rather in the usual tone of her elder
+sister. "I don't dance with mechanics, thank you."
+
+She emphasized the light fantastic word, but the Lieutenant did not
+take the hint; he merely laughed again in an exasperatingly
+good-natured way, and said:
+
+"Lady Angela is going to be Jack Lamont's partner for the next waltz."
+
+"Oh," said Katherine loftily, "Lady Angela may dance with any
+blacksmith that pleases her, but I don't. I'm taking it for granted
+that Jack Lamont is your electrical tinsmith."
+
+"Yes, he is, and I think him by all odds the finest fellow aboard this
+ship. It's quite likely you have read about his sister. She is a year
+older than Jack, very beautiful, cultured, everything that a grande
+dame should be, yet she has given away her huge estate to the
+peasantry, and works with them in the fields, living as they do, and
+faring as they do. There was an article about her in one of the French
+reviews not long ago. She is called the Princess Natalia."
+
+"The Princess Natalia!" echoed Katherine, turning her face toward the
+young man. "How can Princess Natalia be a sister of Jack Lamont? Did
+she marry some old prince, and take to the fields in disgust?"
+
+"Oh, no; Jack Lamont is a Russian. He is called Prince Ivan Lermontoff
+when he's at home, but we call him Jack Lamont for short. He's going
+to help me on the Russian business I told you of."
+
+"What Russian business?" asked Katherine. "I don't remember your
+speaking of it."
+
+Dorothy went white, edged a little way from her friend, while her
+widening eyes flashed a warning at the Lieutenant, who, too late,
+remembered that this conversation on Russia had taken place during the
+walk from the bank. The young man coughed slightly behind his open
+hand, reddened, and stammered:
+
+"Oh, I thought I had told you. Didn't I mention the prince to you as
+we were coming here?"
+
+"Not that I recollect," said Katherine. "Is he a real, genuine prince?
+A right down regular, regular, regular royal prince?"
+
+"I don't know about the royalty, but he's a prince in good standing in
+his own land, and he is also an excellent blacksmith." The Lieutenant
+chuckled a little. "He and his sister have both been touched a good
+deal by Tolstoian doctrine. Jack is the most wonderful inventor, I
+think, that is at present on the earth, Edison notwithstanding. Why,
+he is just now engaged on a scheme by which he can float houses from
+the mountains here down to New York. Float them-- pipe-line them would
+perhaps be a better term. You know they have pipe-lines to carry
+petroleum. Very well; Jack has a solution that dissolves stone as
+white sugar dissolves in tea, and he believes he can run the fluid
+from the quarries to where building is going on. It seems that he then
+puts this liquid into molds, and there you have the stone again. I
+don't understand the process myself, but Jack tells me it's
+marvelously cheap, and marvelously effective. He picked up the idea
+from nature one time when he and I were on our vacation at Detroit."
+
+"Detroit, Michigan?"
+
+"The Detroit River."
+
+"Well, that runs between Michigan and Canada."
+
+"No, no, this is in France. I believe the real name of the river is
+the Tarn. There's a gorge called Detroit-- the strait, you know.
+Wonderful place-- tremendous chasm. You go down in a boat, and all the
+tributary rivers pour into the main stream like jets from the nozzle
+of a hose. They tell me this is caused by the rain percolating through
+the dead leaves on the surface of the ground far above, and thus the
+water becomes saturated with carbonic acid gas, and so dissolves the
+limestone until the granite is reached, and the granite forms the bed
+of these underground rivers. It all seemed to me very wonderful, but
+it struck Jack on his scientific side, and he has been experimenting
+ever since. He says he'll be able to build a city with a hose next
+year."
+
+"Where does he live?"
+
+"On the cruiser just at present. I was instrumental in getting him
+signed on as John Lamont, and he passed without question. No wonder,
+for he has scientific degrees from all sorts of German universities,
+from Oxford, and one or two institutions in the States. When at home
+he lives in St. Petersburg."
+
+"Has he a palace there?"
+
+Drummond laughed.
+
+"He's got a blacksmith shop, with two rooms above, and I'm going to
+stop with him for a few months as soon as I get my leave. When the
+cruiser reaches England we pay off, and I expect to have nothing to do
+for six months, so Jack and I will make for St. Petersburg."
+
+"Why do you call him Lamont? Is it taken from his real name of
+what-d'ye-call-it-off?"
+
+"Lermontoff? Yes. The Czar Demetrius, some time about the beginning of
+the seventeenth century, established a Scottish Guard, just as Louis
+XI did in France two hundred years before, and there came over from
+Scotland Lamonts, Carmichaels, Buchanans and others, on whom were
+bestowed titles and estates. Prince Ivan Lermontoff is a descendant of
+the original Lamont, who was an officer in the Scottish Guard of
+Russia.
+
+"So he is really a Scotchman?"
+
+"That's what I tell him when he annoys me, as I am by way of being a
+Scotchman myself. Ah, the waltz is ended. Will you excuse me a moment
+while I fetch his Highness?"
+
+Dorothy inclined her head, and Katherine fairly beamed permission.
+
+"Oh, Dorothy," she exclaimed, when the Lieutenant was out of hearing,
+"think of it! A real prince, and my ambition has never risen higher
+than a paltry count, or some plebeian of that sort. He's mine,
+Dorothy; I found him first."
+
+"I thought you had appropriated the Lieutenant?"
+
+"What are lieutenants to me? The proud daughter of a captain (retired)
+cannot stoop to a mere lieutenant."
+
+"You wouldn't have to stoop far, Kate, with so tall a man as Mr.
+Drummond."
+
+"You are beginning to take notice, aren't you, Dot? But I bestow the
+Lieutenant freely upon you, because I'm going to dance with the
+Prince, even if I have to ask him myself.
+
+  She'll toddle away, as all aver,
+  With the Lord High Executioner.
+
+Ah, here they come. Isn't he perfectly splendid? Look at his beard!
+Just the color of a brand-new twenty-dollar gold piece. See that broad
+ribbon diagonally across him. I wonder what it means. And gaze at
+those scintillating orders on his breast. Good gracious me, isn't he
+splendid?"
+
+"Yes, for a blacksmith. I wonder if he beat those stars out on his
+anvil. He isn't nearly so tall as Lieutenant Drummond."
+
+"Dorothy, I'll not allow you to disparage my Prince. How can you be so
+disagreeable? I thought from the very first that the Lieutenant was
+too tall. If the Prince expects me to call him 'your Highness,' he'll
+be disappointed."
+
+"You are quite right, Kate. The term would suit the Lieutenant
+better."
+
+"Dorothy, I believe you're jealous."
+
+"Oh, no, I'm not," said Dorothy, shaking her head and laughing, and
+then "Hush!" she added, as Katherine was about to speak again.
+
+The next moment the young men stood before them, and, introductions
+being soberly performed, the Prince lost no time in begging Katherine
+to favor him with a dance, to which request the young woman was
+graciously pleased to accede, without, however, exhibiting too much
+haste about her acceptance, and so they walked off together.
+
+  CHAPTER IV
+
+ "AT LAST ALONE"
+
+"SOME one has taken the camp stool," said Lieutenant Drummond. "May I
+sit here?" and the young woman was good enough to give the desired
+permission.
+
+When he had seated himself he glanced around, then impulsively held
+out his hand.
+
+"Miss Amhurst," he said, "how are you?"
+
+"Very well, thank you," replied the girl with a smile, and after half
+a moment's hesitation she placed her hand in his.
+
+"Of course you dance, Miss Amhurst?"
+
+"Yes, but not to-night. I am here merely as a looker-on in Vienna. You
+must not allow politeness to keep you away from the floor, or,
+perhaps, I should say the deck. I don't mind being alone in the
+least."
+
+"Now, Miss Amhurst, that is not a hint, is it? Tell me that I have not
+already tired you of my company."
+
+"Oh, no, but I do not wish you to feel that simply because we met
+casually the other day you are compelled to waste your evening sitting
+out."
+
+"Indeed, Miss Amhurst, although I should very much like to have the
+pleasure of dancing with you, there is no one else here that I should
+care to ask. I have quailed under the eagle eye of my Captain once or
+twice this evening, and I have been rather endeavoring to keep out of
+his sight. I fear he has found something new about me of which to
+disapprove, so I have quite determined not to dance, unless you would
+consent to dance with me, in which case I am quite ready to brave his
+reproachful glances."
+
+"Have you done anything wrong lately?"
+
+"Heaven only knows! I try not to be purposely wicked, and indeed have
+put forth extra efforts to be extra good, but it seems all of no
+avail. I endeavor to go about the ship with a subdued, humble,
+unobtrusive air, but this is rather difficult for a person of my size.
+I don't think a man can droop successfully unless he's under six feet
+in height."
+
+Dorothy laughed with quiet content. She was surprised to find herself
+so much at her ease with him, and so mildly happy. They shared a
+secret together, and that of itself was an intangible bond linking him
+with her who had no ties with any one else. She liked him; had liked
+him from the first; and his unconcealed delight in her company was
+gratifying to a girl who heretofore had found none to offer her the
+gentle courtesies of life.
+
+"Is it the Russian business again? You do not look very much troubled
+about it."
+
+"Ah, that is-- that is--" he stammered in apparent confusion, then
+blurted out, "because you-- because I am sitting here. Although I have
+met you but once before, it seems somehow as if I had known you
+always, and my slight anxiety that I told you of fades away in your
+presence. I hope you don't think I am forward in saying this, but
+really to-night, when I saw you at the head of the gangway, I could
+scarcely refrain from going directly to you and greeting you. I am
+afraid I made rather a hash of it with Captain Kempt. He is too much
+of a gentleman to have shown any surprise at my somewhat boisterous
+accosting of him, and you know I didn't remember him at all, but I saw
+that you were under his care, and chanced it. Luckily it seems to have
+been Captain Kempt after all, but I fear I surprised him, taking him
+by storm, as it were."
+
+"I thought you did it very nicely," said Dorothy, "and, indeed, until
+this moment I hadn't the least suspicion that you didn't recognize
+him. He is a dear old gentleman, and I'm very fond of him."
+
+"I say," said the Lieutenant, lowering his voice, "I nearly came a
+cropper when I spoke of that Russian affair before your friend. I was
+thinking of-- of-- well, I wasn't thinking of Miss Kempt--"
+
+"Oh, she never noticed anything," said Dorothy hurriedly. "You got out
+of that, too, very well. I thought of telling her I had met you before
+while she and I were in New York together, but the opportunity never
+seemed-- well, I couldn't quite explain, and, indeed, didn't wish to
+explain my own inexplicable conduct at the bank, and so trusted to
+chance. If you had greeted me first tonight, I suppose"-- she smiled
+and looked up at him-- "I suppose I should have brazened it out
+somehow."
+
+"Have you been in New York?"
+
+"Yes, we were there nearly a week."
+
+"Ah, that accounts for it."
+
+"Accounts for what?"
+
+"I have walked up and down every street, lane and alley in Bar Harbor,
+hoping to catch a glimpse of you. I have haunted the town, and all the
+time you were away."
+
+"No wonder the Captain frowns at you! Have you been neglecting your
+duty?"
+
+"Well, I have been stretching my shore leave just a little bit. I
+wanted to apologize for talking so much about myself as we walked from
+the bank."
+
+"It was very interesting, and, if you remember, we walked farther than
+I had intended."
+
+"Were your friends waiting for you, or had they gone?"
+
+"They were waiting for me."
+
+"I hope they weren't cross?"
+
+"Oh, no. I told them I had been detained. It happened not to be
+necessary to enter into details, so I was saved the task of
+explanation, and, besides, we had other interesting things to discuss.
+This function on the cruiser has loomed so large as a topic of
+conversation that there has been little need of any other subject to
+talk about for several days past."
+
+"I suppose you must have attended many grander occasions than this.
+Although we have endeavored to make a display, and although we possess
+a reasonably efficient band, still, a cruiser is not exactly designed
+for the use to which it is being put to-night. We have many
+disadvantages to overcome which are not met with in the sumptuous
+dwellings of New York and Bar Harbor."
+
+The girl's eyes were on the deck for some moments before she replied,
+then she looked across at the dancers, and finally said:
+
+"I think the ball on the 'Consternation' quite equals anything I have
+ever attended."
+
+"It is nice of you to say that. Praise from-- I won't name Sir Hubert
+Stanley-- but rather Lady Hubert Stanley-- is praise, indeed. And now,
+Miss Amhurst, since I have confessed my fruitless wanderings through
+Bar Harbor, may I not have the pleasure of calling upon you to-morrow
+or next day?"
+
+Her eyes were dreamily watching the dancers.
+
+"I suppose," she said slowly, with the flicker of a smile curving
+those enticing lips, "that since you were so very friendly with
+Captain Kempt to-night he may expect you to smoke a cigar with him,
+and it will possibly happen that Katherine and I, who are very fond of
+the Captain, may chance to come in while you are there."
+
+"Katherine? Ah, Katherine is the name of the young lady who was with
+you here-- Miss Kempt?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are stopping with the Kempts, then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I wonder if they'd think I was taking a liberty if I brought Jack
+Lamont with me?"
+
+"The Prince?" laughed Dorothy. "Is he a real prince?"
+
+"Oh, yes, there's no doubt about that. I shouldn't have taken the
+liberty of introducing him to you as Prince Lermontoff if he were not,
+as we say in Scotland, a real Mackay-- the genuine article. Well,
+then, the Prince and I will pay our respects to Captain Kempt
+to-morrow afternoon."
+
+"Did you say the Prince is going with you to Russia?"
+
+"Oh, yes. As I told you, I intend to live very quietly in St.
+Petersburg, and the Prince has his shop and a pair of rooms above it
+in a working quarter of the city. I shall occupy one of the rooms and
+he the other. The Prince is an excellent cook, so we shan't starve,
+even if we engage no servant."
+
+"Has the Prince given his estates away also?"
+
+"He hasn't given them away exactly, but he is a very indulgent
+landlord, and he spends so much money on his experiments and travel
+that, although he has a formidable income, he is very frequently quite
+short of money. Did you like him?"
+
+"Yes. Of course I saw him for a moment only. I wonder why they haven't
+returned. There's been several dances since they left."
+
+"Perhaps," said the Lieutenant, with a slight return of his
+stammering, "your friend may be as fond of dancing as Jack is."
+
+"You are still determined to go to Russia?"
+
+"Quite. There is absolutely no danger. I may not accomplish anything,
+but I'll have a try at it. The Prince has a good deal of influence in
+St. Petersburg, which he will use quietly on my behalf, so that I may
+see the important people. I shall be glad when the Captain ceases
+frowning--"
+
+Drummond was interrupted by a fellow-officer, who raised his cap, and
+begged a word with him.
+
+"I think, Drummond, the Captain wanted to see you."
+
+"Oh, did he say that?"
+
+"No, but I know he has left a note for you in your cabin. Shall I go
+and fetch it?"
+
+"I wish you would, Chesham, if you don't mind, and it isn't too much
+trouble."
+
+"No trouble at all. Delighted, I'm sure," said Chesham, again raising
+his cap and going off.
+
+"Now, I wonder what I have forgotten to do."
+
+Drummond heaved a sigh proportionate to himself.
+
+"Under the present condition of things a bit of neglect that would go
+unnoticed with another man is a sign of unrepentant villainy in me.
+Any other Lieutenant may steal a horse while I may not look over a
+hedge. You see how necessary it is for me to go to Russia, and get
+this thing smoothed over."
+
+"I think, perhaps, you are too sensitive, and notice slights where
+nothing of the kind is meant," said the girl.
+
+Chesham returned and handed Drummond a letter.
+
+"Will you excuse me a moment?" he said, and as she looked at him he
+flattered himself that he noticed a trace of anxiety in her eyes. He
+tore open the missive.
+
+"By Jove!" he cried.
+
+"What is it?" she could not prevent herself from saying, leaning
+forward.
+
+"I am ordered home. The Admiralty commands me to take the first
+steamer for England."
+
+"Is that serious?"
+
+He laughed with well-feigned hilarity.
+
+"Oh, no, not serious; it's just their way of doing things. They might
+easily have allowed me to come home in my own ship. My only fear is I
+shall have to take the train for New York early to-morrow morning.
+But," he said, holding out his hands, "it is not serious if you allow
+me to write to you, and if you will permit me to hope that I may
+receive an answer."
+
+She placed her hand in his, this time without hesitation.
+
+"You may write," she said, "and I will reply. I trust it is not
+serious."
+
+  CHAPTER V
+
+ AFTER THE OPERA IS OVER
+
+IN mid-afternoon of the day following the entertainment on board the
+"Consternation" our two girls were seated opposite one another under
+the rafters of the sewing room, in the listless, desultory manner of
+those who have not gone home till morning, till daylight did appear.
+The dominant note of a summer cottage is the rocking-chair, and there
+were two in the sewing room, where Katherine and Dorothy swayed gently
+back and forth as they talked. They sat close to the low, broad window
+which presented so beautiful a picture of the blue Bay and the white
+shipping. The huge "Consternation" lay moored with her broadside
+toward the town, all sign of festivity already removed from hull and
+rigging, and, to the scarcely slumber-satisfied eyes of the girls,
+something of the sadness of departure seemed to hang as a haze around
+the great ship. The girls were not discussing the past, but rather
+anticipating the future; forecasting it, with long, silent pauses
+intervening.
+
+"So you will not stay with us? You are determined to turn your wealthy
+back on the poor Kempt family?" Katherine was saying.
+
+"But I shall return to the Kempt family now and then, if they will let
+me. I must get away for a time and think. My life has suddenly become
+all topsy-turvy, and I need to get my bearings, as does a ship that
+has been through a storm and lost her reckoning."
+
+"'She dunno where she are,' as the song says."
+
+"Exactly: that is the state of things."
+
+"I think it's too bad, Dorothy, that you did not allow us to make
+public announcement of your good fortune. Just imagine what an ovation
+you would have had on board the cruiser last night if it had been
+known that the richest woman in that assemblage was a pretty, shy
+little creature sitting all by herself, and never indulging in even
+one dance."
+
+"I shouldn't in the least care for that sort of ovation, Kate, and if
+every one present were as well pleased with the festivities as I, they
+must all have enjoyed themselves immensely. I believe my friend Kate
+did my share of the dancing as well as her own."
+
+"'She danced, and she danced, and she danced them a' din.' I think
+those are the words of the Scottish song that the Prince quoted. He
+seems up in Scottish poetry, and does not even resent being called a
+Scotchman. This energetic person of the song seems to have danced them
+all to a standstill, as I understood him, for he informs me 'a' means
+'all' and 'din' means 'done,' but I told him I'd rather learn Russian
+than Scotch; it was so much easier, and his Highness was good enough
+to laugh at that. Didn't the Lieutenant ask you to dance at all?"
+
+"Oh, yes, he did."
+
+"And you refused?"
+
+"I refused."
+
+"I didn't think he had sense enough to ask a girl to dance."
+
+"You are ungrateful, Katherine. Remember he introduced you to the
+Prince."
+
+"Yes, that's so. I had forgotten. I shall never say anything against
+him again."
+
+"You like the Prince, then?"
+
+"Of all the crowned heads, emperors, kings, sultans, monarchs of every
+description, dukes, counts, earls, marquises, whom I have met, and who
+have pestered my life asking me to share their royal perquisites, I
+think I may say quite truthfully that I like this Jack Lamont better
+than any one of them."
+
+"Surely Prince Jack has not offered you his principality already?"
+
+"No, not yet, but with an eye to the future I have persuaded him to
+give up Tolstoi and read Mark Twain, who is not only equally humorous,
+but much more sensible than the Russian writer. Jack must not be
+allowed to give away his estates to the peasants as his silly sister
+has done. I may need them later on."
+
+"Oh, you've got that far, have you?"
+
+"I have got that far: he hasn't. He doesn't know anything about it,
+but I'll wake him up when the right time comes. There are many
+elements of sanity about him. He told me that he intended to give up
+his estates, but in the first place he had been too busy, and in the
+second he needed the money. His good sense, however, requires
+refining, so that he may get rid of the dross. I don't blame him; I
+blame Tolstoi. For instance, when I asked him if he had patented his
+liquid city invention, he said he did not wish to make a profit from
+his discovery, but intended it for the good of humanity at large.
+Imagine such an idiotic idea as that!"
+
+"I think such views are entirely to his credit," alarmed Dorothy.
+
+"Oh, of course, but the plan is not practicable. If he allows such an
+invention to slip through his fingers, the Standard Oil people will
+likely get hold of it, form a monopoly, and then where would humanity
+at large be? I tell him the right way is to patent it, make all the
+money he can, and use the cash for benefiting humanity under the
+direction of some charitable person like myself."
+
+"Did you suggest that to him?"
+
+"I did not intimate who the sensible person was, but I elucidated the
+principle of the thing."
+
+"Yes, and what did he say?"
+
+"Many things, Dorothy, many things. At one time he became confidential
+about his possessions in foreign lands. It seems he owns several
+castles, and when he visits any of them he cannot prevent the moujiks,
+if that is the proper term for the peasantry over there, from
+prostrating themselves on the ground as he passes by, beating their
+foreheads against the earth, and chanting, in choice Russian, the
+phrase: 'Defer, defer, here comes the Lord High Executioner,' or words
+to that effect. I told him I didn't see why he should interfere with
+so picturesque a custom, and he said if I visited one of his castles
+that these estimable people, at a word from him, would form a corduroy
+road in the mud with their bodies, so that I might step dry-shod from
+the carriage to the castle doors, and I stipulated that he should at
+least spread a bit of stair carpet over the poor wretches before I
+made my progress across his front yard."
+
+"Well, you did become confidential if you discussed a visit to
+Russia."
+
+"Yes, didn't we? I suppose you don't approve of my forward conduct?"
+
+"I am sure you acted with the utmost prudence, Kate."
+
+"I didn't lose any time, though, did I?"
+
+"I don't know how much time is required to attain the point of
+friendship you reached. I am inexperienced. It is true I have read of
+love at first sight, and I am merely waiting to be told whether or not
+this is an instance of it."
+
+"Oh, you are very diffident, aren't you, sitting there so bashfully!"
+
+"I may seem timid or bashful, but it's merely sleepiness."
+
+"You're a bit of a humbug, Dorothy."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I don't know why, but you are. No, it was not a case of love at first
+sight. It was a case of feminine vengeance. Yes, you may look
+surprised, but I'm telling the truth. After I walked so proudly off
+with his high mightiness, we had a most agreeable dance together; then
+I proposed to return to you, but the young man would not have it so,
+and for the moment I felt flattered. By and by I became aware,
+however, that it was not because of my company he avoided your
+vicinity, but that he was sacrificing himself for his friend."
+
+"What friend?"
+
+"Lieutenant Drummond, of course."
+
+"How was he sacrificing himself for Lieutenant Drummond?"
+
+"I surmise that the tall Lieutenant did not fall a victim to my wiles
+as I had at first supposed, but, in some unaccountable manner, one can
+never tell how these things happen; he was most anxious to be left
+alone with the coy Miss Dorothy Amhurst, who does not understand how
+long a time it takes to fall in love at first sight, although she has
+read of these things, dear, innocent girl. The first villain of the
+piece has said to the second villain of the piece: 'There's a
+superfluous young woman over on our bench; I'll introduce you to her.
+You lure her off to the giddy dance, and keep her away as long as you
+can, and I'll do as much for you some day.'
+
+"Whereupon Jack Lamont probably swore-- I understand that profanity is
+sometimes distressingly prevalent aboard ship-- but nevertheless he
+allowed the Lieutenant to lead him like a lamb to the slaughter. Well,
+not being powerful enough to throw him overboard when I realized the
+state of the case, I did the next best thing. I became cloyingly sweet
+to him. I smiled upon him: I listened to his farrago of nonsense about
+the chemical components of his various notable inventions, as if a
+girl attends a ball to study chemistry! Before half an hour had passed
+the infant had come to the conclusion that here was the first really
+sensible woman he had ever met. He soon got to making love to me, as
+the horrid phrase goes, as if love were a mixture to be compounded of
+this ingredient and that, and then shaken before taken. I am delighted
+to add, as a testimony to my own powers of pleasing, that Jack soon
+forgot he was a sacrifice, and really, with a little instruction, he
+would become a most admirable flirt. He is coming to call upon me this
+afternoon, and then he will get his eyes opened. I shall tread on him
+as if he were one of his own moujiks."
+
+"What a wonderful imagination you have, Kate. All you have said is
+pure fancy. I saw he was taken with you from the very first. He never
+even glanced at me."
+
+"Of course not: he wasn't allowed to."
+
+"Nonsense, Kate. If I thought for a moment you were really in earnest,
+I should say you underestimate your own attractions."
+
+"Oh, that's all very well, Miss Dorothy Dimple; you are trying to draw
+a red herring across the trail, because you know that what I want to
+hear is why Lieutenant Drummond was so anxious to get me somewhere
+else. What use did he make of the opportunity the good-natured Prince
+and my sweet complacency afforded him?"
+
+"He said nothing which might not have been overheard by any one."
+
+"Come down to particulars, Dorothy, and let me judge. You are so
+inexperienced, you know, that it is well to take counsel with a more
+sophisticated friend."
+
+"I don't just remember--"
+
+"No, I thought you wouldn't. Did he talk of himself or of you?"
+
+"Of himself, of course. He told me why he was going to Russia, and
+spoke of some checks he had met in his profession."
+
+"Ah! Did he cash them?"
+
+"Obstacles-- difficulties that were in his way, which he hoped to
+overcome."
+
+"Oh, I see. And did you extend that sympathy which--"
+
+There was a knock at the door, and the maid came in, bearing a card.
+
+"Good gracious me!" cried Katherine, jumping to her feet. "The Prince
+has come. What a stupid thing that we have no mirror in this room, and
+it's a sewing and sitting room, too. Do I look all right, Dorothy?"
+
+"To me you seem perfection."
+
+"Ah, well, I can glance at a glass on the next floor. Won't you come
+down and see him trampled on?"
+
+"No, thank you. I shall most likely drop off to sleep, and enjoy forty
+winks in this very comfortable chair. Don't be too harsh with the
+young man, Kate. You are quite wrong in your surmises about him. The
+Lieutenant never made any such arrangement as you suggest, because he
+talked of nothing but the most commonplace subjects all the time I was
+with him, as I was just about to tell you, only you seem in such a
+hurry to get away."
+
+"Oh, that doesn't deceive me in the least. I'll be back shortly, with
+the young man's scalp dangling at my belt. Now we shan't be long," and
+with that Katherine went skipping downstairs.
+
+Dorothy picked up a magazine that lay on the table, and for a few
+moments turned its leaves from one story to another, trying to
+interest herself, but failing. Then she lifted the newspaper that lay
+at her feet, but it also was soon cast aside, and she leaned back in
+her chair with half-closed eyes, looking out at the cruiser in the
+Bay. A slight haze arose between her and the ship, thickening and
+thickening until at last it obscured the vessel.
+
+Dorothy was oppressed by a sense of something forgotten, and she
+strove in vain to remember what it was. It was of the utmost
+importance, she was certain, and this knowledge made her mental
+anxiety the greater.
+
+At last out of the gloom she saw Sabina approach, clothed in rags, and
+then a flash of intuition enabled her to grasp the difficulty. Through
+her remissness the ball dress was unfinished, and the girl, springing
+to her feet, turned intuitively to the sewing-machine, when the
+ringing laugh of Katherine dissolved the fog.
+
+"Why, you poor girl, what's the matter with you? Are you sitting down
+to drudgery again? You've forgotten the fortune!"
+
+"Are-- are you back already?" cried Dorothy, somewhat wildly.
+
+"Already! Why, bless me, I've been away an hour and a quarter. You
+dear girl, you've been asleep and in slavery again!"
+
+"I think I was," admitted Dorothy with a sigh.
+
+  CHAPTER VI
+
+ FROM SEA TO MOUNTAIN
+
+THREE days later the North Atlantic squadron of the British Navy
+sailed down the coast from Halifax, did not even pause at Bar Harbor,
+but sent a wireless telegram to the "Consternation," which pulled up
+anchor and joined the fleet outside, and so the war-ships departed for
+another port.
+
+Katherine stood by the broad window in the sewing room in her favorite
+attitude, her head sideways against the pane, her eyes languidly
+gazing upon the Bay, fingers drumming this time a very slow march on
+the window sill. Dorothy sat in a rocking-chair, reading a letter for
+the second time. There had been silence in the room for some minutes,
+accentuated rather than broken by the quiet drumming of the girl's
+fingers on the window sill. Finally Katherine breathed a deep sigh and
+murmured to herself:
+
+  "'Far called our Navy fades away,
+        On dune and headland sinks the fire.
+    Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
+        Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.'
+
+I wonder if I've got the lines right," she whispered to herself. She
+had forgotten there was anyone else in the room, and was quite
+startled when Dorothy spoke.
+
+"Kate, that's a solemn change, from Gilbert to Kipling. I always judge
+your mood by your quotations. Has life suddenly become too serious for
+'Pinafore' or the 'Mikado'?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Katherine, without turning round. "They are
+humorous all, and so each furnishes something suitable for the
+saddened mind. Wisdom comes through understanding your alphabet
+properly. For instance, first there was Gilbert, and that gave us G;
+then came Kipling, and he gave us K; thus we get an algebraic formula,
+G.K., which are the initials of Chesterton, a still later arrival, and
+as the mind increases in despondency it sinks lower and lower down the
+alphabet until it comes to S, and thus we have Barn-yard Shaw, an
+improvement on the Kail-yard school, who takes the O pshaw view of
+life. And relaxing hold of him I sink deeper until I come to W-- W. W.
+Jacobs-- how I wish he wrote poetry! He should be the humorist of all
+sailors, and perhaps some time he will desert barges for battleships.
+Then I shall read him with increased enjoyment."
+
+"I wouldn't give Mark Twain for the lot," commented Dorothy with
+decision.
+
+"Mark Twain isn't yours to give, my dear. He belongs to me also.
+You've forgotten that comparisons are odious. Our metier is not to
+compare, but to take what pleases us from each.
+
+  'How doth the little busy bee
+        Improve each shining hour,
+   And gather honey all the day
+        From every opening flower.
+
+Watts. You see, I'm still down among the W's. Oh, Dorothy, how can you
+sit there so placidly when the 'Consternation' has just faded from
+sight? Selfish creature!
+
+  'Oh, give me tears for others' woes
+   And patience for mine own.'
+
+I don't know who wrote that, but you have no tears for others' woes,
+merely greeting them with ribald laughter," for Dorothy, with the
+well-read letter in her hand, was making the rafters ring with her
+merriment, something that had never before happened during her long
+tenancy of that room. Kate turned her head slowly round, and the
+expression on her face was half-indignant, half-humorous, while her
+eyes were uncertain weather prophets, and gave equal indication of
+sunshine or rain.
+
+"Why, Katherine, you look like a tragedy queen, rather than the spirit
+of comedy! Is it really a case of 'Tit-willow, tit-willow,
+tit-willow'? You see, I'm a-rescuing you from the bottom of the
+alphabet, and bringing you up to the Gilbert plane, where I am more
+accustomed to you, and understand you better. Is this despondency due
+to the departure of the 'Consternation,' and the fact that she carries
+away with her Jack Lamont, blacksmith?"
+
+The long sigh terminated in a woeful "yes."
+
+"The ship that has gone out with him we call she. If he had eloped
+with a real she, then wearing the willow, or singing it, however
+futile, might be understandable. As it is I see nothing in the
+situation to call for a sigh."
+
+"That is because you are a hardened sinner, Dorothy. You have no
+heart, or at least if you have, it is untouched, and therefore you
+cannot understand. If that note in your hand were a love missive,
+instead of a letter from your lawyers, you would be more human,
+Dorothy."
+
+The hand which held the paper crumpled it up slightly as Katherine
+spoke.
+
+"Business letters are quite necessary, and belong to the world we live
+in," said Dorothy, a glow of brighter color suffusing her cheeks.
+"Surely your acquaintance with Mr. Lamont is of the shortest."
+
+"He has called upon me every day since the night of the ball,"
+maintained Katherine stoutly.
+
+"Well, that's only three times."
+
+"Only three! How you talk! One would think you had never been schooled
+in mathematics. Why, three is a magic figure. You can do plenty of
+amazing things with it. Don't you know that three is a numeral of
+love?"
+
+"I thought two was the number," chimed Dorothy, with heartless mirth.
+
+"Three," said Katherine taking one last look at the empty horizon,
+then seating herself in front of her friend, "three is a recurring
+decimal. It goes on and on and on forever, and if you write it for a
+thousand years you are still as far from the end as when you began. It
+will carry you round the world and back again, and never diminish. It
+is the mathematical emblem of the nature of true love."
+
+"Is it so serious as all that, Kate, or are you just fooling again?"
+asked Dorothy, more soberly than heretofore. "Has he spoken to you?"
+
+"Spoken? He has done nothing but speak, and I have listened-- oh, so
+intently, and with such deep understanding. He has never before met
+such a woman as I, and has frankly told me so."
+
+"I am very glad he appreciates you, dear."
+
+"Yes, you see, Dorothy, I am really much deeper than the ordinary
+woman. Who, for instance, could find such a beautiful love simile from
+a book of arithmetic costing twenty-five cents, as I have unearthed
+from decimal fractions? With that example in mind how can you doubt
+that other volumes of college learning reveal to me their inner
+meaning? John presented to me, as he said good-by, a beautifully bound
+copy of that celebrated text-book, 'Saunders' Analytical Chemistry,'
+with particularly tender passages marked in pencil, by his own dear
+hand."
+
+Rather bewildered, for Kate's expression was one of pathos, unrelieved
+by any gleam of humor, Dorothy nevertheless laughed, although the
+laugh brought no echo from Katherine.
+
+"And did you give him a volume of Browning in return?"
+
+"No, I didn't. How can you be so unsympathetic? Is it impossible for
+you to comprehend the unseen link that binds John and me? I rummaged
+the book store until I found a charming little edition of 'Marshall's
+Geologist's Pocket Companion,' covered with beautiful brown limp
+Russia leather-- I thought the Russia binding was so inspirational--
+with a sweet little clasp that keeps it closed-- typical of our hands
+at parting. On the fly-leaf I wrote: 'To J. L., in remembrance of many
+interesting conversations with his friend, K. K.' It only needed
+another K to be emblematic and political, a reminiscence of the olden
+times, when you people of the South, Dorothy, were making it hot for
+us deserving folks in the North. I hadn't time to go through the book
+very thoroughly, but I found many references to limestone, which I
+marked, and one particularly choice bit of English relating to the
+dissolution and re-consolidation of various minerals I drew a
+parallelogram around in red ink. A friend of mine in a motor launch
+was good enough to take the little parcel direct to the
+'Consternation,' and I have no doubt that at this moment Jack is
+perusing it, and perhaps thinking of the giver. I hope it's
+up-to-date, and that he had not previously bought a copy."
+
+"You don't mean to say, Kate, that your conversation was entirely
+about geology?"
+
+"Certainly not. How could you have become imbued with an idea so
+absurd? We had many delightful dalliances down the romantic groves of
+chemistry, heart-to-heart talks on metallurgy, and once-- ah, shall I
+ever forget it-- while the dusk gently enfolded us, and I gazed into
+those bright, speaking, intelligent eyes of his as he bent nearer and
+nearer; while his low, sonorous voice in well-chosen words pictured to
+me the promise which fortified cement holds out to the world; that is,
+ignorant person, Portland cement strengthened by ribs of steel; and I
+sat listening breathless as his glowing phrases prophesied the future
+of this combination."
+
+Katherine closed her eyes, rocked gently back and forth, and crooned,
+almost inaudibly:
+
+  "'When you gang awa, Jimmie,
+          Faur across the sea, laddie,
+    When ye gang to Russian lands
+          What will ye send to me, laddie?'
+
+I know what I shall get. It will probably be a newly discovered recipe
+for the compounding of cement which will do away with the necessity of
+steel strengthening."
+
+"Kate, dear, you are overdoing it. It is quite right that woman should
+be a mystery to man, but she should not aspire to become a mystery to
+her sister woman. Are you just making fun, or is there something in
+all this more serious than your words imply?"
+
+"Like the steel strengthening in the cement, it may be there, but you
+can't see it, and you can't touch it, but it makes-- oh, such a
+difference to the slab. Heigho, Dorothy, let us forsake these
+hard-headed subjects, and turn to something human. What have your
+lawyers been bothering you about? No trouble over the money, is
+there?"
+
+Dorothy shook her head.
+
+"No. Of course, there are various matters they have to consult me
+about, and get my consent to this project or the other."
+
+"Read the letter. Perhaps my mathematical mind can be of assistance to
+you."
+
+Dorothy had concealed the letter, and did not now produce it.
+
+"It is with reference to your assistance, and your continued
+assistance, that I wish to speak to you. Let us follow the example of
+the cement and the steel, and form a compact. In one respect I am
+going to imitate the 'Consternation.' I leave Bar Harbor next week."
+
+Katherine sat up in her chair, and her eyes opened wide.
+
+"What's the matter with Bar Harbor?" she asked.
+
+"You can answer that question better than I, Kate. The Kempt family
+are not visitors, but live here all the year round. What do you think
+is the matter with Bar Harbor?"
+
+"I confess it's a little dull in the winter time, and in all seasons
+it is situated a considerable distance from New York. Where do you
+intend to go, Dorothy?"
+
+"That will depend largely on where my friend Kate advises me to go,
+because I shall take her with me if she will come."
+
+"Companion, lady's-maid, parlor maid, maid-of-all-work, cook,
+governess, typewriter-girl--which have I to be? Shall I get one
+afternoon a week off, and may my young man come and see me, if I
+happen to secure one, and, extremely important, what are the wages?"
+
+"You shall fix your own salary, Kate, and my lawyer men will arrange
+that the chosen sum is settled upon you so that if we fall out we can
+quarrel on equal terms."
+
+"Oh, I see, it's an adopted daughter I am to be, then?"
+
+"An adopted sister, rather."
+
+"Do you think I am going to take advantage of my friendship with an
+heiress, and so pension myself off?"
+
+"It is I who am taking the advantage," said Dorothy, "and I beg you to
+take compassion, rather than advantage, upon a lone creature who has
+no kith or kin in the world."
+
+"Do you really mean it, Dot?"
+
+"Of course I do. Should I propose it if I didn't?"
+
+"Well, this is the first proposal I've ever had, and I believe it is
+customary to say on those occasions that it is so sudden, or so
+unexpected, and time is required for consideration."
+
+"How soon can you make up your mind, Kate?"
+
+"Oh, my mind's already made up. I'm going to jump at your offer, but I
+think it more ladylike to pretend a mild reluctance. What are you
+going to do, Dorothy?"
+
+"I don't know. I've settled on only one thing. I intend to build a
+little stone and tile church, very quaint and old-fashioned, if I get
+the right kind of architect to draw a plan for it, and this church is
+to be situated in Haverstock."
+
+"Where's Haverstock?"
+
+"It is a village near the Hudson River, on the plain that stretches
+toward the Catskills."
+
+"It was there you lived with your father, was it not?"
+
+"Yes, and my church is to be called the Dr. Amhurst Memorial Church."
+
+"And do you propose to live at Haverstock?"
+
+"I was thinking of that."
+
+"Wouldn't it be just a little dull?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose it is, but it seems to me a suitable place where two
+young women may meditate on what they are going to do with their
+lives."
+
+"Yes, that's an important question for the two. I say, Dorothy, let's
+take the other side of the river, and enter Vassar College. Then we
+should at least have some fun, and there would be some reasonably
+well-educated people to speak to."
+
+"Oh, you wish to use your lately acquired scientific knowledge in
+order to pass the examinations; but, you see, I have had no tutor to
+school me in the mysteries of lime-burning and the mixing of cement.
+Now, you have scorned my side of the river, and I have objected to
+your side of the river. That is the bad beginning which, let us hope,
+makes the good ending. Who is to arbitrate on our dispute?"
+
+"Why, we'll split the difference, of course."
+
+"How can we do that? Live in a house-boat on the river like Frank
+Stockton's 'Budder Grange'?"
+
+"No, settle in the city of New York, which is practically an island in
+the Hudson."
+
+"Would you like to live in New York?"
+
+"Wouldn't I! Imagine any one, having the chance, living anywhere
+else!"
+
+"In a hotel, I suppose-- the Holldorf for choice."
+
+"Yes, we could live in a hotel until we found the ideal flat, high up
+in a nice apartment house, with a view like that from the top of Mount
+Washington, or from the top of the Washington Monument."
+
+"But you forget I made one proviso in the beginning, and that is that
+I am going to build a church, and the church is to be situated, not in
+the city of New York, but in the village of Haverstock."
+
+"New York is just the place from which to construct such an edifice.
+Haverstock will be somewhere near the West Shore Railway. Very well.
+We can take a trip up there once a week or oftener, if you like, and
+see how the work is progressing, then the people of Haverstock will
+respect us. As we drive from the station they'll say:
+
+"'There's the two young ladies from New York who are building the
+church.' But if we settle down amongst them they'll think we're only
+ordinary villagers instead of the distinguished persons we are. Or,
+while our flat is being made ready we could live at one of the big
+hotels in the Catskills, and come down as often as we like on the
+inclined railway. Indeed, until the weather gets colder, the Catskills
+is the place.
+
+  'And lo, the Catskills print the distant sky,
+       And o'er their airy tops the faint clouds driven,
+   So softly blending that the cheated eye
+       Forgets or which is earth, or which is heaven.'"
+
+"That ought to carry the day for the Catskills, Kate. What sort of
+habitation shall we choose? A big hotel, or a select private boarding
+house?"
+
+"Oh, a big hotel, of course-- the biggest there is, whatever its name
+may be. One of those whose rates are so high that the proprietor
+daren't advertise them, but says in his announcement, 'for terms apply
+to the manager.' It must have ample grounds, support an excellent
+band, and advertise a renowned cuisine. Your room, at least, should
+have a private balcony on which you can place a telescope and watch
+the building of your church down below. I, being a humble person in a
+subordinate position, should have a balcony also to make up for those
+deficiencies."
+
+"Very well, Kate, that's settled. But although two lone women may set
+up housekeeping in a New York flat, they cannot very well go alone to
+a fashionable hotel."
+
+"Oh, yes, we can. Best of references given and required."
+
+"I was going to suggest," pursued Dorothy, not noticing the
+interruption, "that we invite your father and mother to accompany us.
+They might enjoy a change from sea air to mountain air."
+
+Katherine frowned a little, and demurred.
+
+"Are you going to be fearfully conventional, Dorothy?"
+
+"We must pay some attention to the conventions, don't you think?"
+
+"I had hoped not. I yearn to be a bachelor girl, and own a latch-key."
+
+"We shall each possess a latch-key when we settle down in New York.
+Our flat will be our castle, and, although our latch-key will let us
+in, our Yale lock will keep other people out. A noted summer resort
+calls for different treatment, because there we lead a semi-public
+life. Besides, I am selfish enough to wish my coming-out to be under
+the auspices of so well-known a man as Captain Kempt."
+
+"All right, I'll see what they say about it. You don't want Sabina, I
+take it?"
+
+"Yes, if she will consent to come."
+
+"I doubt if she will, but I'll see. Besides, now that I come to think
+about it, it's only fair I should allow my doting parents to know that
+I am about to desert them."
+
+With that Katherine quitted the room, and went down the stairs
+hippety-hop.
+
+Dorothy drew the letter from its place of concealment, and read it for
+the third time, although one not interested might have termed it a
+most commonplace document. It began:
+
+"Dear Miss Amhurst," and ended "Yours most sincerely, Alan Drummond."
+It gave some account of his doings since he bade good-bye to her. A
+sailor, he informed her, needs little time for packing his belongings,
+and on the occasion in question the Prince had been of great
+assistance. They set out together for the early morning train, and
+said "au revoir" at the station. Drummond had intended to sail from
+New York, but a friendly person whom he met on the train informed him
+that the Liverpool liner "Enthusiana" set out from Boston next day, so
+he had abandoned the New York idea, and had taken passage on the liner
+named, on whose note-paper he wrote the letter, which epistle was once
+more concealed as Dorothy heard Katherine's light step on the stair.
+
+That impulsive young woman burst into the sewing room.
+
+"We're all going," she cried. "Father, mother and Sabina. It seems
+father has had an excellent offer to let the house furnished till the
+end of September, and he says that, as he likes high life, he will put
+in the time on the top of the Catskills. He abandons me, and says that
+if he can borrow a shilling he is going to cut me off with it in his
+will. He regrets the departure of the British Fleet, because he thinks
+he might have been able to raise a real English shilling aboard. Dad
+only insists on one condition, namely, that he is to pay for himself,
+mother and Sabina, so he does not want a room with a balcony. I said
+that in spite of his disinheritance I'd help the family out of my
+salary, and so he is going to reconsider the changing of his will."
+
+"We will settle the conditions when we reach the Catskills," said
+Dorothy, smiling.
+
+  CHAPTER VII
+
+ "A WAY THEY HAVE IN THE NAVY"
+
+CAPTAIN and Mrs. Kempt with Sabina had resided a week in the
+Matterhorn Hotel before the two girls arrived there. They had gone
+direct to New York, and it required the seven days to find a flat that
+suited them, of which they were to take possession on the first of
+October. Then there were the lawyers to see; a great many business
+details to settle, and an architect to consult. After leaving New York
+the girls spent a day at Haverstock, where Dorothy Amhurst bought a
+piece of land as shrewdly as if she had been in the real estate
+business all her life. After this transaction the girls drove to the
+station on the line connecting with the inclined railway, and so, as
+Katherine remarked, were "wafted to the skies on flowery beds of
+ease," which she explained to her shocked companion was all right,
+because it was a quotation from a hymn. When at last they reached
+their hotel, Katherine was in ecstasies.
+
+"Isn't this heavenly?" she cried, "and, indeed, it ought to be, for I
+understand we are three thousand feet higher than we were in New York,
+and even the sky-scrapers can't compete with such an altitude."
+
+The broad valley of the Hudson lay spread beneath them, stretching as
+far as the eye could see, shimmering in the thin, bluish veil of a
+summer evening, and miles away the river itself could be traced like a
+silver ribbon.
+
+The gallant Captain, who had been energetically browbeaten by his
+younger daughter, and threatened with divers pains and penalties
+should he fail to pay attention and take heed to instructions, had
+acquitted himself with eclat in the selection of rooms for Dorothy and
+his daughter. The suite was situated in one corner of the huge
+caravansary, a large parlor occupying the angle, with windows on one
+side looking into the forest, and on the other giving an extended view
+across the valley. The front room adjoining the parlor was to be
+Dorothy's very own, and the end room belonged to Katherine, he said,
+as long as she behaved herself. If Dorothy ever wished to evict her
+strenuous neighbor, all she had to do was to call upon the Captain,
+and he would lend his aid, at which proffer of assistance Katherine
+tossed her head, and said she would try the room for a week, and, if
+she didn't like it, out Dorothy would have to go.
+
+
+
+There followed days and nights of revelry. Hops, concerts,
+entertainments of all sorts, with a more pretentious ball on Saturday
+night, when the week-tired man from New York arrived in the afternoon
+to find temperature twenty degrees lower, and the altitude very much
+higher than was the case in his busy office in the city. Katherine
+revelled in this round of excitement, and indeed, so, in a milder way,
+did Dorothy. After the functions were over the girls enjoyed a
+comforting chat with one another in their drawing room; all windows
+open, and the moon a-shining down over the luminous valley, which it
+seemed to fill with mother-o'-pearl dust.
+
+Young Mr. J. K. Henderson of New York, having danced repeatedly with
+Katherine on Saturday night, unexpectedly turned up for the hop on the
+following Wednesday, when he again danced repeatedly with the same
+joyous girl. It being somewhat unusual for a keen business man to take
+a four hours' journey during an afternoon in the middle of the week,
+and, as a consequence, arrive late at his office next morning, Dorothy
+began to wonder if a concrete formation, associated with the name of
+Prince Ivan Lermontoff of Russia, was strong enough to stand an
+energetic assault of this nature, supposing it were to be constantly
+repeated. It was after midnight on Wednesday when the two reached the
+corner parlor. Dorothy sat in a cane armchair, while Katherine threw
+herself into a rocking-chair, laced her fingers behind her head, and
+gazed through the open window at the misty infinity beyond.
+
+"Well," sighed Katherine, "this has been the most enjoyable evening I
+ever spent!"
+
+"Are you quite sure?" inquired her friend.
+
+"Certainly. Shouldn't I know?"
+
+"He dances well, then?"
+
+"Exquisitely!"
+
+"Better than Jack Lamont?"
+
+"Well, now you mention him I must confess Jack danced very
+creditably."
+
+"I didn't know but you might have forgotten the Prince."
+
+"No, I haven't exactly forgotten him, but-- I do think he might have
+written to me."
+
+"Oh, that's it, is it? Did he ask your permission to write?"
+
+"Good gracious, no. We never talked of writing. Old red sandstone,
+rather, was our topic of conversation. Still, he might have
+acknowledged receipt of the book."
+
+"But the book was given to him in return for the one he presented to
+you."
+
+"Yes, I suppose it was. I hadn't thought of that."
+
+"Then again, Kate, Russian notions regarding writing to young ladies
+may differ from ours, or he may have fallen overboard, or touched a
+live wire."
+
+"Yes, there are many possibilities," murmured Katherine dreamily.
+
+"It seems rather strange that Mr. Henderson should have time to come
+up here in the middle of the week."
+
+"Why is it strange?" asked Katherine. "Mr. Henderson is not a clerk
+bound down to office hours. He's an official high up in one of the big
+insurance companies, and gets a simply tremendous salary."
+
+"Really? Does he talk as well as Jack Lamont did?"
+
+"He talks less like the Troy Technical Institute, and more like the
+'Home Journal' than poor Prince Jack did, and then he has a much
+greater sense of humor. When I told him that the oath of an insurance
+man should be 'bet your life!' he laughed. Now, Jack would never have
+seen the point of that. Anyhow, the hour is too late, and I am too
+sleepy, to worry about young men, or jokes either. Good-night!"
+
+Next morning's mail brought Dorothy a bulky letter decorated with
+English stamps. She locked the door, tore open the envelope, and found
+many sheets of thin paper bearing the heading of the Bluewater Club,
+Pall Mall.
+
+"I am reminded of an old adage," she read, "to the effect that one
+should never cross a bridge before arriving at it. Since I bade
+good-by to you, up to this very evening, I have been plodding over a
+bridge that didn't exist, much to my own discomfort. You were with me
+when I received the message ordering me home to England, and I don't
+know whether or not I succeeded in suppressing all signs of my own
+perturbation, but we have in the Navy now a man who does not hesitate
+to overturn a court martial, and so I feared a re-opening of the Rock
+in the Baltic question, which might have meant the wrecking of my
+career. I had quite made up my mind, if the worst came to the worst,
+to go out West and become a cow-boy, but a passenger with whom I
+became acquainted on the 'Enthusiana' informed me, to my regret, that
+the cow-boy is largely a being of the past, to be met with only in the
+writings of Stewart Edward White, Owen Wister, and several other
+famous men whom he named. So you see, I went across the ocean
+tolerably depressed, finding my present occupation threatened, and my
+future uncertain.
+
+"When I arrived in London I took a room at this Club, of which I have
+been a member for some years, and reported immediately at the
+Admiralty. But there, in spite of all diligence on my part, I was
+quite unable to learn what was wanted of me. Of course, I could have
+gone to my Uncle, who is in the government, and perhaps he might have
+enlightened me, although he has nothing to do with the Navy, but I
+rather like to avoid Uncle Metgurne. He brought me up since I was a
+small boy, and seems unnecessarily ashamed of the result. It is his
+son who is the attache' in St. Petersburg that I spoke to you about."
+
+Dorothy ceased reading for a moment.
+
+"Metgurne, Metgurne," she said to herself. "Surely I know that name?"
+
+She laid down the letter, pressed the electric button, and unlocked
+the door. When the servant came, she said:
+
+"Will you ask at the office if they have any biographical book of
+reference relating to Great Britain, and if so, please bring it to
+me."
+
+The servant appeared shortly after with a red book which proved to be
+an English "Who's Who" dated two years back. Turning the pages she
+came to Metgurne.
+
+"Metgurne, twelfth Duke of, created 1681, Herbert George Alan." Here
+followed a number of other titles, the information that the son and
+heir was Marquis of Thaxted, and belonged to the Diplomatic Service,
+that Lord Metgurne was H. M. Secretary of State for Royal
+Dependencies; finally a list of residences and clubs. She put down the
+book and resumed the letter.
+
+"I think I ought to have told you that when I reach St. Petersburg I
+shall be as anxious to avoid my cousin Thaxted as I am to steer clear
+of his father in London. So I sat in my club, and read the papers.
+Dear me, this is evidently going to be a very long letter. I hope you
+won't mind. I think perhaps you may be interested in learning how they
+do things over here.
+
+"After two or three days of anxious waiting there came a crushing
+communication from the Admiralty which confirmed my worst fears and
+set me at crossing the bridge again. I was ordered to report next
+morning at eleven, at Committee Room 5, in the Admiralty, and bring
+with me full particulars pertaining to the firing of gun number
+so-and-so of the 'Consternation's' equipment on such a date. I wonder
+since that I did not take to drink. We have every facility for that
+sort of thing in this club. However, at eleven next day, I presented
+myself at the Committee Room and found in session the grimmest looking
+five men I have ever yet been called upon to face. Collectively they
+were about ten times worse in appearance than the court-martial I had
+previously encountered. Four of the men I did not know, but the fifth
+I recognized at once, having often seen his portrait. He is Admiral
+Sir John Pendergest, popularly known in the service as 'Old Grouch,' a
+blue terror who knows absolutely nothing of mercy. The lads in the
+service say he looks so disagreeable because he is sorry he wasn't
+born a hanging judge. Picture a face as cleanly cut as that of some
+severe old Roman Senator; a face as hard as marble, quite as cold, and
+nearly as white, rescued from the appearance of a death mask by a pair
+of piercing eyes that glitter like steel. When looking at him it is
+quite impossible to believe that such a personage has ever been a boy
+who played pranks on his masters. Indeed, Admiral Sir John Pendergest
+seems to have sprung, fully uniformed and forbidding, from the earth,
+like those soldiers of mythology. I was so taken aback at confronting
+such a man that I never noticed my old friend, Billy Richardson,
+seated at the table as one of the minor officials of the Committee.
+Billy tells me I looked rather white about the lips when I realized
+what was ahead of me, and I daresay he was right. My consolation is
+that I didn't get red, as is my disconcerting habit. I was
+accommodated with a chair, and then a ferrety-faced little man began
+asking me questions, consulting every now and then a foolscap sheet of
+paper which was before him. Others were ready to note down the
+answers.
+
+"'When did you fire the new gun from the "Consternation" in the
+Baltic?'
+
+"Dear Miss Amhurst, I have confessed to you that I am not brilliant,
+and, indeed, such confession was quite unnecessary, for you must
+speedily have recognized the fact, but here let me boast for a line or
+two of my one accomplishment, which is mathematical accuracy. When I
+make experiments I don't note the result by rule of thumb. My answer
+to the ferret-faced man was prompt and complete.
+
+"'At twenty-three minutes, seventeen seconds past ten, A.M., on May
+the third of this year,' was my reply.
+
+"The five high officials remained perfectly impassive, but the two
+stenographers seemed somewhat taken by surprise, and one of them
+whispered, 'Did you say fifteen seconds, sir?'
+
+"'He said seventeen,' growled Sir John Pendergest, in a voice that
+seemed to come out of a sepulchre.
+
+"'Who sighted the gun?'
+
+"'I did, sir.'
+
+"'Why did not the regular gunner do that?'
+
+"'He did, sir, but I also took observations, and raised the muzzle
+.000327 of an inch.'
+
+"'Was your gunner inaccurate, then, to that extent?'
+
+"'No, sir, but I had weighed the ammunition, and found it short by two
+ounces and thirty-seven grains.'
+
+"I must not bore you with all the questions and answers. I merely give
+these as samples. They questioned me about the recoil, the action of
+the gun, the state of this, that and the other after firing, and
+luckily I was able to answer to a dot every query put to me. At the
+finish one of the judges asked me to give in my own words my opinion
+of the gun. Admiral Sir John glared at him as he put this question,
+for of course to any expert the answers I had furnished, all taken
+together, gave an accurate verdict on the gun, assuming my statements
+to have been correct, which I maintain they were. However, as Sir John
+made no verbal comment, I offered my opinion as tersely as I could.
+
+"'Thank you, Lieutenant Drummond,' rumbled Sir John in his deep voice,
+as if he were pronouncing sentence, and, my testimony completed, the
+Committee rose.
+
+"I was out in the street before Billy Richardson overtook me, and then
+he called himself to my attention by a resounding slap on the
+shoulder.
+
+"'Alan, my boy,' he cried, 'you have done yourself proud. Your
+fortune's made.'
+
+"'As how?' I asked, shaking him by the hand.
+
+"'Why, we've been for weeks holding an inquiry on this blessed gun,
+and the question is whether or not a lot more of them are to be made.
+You know what an opinionated beast Old Grouch is. Well, my boy, you
+have corroborated his opinion of the gun in every detail. He is such a
+brow-beating, tyrannical brute that the rest of the Committee would
+rather like to go against him if they dared, but you have put a spoke
+in their wheel. Why, Sir John never said "thank you" to a human being
+since he was born until twenty-seven minutes and fifteen seconds after
+eleven this morning, as you would have put it,' and at the time of
+writing this letter this surmise of Billy's appears to be justified,
+for the tape in the club just now announced that the Committee has
+unanimously decided in favor of the gun, and adds that this is
+regarded as a triumph for the chairman, Admiral Sir John Pendergest,
+with various letters after his name.
+
+"Dear Miss Amhurst, this letter, as I feared, has turned out
+intolerably long, and like our first conversation, it is all about
+myself. But then, you see, you are the only one on the other side of
+the water to whom I have confided my selfish worries, and I believe
+you to be so kind-hearted that I am sure you will not censure me for
+this once exceeding the limits of friendly correspondence. Having been
+deeply depressed during all the previous long days, the sudden
+reaction urges me to go out into Pall Mall, fling my cap in the air,
+and whoop, which action is quite evidently a remnant of my former
+cow-boy aspirations. Truth to tell, the Russian business seems already
+forgotten, except by my stout old Captain on the 'Consternation,' or
+my Uncle. The strenuous Sir John has had me haled across the ocean
+merely to give testimony, lasting about thirty-five minutes, when with
+a little patience he might have waited till the 'Consternation'
+herself arrived, or else have cabled for us to try the gun at Bar
+Harbor. I suppose, however, that after my unfortunate contretemps with
+Russia our government was afraid I'd chip a corner off the United
+States, and that they'd have to pay for it. So perhaps after all it
+was greater economy to bring me across on the liner 'Enthusiana.'
+
+"By the way, I learned yesterday that the 'Consternation' has been
+ordered home, and so I expect to see Jack Lamont before many days are
+past. The ship will be paid off at Portsmouth, and then I suppose he
+and I will have our freedom for six months. I am rather looking
+forward to Jack's cooking me some weird but tasteful Russian dishes
+when we reach his blacksmith's shop in St. Petersburg. If I get on in
+Russia as I hope and expect, I shall spend the rest of my leave over
+in the States. I saw very little indeed of that great country, and am
+extremely anxious to see more. When one is on duty aboard ship one can
+only take very short excursions ashore. I should like to visit
+Niagara. It seems ridiculous that one should have been all along the
+American coast from Canada to New York, and never have got far enough
+inland to view the great Falls.
+
+"Russia is rather dilatory in her methods, but I surely should
+know within two or three weeks whether I am going to succeed or
+not. If not, then there is no use in waiting there. I shall try
+to persuade the Prince to accompany me to America. During the
+weeks I am waiting in St. Petersburg I shall continually
+impress upon him the utter futility of a life which has not
+investigated the great electrical power plant at Niagara Falls. And
+then he is interested in the educational system of the United States.
+While we were going to the station early that morning he told me that
+the United States educational system must be the most wonderful in the
+world, because he found that your friend, Miss Katherine Kempt, knew
+more about electricity, metallurgy, natural philosophy and a great
+number of other things he is interested in, than all the ladies he has
+met in Europe put together. He thinks that's the right sort of
+education for girls, and all this rather astonished me, because,
+although your friend was most charming, she said nothing during my
+very short acquaintance with her to lead me to suspect that she had
+received a scientific training.
+
+"Dear Miss Amhurst, I am looking every day for a letter from you,
+but none has yet been received by the Admiralty, who, when they get
+one, will forward it to whatever part of the world I happen to be in."
+
+  CHAPTER VIII
+
+ "WHEN JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME"
+
+A SUMMER hotel that boasts a thousand acres of forest, more or less,
+which serve the purposes of a back-yard, affords its guests, even if
+all its multitude of rooms are occupied, at least one spot for each
+visitor to regard as his or her favorite nook. So large an extent of
+woodland successfully defies landscape gardening. It insists on being
+left alone, and its very immensity raises a financial barrier against
+trimly-kept gravel walks. There were plenty of landscape garden walks
+in the immediate vicinity of the hotel, and some of them ambitiously
+penetrated into the woods, relapsing from the civilization of beaten
+gravel into a primitive thicket trail, which, however, always led to
+some celebrated bit of picturesqueness: a waterfall, or a pulpit rock
+upstanding like a tower, or the fancied resemblance of a human face
+carved by Nature from the cliff, or a view-point jutting out over the
+deep chasm of the valley, which usually supported a rustic summer
+house or pavilion where unknown names were carved on the woodwork--
+the last resort of the undistinguished to achieve immortality by means
+of a jack-knife.
+
+Dorothy discovered a little Eden of her own, to which no discernible
+covert-way led, for it was not conspicuous enough to obtain mention in
+the little gratis guide which the hotel furnished-- a pamphlet on
+coated paper filled with half-tone engravings, and half-extravagant
+eulogies of what it proclaimed to be, an earthly paradise, with the
+rates by the day or week given on the cover page to show on what terms
+this paradise might be enjoyed.
+
+Dorothy's bower was green, and cool, and crystal, the ruggedness of
+the rocks softened by the wealth of foliage. A very limpid spring,
+high up and out of sight among the leaves, sent its waters tinkling
+down the face of the cliff, ever filling a crystal-clear lakelet at
+the foot, which yet was never full. Velvety and beautiful as was the
+moss surrounding this pond, it was nevertheless too damp to form an
+acceptable couch for a human being, unless that human being were brave
+enough to risk the rheumatic inconveniences which followed Rip Van
+Winkle's long sleep in these very regions, so Dorothy always carried
+with her from the hotel a feather-weight, spider's-web hammock, which
+she deftly slung between two saplings, their light suppleness giving
+an almost pneumatic effect to this fairy net spread in a fairy glen;
+and here the young woman swayed luxuriously in the relaxing delights
+of an indolence still too new to have become commonplace or wearisome.
+
+She always expected to read a great deal in the hammock, but often the
+book slipped unnoticed to the moss, and she lay looking upward at the
+little discs of blue sky visible through the checkering maze of green
+leaves. One afternoon, deserted by the latest piece of fictional
+literature, marked in plain figures on the paper cover that protected
+the cloth binding, one dollar and a half, but sold at the department
+stores for one dollar and eight cents, Dorothy lay half-hypnotized by
+the twinkling of the green leaves above her, when she heard a sweet
+voice singing a rollicking song of the Civil War, and so knew that
+Katherine was thus heralding her approach.
+
+  "'When Johnny comes marching home again,
+                   Hurrah! Hurrah!
+    We'll give him a hearty welcome then,
+                   Hurrah! Hurrah!
+    The men will cheer, the boys will shout,
+    The ladies they will all turn out,
+    And we'll all feel gay
+         When Johnny comes marching home.'"
+
+Dorothy went still further back into the history of her country, and
+gave a faint imitation of an Indian war-whoop, to let the oncomer know
+she was welcome, and presently Katherine burst impetuously through the
+dense undergrowth.
+
+"So here you are, Miss Laziness," she cried.
+
+"Here I am, Miss Energy, or shall I call you Miss-applied Energy?
+Katherine, you have walked so fast that you are quite red in the
+face."
+
+"It isn't exertion, it's vexation. Dorothy, I have had a perfectly
+terrible time. It is the anxiety regarding the proper discipline of
+parents that is spoiling the nervous system of American children.
+Train them up in the way they should go, and when they are old they do
+depart from it. There's nothing more awful than to own parents who
+think they possess a sense of humor. Thank goodness mother has none!"
+
+"Then it is your father who has been misbehaving?"
+
+"Of course it is. He treats the most serious problem of a woman's life
+as if it were the latest thing in 'Life.'"
+
+Dorothy sat up in the hammock.
+
+"The most important problem? That means a proposal. Goodness gracious,
+Kate, is that insurance man back here again?"
+
+"What insurance man?"
+
+"Oh, heartless and heart-breaking Katherine, is there another? Sit
+here in the hammock beside me, and tell me all about it."
+
+"No, thank you," refused Katherine. "I weigh more than you, and I
+cannot risk my neck through the collapse of that bit of gossamer. I
+must take care of myself for his sake."
+
+"Then it is the life insurance man whose interests you are consulting?
+Have you taken out a policy with him?"
+
+"Dear me, you are nearly as bad as father, but not quite so funny. You
+are referring to Mr. Henderson, I presume. A most delightful companion
+for a dance, but, my dear Dorothy, life is not all glided out to the
+measures of a Strauss waltz."
+
+"True; quite undisputable, Kate, and them sentiments do you credit.
+Who is the man?"
+
+"The human soul," continued Katherine seriously, "aspires to higher
+things than the society columns of the New York Sunday papers, and the
+frivolous chatter of an overheated ball-room."
+
+"Again you score, Kate, and are rising higher and higher in my
+estimation. I see it all now. Those solemn utterances of yours point
+directly toward Hugh Miller's 'Old Red Sandstone' and works of that
+sort, and now I remember your singing 'When Johnny comes marching
+home.' I therefore take it that Jack Lamont has arrived."
+
+"He has not."
+
+"Then he has written to you?"
+
+"He has not."
+
+"Oh, well, I give it up. Tell me the tragedy your own way."
+
+For answer Katherine withdrew her hands from behind her, and offered
+to her friend a sheet of paper she had been holding. Dorothy saw
+blazoned on the top of it a coat-of-arms, and underneath it, written
+in words of the most formal nature, was the information that Prince
+Ivan Lermontoff presented his warmest regards to Captain Kempt,
+U.S.N., retired, and begged permission to pay his addresses to the
+Captain's daughter Katherine. Dorothy looked up from the document, and
+her friend said calmly:
+
+"You see, they need another Katherine in Russia."
+
+"I hope she won't be like a former one, if all I've read of her is
+true. This letter was sent to your father, then?"
+
+"It was, and he seems to regard it as a huge joke. Said he was going
+to cable his consent, and as the 'Consternation' has sailed away, he
+would try to pick her up by wireless telegraphy, and secure the young
+man that way: suggests that I shall have a lot of new photographs
+taken, so that he can hand them out to the reporters when they call
+for particulars. Sees in his mind's eye, he says, a huge
+black-lettered heading in the evening papers: 'A Russian Prince
+captures one of our fairest daughters,' and then insultingly hinted
+that perhaps, after all, it was better not to use my picture, as it
+might not bear out the 'fair daughter' fiction of the heading."
+
+"Yes, Kate, I can see that such treatment of a vital subject must have
+been very provoking."
+
+"Provoking? I should say it was! He pretended he was going to tack
+this letter up on the notice-board in the hall of the hotel, so that
+every one might know what guests of distinction the Matterhorn House
+held. But the most exasperating feature of the situation is that this
+letter has been lying for days and days at our cottage in Bar Harbor.
+I am quite certain that I left instructions for letters to be
+forwarded, but, as nothing came, I telegraphed yesterday to the people
+who have taken our house, and now a whole heap of belated
+correspondence has arrived, with a note from our tenant saying he did
+not know our address. You will see at the bottom of the note that the
+Prince asks my father to communicate with him by sending a reply to
+the 'Consternation' at New York, but now the 'Consternation' has
+sailed for England, and poor John must have waited and waited in
+vain."
+
+"Write care of the 'Consternation' in England."
+
+"But Jack told me that the 'Consternation' paid off as soon as she
+arrived, and probably he will have gone to Russia."
+
+"If you address him at the Admiralty in London, the letter will be
+forwarded whereever he happens to be."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I have heard that such is the case."
+
+"But you're not sure, and I want to be certain."
+
+"Are you really in love with him, Kate?"
+
+"Of course I am. You know that very well, and I don't want any stupid
+misapprehension to arise at the beginning, such as allows a silly
+author to carry on his story to the four-hundredth page of such trash
+as this," and she gently touched with her toe the unoffending volume
+which lay on the ground beneath the hammock.
+
+"Then why not adopt your father's suggestion, and cable? It isn't you
+who are cabling, you know."
+
+"I couldn't consent to that. It would look as if we were in a hurry,
+wouldn't it?"
+
+"Then let me cable."
+
+"You? To whom?"
+
+"Hand me up that despised book, Kate, and I'll write my cablegram on
+the fly-leaf. If you approve of the message, I'll go to the hotel, and
+send it at once."
+
+Katherine gave her the book, and lent the little silver pencil which
+hung jingling, with other trinkets, on the chain at her belt. Dorothy
+scribbled a note, tore out the fly-leaf, and presented it to
+Katherine, who read:
+
+"Alan Drummond, Bluewater Club, Pall Mall, London. Tell Lamont that
+his letter to Captain Kempt was delayed, and did not reach the Captain
+until to-day. Captain Kempt's reply will be sent under cover to you at
+your club. Arrange for forwarding if you leave England.
+
+Dorothy Amhurst."
+
+When Katherine finished reading she looked up at her friend, and
+exclaimed: "Well!" giving that one word a meaning deep as the clear
+pool on whose borders she stood.
+
+Dorothy's face reddened as if the sinking western sun was shining full
+upon it.
+
+"You write to one another, then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And is it a case of--"
+
+"No; friendship."
+
+"Sure it is nothing more than that?"
+
+Dorothy shook her head.
+
+"Dorothy, you are a brick; that's what you are. You will do anything
+to help a friend in trouble."
+
+Dorothy smiled.
+
+"I have so few friends that whatever I can do for them will not
+greatly tax any capabilities I may possess."
+
+"Nevertheless, Dorothy, I thoroughly appreciate what you have done.
+You did not wish any one to know you were corresponding with him, and
+yet you never hesitated a moment when you saw I was anxious."
+
+"Indeed, Kate, there was nothing to conceal. Ours is a very ordinary
+exchange of letters. I have only had two: one at Bar Harbor a few days
+after he left, and another longer one since we came to the hotel,
+written from England."
+
+"Did the last one go to Bar Harbor, too? How came you to receive it
+when we did not get ours?"
+
+"It did not go to Bar Harbor. I gave him the address of my lawyers in
+New York, and they forwarded it to me here. Lieutenant Drummond was
+ordered home by some one who had authority to do so, and received the
+message while he was sitting with me on the night of the ball. He had
+got into trouble with Russia. There had been an investigation, and he
+was acquitted. I saw that he was rather worried over the order home
+and I expressed my sympathy as well as I could, hoping everything
+would turn out for the best. He asked if he might write and let me
+know the outcome, and, being interested, I quite willingly gave him
+permission, and my address. The letter I received was all about a
+committee meeting at the Admiralty in which he took part. He wrote to
+me from the club in Pall Mall to which I have addressed this
+cablegram."
+
+There was a sly dimple in Katherine's cheeks as she listened to this
+straightforward explanation, and the faintest possible suspicion of a
+smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. She murmured, rather than
+sang:
+
+"'A pair of lovesick maidens we.'"
+
+"One, if you please," interrupted Dorothy.
+
+"'Lovesick all against our will-- '"
+
+"Only one."
+
+"'Twenty years hence we shan't be
+A pair of lovesick maidens still.'"
+
+"I am pleased to note," said Dorothy demurely, "that the letter
+written by the Prince to your father has brought you back to the
+Gilbert and Sullivan plane again, although in this fairy glen you
+should quote from Iolanthe rather than from Patience."
+
+"Yes, Dot, this spot might do for a cove in the 'Pirates of Penzance,'
+only we're too far from the sea. But, to return to the matter in hand,
+I don't think there will be any need to send that cablegram. I don't
+like the idea of a cablegram, anyhow. I will return to the hotel, and
+dictate to my frivolous father a serious composition quite as stately
+and formal as that received from the Prince. He will address it and
+seal it, and then if you are kind enough to enclose it in the next
+letter you send to Lieutenant Drummond, it will be sure to reach Jack
+Lamont ultimately."
+
+Dorothy sprang from the hammock to the ground.
+
+"Oh," she cried eagerly, "I'll go into the hotel with you and write my
+letter at once."
+
+Katherine smiled, took her by the arm, and said:
+
+"You're a dear girl, Dorothy. I'll race you to the hotel, as soon as
+we are through this thicket."
+
+  CHAPTER IX
+
+ IN RUSSIA
+
+THE next letter Dorothy received bore Russian stamps, and was dated at
+the black-smith's shop, Bolshoi Prospect, St. Petersburg. After a few
+preliminaries, which need not be set down here, Drummond continued:
+
+"The day after Jack arrived in London, there being nothing whatever to
+detain him in England, we set off together for St. Petersburg, and are
+now domiciled above his blacksmith shop. We are not on the fashionable
+side of the river, but our street is wide, and a very short walk
+brings us to a bridge which, being crossed, allows us to wander among
+palaces if we are so disposed. We have been here only four days, yet a
+good deal has already been accomplished. The influence of the Prince
+has smoothed my path for me. Yesterday I had an audience with a very
+important personage in the Foreign Office, and to-day I have seen an
+officer of high rank in the navy. The Prince warns me to mention no
+names, because letters, even to a young lady, are sometimes opened
+before they reach the person to whom they are addressed. These
+officials who have been kind enough to receive me are gentlemen so
+polished that I feel quite uncouth in their presence. I am a little
+shaky in my French, and feared that my knowledge of that language
+might not carry me through, but both of these officials speak English
+much better than I do, and they seemed rather pleased I had
+voluntarily visited St. Petersburg to explain that no discourtesy was
+meant in the action I had so unfortunately taken on the Baltic, and
+they gave me their warmest assurances they would do what they could to
+ease the tension between our respective countries. It seems that my
+business here will be finished much sooner than I expected, and then I
+am off on the quickest steamer for New York, in the hope of seeing
+Niagara Falls. I have met with one disappointment, however. Jack says
+he cannot possibly accompany me to the United States. I have failed to
+arouse in him the faintest interest about the electric works at
+Niagara. He insists that he is on the verge of a most important
+discovery, the nature of which he does not confide in me. I think he
+is working too hard, for he is looking quite haggard and overdone, but
+that is always the way with him. He throws himself heart and soul into
+any difficulty that confronts him, and works practically night and day
+until he has solved it.
+
+"Yesterday he gave the whole street a fright. I had just returned from
+the Foreign Office, and had gone upstairs to my room, when there
+occurred an explosion that shook the building from cellar to roof, and
+sent the windows of our blacksmith's shop rattling into the street.
+Jack had a most narrow escape, but is unhurt, although that fine beard
+of his was badly singed. He has had it shaved off, and now sports
+merely a mustache, looking quite like a man from New York. You
+wouldn't recognize him if you met him on Broadway. The carpenters and
+glaziers are at work to-day repairing the damage. I told Jack that if
+this sort of thing kept on I'd be compelled to patronize another
+hotel, but he says it won't happen again. It seems he was trying to
+combine two substances by adding a third, and, as I understood him,
+the mixing took place with unexpected suddenness. He has endeavored to
+explain to me the reaction, as he calls it, which occurred, but I seem
+to have no head for chemistry, and besides, if I am to be blown
+through the roof some of these days it will be no consolation to me
+when I come down upon the pavement outside to know accurately the
+different elements which contributed to my elevation. Jack is very
+patient in trying to instruct me, but he could not resist the
+temptation of making me ashamed by saying that your friend, Miss
+Katherine Kempt, would have known at once the full particulars of the
+reaction. Indeed, he says, she warned him of the disaster, by marking
+a passage in a book she gave him which foreshadowed this very thing.
+She must be a most remarkable young woman, and it shows how stupid I
+am that I did not in the least appreciate this fact when in her
+company."
+
+The next letter was received a week later. He was getting on
+swimmingly, both at the Foreign Office and at the Russian Admiralty.
+All the officials he had met were most courteous and anxious to
+advance his interests. He wrote about the misapprehensions held in
+England regarding Russia, and expressed his resolve to do what he
+could when he returned to remove these false impressions.
+
+"Of course," he went on, "no American or Englishman can support or
+justify the repressive measures so often carried out ruthlessly by the
+Russian police. Still, even these may be exaggerated, for the police
+have to deal with a people very much different from our own. It is
+rather curious that at this moment I am in vague trouble concerning
+the police. I am sure this place is watched, and I am also almost
+certain that my friend Jack is being shadowed. He dresses like a
+workman; his grimy blouse would delight the heart of his friend
+Tolstoi, but he is known to be a Prince, and I think the authorities
+imagine he is playing up to the laboring class, whom they despise. I
+lay it all to that unfortunate explosion, which gathered the police
+about us as if they had sprung from the ground. There was an official
+examination, of course, and Jack explained, apparently to everybody's
+satisfaction, exactly how he came to make the mistake that resulted in
+the loss of his beard and his windows. I don't know exactly how to
+describe the feeling of uneasiness which has come over me. At first
+sight this city did not strike me as so very much different from New
+York or London, and meeting, as I did, so many refined gentlemen in
+high places, I had come to think St. Petersburg was after all very
+much like Paris, or Berlin, or Rome. But it is different, and the
+difference makes itself subtly felt, just as the air in some coast
+towns of Britain is relaxing, and in others bracing. In these towns a
+man doesn't notice the effect at first, but later on he begins to feel
+it, and so it is here in St. Petersburg. Great numbers of workmen pass
+down our street. They all seem to know who the Prince is, and the
+first days we were here, they saluted him with a deference which I
+supposed was due to his rank, in spite of the greasy clothes he wore.
+Since the explosion an indefinable change has come over these workmen.
+They salute the Prince still when we meet them on the street, but
+there is in their attitude a certain sly sympathy, if I may so term
+it; a bond of camaraderie which is implied in their manner rather than
+expressed. Jack says this is all fancy on my part, but I don't think
+it is. These men imagine that Prince Ivan Lermontoff, who lives among
+them and dresses like them, is concocting some explosive which may yet
+rid them of the tyrants who make their lives so unsafe. All this would
+not matter, but what does matter is the chemical reaction, as I
+believe Jack would term it, which has taken place among the
+authorities. The authorities undoubtedly have their spies among the
+working-men, and know well what they are thinking about and talking
+about. I do not believe they were satisfied with the explanations Jack
+gave regarding the disaster. I have tried to impress upon Jack that he
+must be more careful in walking about the town, and I have tried to
+persuade him, after work, to dress like the gentleman he is, but he
+laughs at my fears, and assures me that I have gone from one extreme
+to the other in my opinion of St. Petersburg. First I thought it was
+like all other capitals; now I have swung too far in the other
+direction. He says the police of St. Petersburg would not dare arrest
+him, but I'm not so sure of that. A number of things occur to me, as
+usual, too late. Russia, with her perfect secret service system, must
+know that Prince Lermontoff has been serving in the British Navy. They
+know he returned to St. Petersburg, avoids all his old friends, and is
+brought to their notice by an inexplicable explosion, and they must be
+well aware, also, that he is in the company of the man who fired the
+shell at the rock in the Baltic, and that he himself served on the
+offending cruiser.
+
+"As to my own affairs, I must say they are progressing slowly but
+satisfactorily; nevertheless, if Jack would leave St. Petersburg, and
+come with me to London or New York, where he could carry on his
+experiments quite as well, or even better than here, I should depart
+at once, even if I jeopardized my own prospects."
+
+The next letter, some time later, began:
+
+"Your two charming notes to me arrived here together. It is very kind
+of you to write to a poor exile and cheer him in his banishment. I
+should like to see that dell where you have swung your hammock. Beware
+of Hendrick Hudson's men, so delightfully written of by Washington
+Irving. If they offer you anything to drink, don't you take it. Think
+how disastrous it would be to all your friends if you went to sleep in
+that hammock for twenty years. It's the Catskills I want to see now
+rather than Niagara Falls. Your second letter containing the note from
+Captain Kempt to Jack was at once delivered to him. What on earth has
+the genial Captain written to effect such a transformation in my
+friend? He came to me that evening clothed in his right mind; in
+evening rig-out, with his decorations upon it, commanded me to get
+into my dinner togs, took me in a carriage across the river to the
+best restaurant St. Petersburg affords, and there we had a champagne
+dinner in which he drank to America and all things American. Whether
+it was the enthusiasm produced by Captain Kempt's communication, or
+the effect of the champagne, I do not know, but he has reconsidered
+his determination not to return to the United States, and very soon we
+set out together for the west.
+
+"I shall be glad to get out of this place. We were followed to the
+restaurant, I am certain, and I am equally certain that at the next
+table two police spies were seated, and these two shadowed us in a cab
+until we reached our blacksmith's shop. It is a humiliating confession
+to make, but somehow the atmosphere of this place has got on my
+nerves, and I shall be glad to turn my back on it. Jack pooh-poohs the
+idea that he is in any danger. Even the Governor of St. Petersburg, he
+says, dare not lay a finger on him, and as for the Chief of Police, he
+pours scorn on that powerful official. He scouts the idea that he is
+being watched, and all-in-all is quite humorous at my expense, saying
+that my state of mind is more fitting for a schoolgirl than for a
+stalwart man over six feet in height. One consolation is that Jack now
+has become as keen for America as I am. I expect that the interview
+arranged for me to-morrow with a great government official will settle
+my own business finally one way or another. A while ago I was
+confident of success, but the repeated delays have made me less
+optimistic now, although the gentle courtesy of those in high places
+remains undiminished.
+
+"Dear Miss Amhurst, I cannot afford to fall lower in your estimation
+than perhaps I deserve, so I must say that this fear which has
+overcome me is all on account of my friend, and not on my own behalf
+at all. I am perfectly safe in Russia, being a British subject. My
+cold and formal Cousin Thaxted is a member of the British Embassy
+here, and my cold and formal uncle is a Cabinet Minister in England,
+facts which must be well known to these spy-informed people of St.
+Petersburg; so I am immune. The worst they could do would be to order
+me out of the country, but even that is unthinkable. If any one
+attempted to interfere with me, I have only to act the hero of the
+penny novelette, draw myself up to my full height, which, as you know,
+is not that of a pigmy, fold my arms across my manly chest, cry, 'Ha,
+ha!' and sing 'Rule Britannia,' whereupon the villains would wilt and
+withdraw. But Jack has no such security. He is a Russian subject, and,
+prince or commoner, the authorities here could do what they liked with
+him. I always think of things when it is too late to act. I wish I had
+urged Jack ashore at Bar Harbor, and induced him to take the oath of
+allegiance to the United States. I spoke to him about that coming home
+in the carriage, and to my amazement he said he wished he had thought
+of it himself at the time we were over there.
+
+"But enough of this. I daresay he is in no real danger after all.
+Nevertheless, I shall induce him to pack to-morrow, and we will make
+for London together, so my next letter will bear a British stamp, and
+I assure you the air of England will taste good to one benighted
+Britisher whose name is Alan Drummond."
+
+  CHAPTER X
+
+ CALAMITY UNSEEN
+
+THE habit of industry practised from childhood to maturity is not
+obliterated by an unexpected shower of gold. Dorothy was an early
+riser, and one morning, entering the parlor from her room she saw,
+lying upon the table, a letter with a Russian stamp, but addressed in
+an unknown hand to her friend Katherine Kempt. She surmised that here
+was the first communication from the Prince, and expected to learn all
+about it during the luncheon hour at the latest. But the morning and
+afternoon passed, and Katherine made no sign, which Dorothy thought
+was most unusual. All that day and the next Katherine went about
+silent, sedate and serious, never once quoting the humorous Mr.
+Gilbert. On the third morning Dorothy was surprised, emerging from her
+room, to see Katherine standing by the table, a black book in her
+hand. On the table lay a large package from New York, recently opened,
+displaying a number of volumes in what might be termed serious
+binding, leather or cloth, but none showing that high coloring which
+distinguishes the output of American fiction.
+
+"Good-morning, Dorothy. The early bird is after the worm of science."
+She held forth the volume in her hand. "Steele's 'Fourteen-Weeks'
+Course in Chemistry,' an old book, but fascinatingly written.
+Dorothy," she continued with a sigh, "I want to talk seriously with
+you."
+
+"About chemistry?" asked Dorothy.
+
+"About men," said Katherine firmly, "and, incidentally, about women."
+
+"An interesting subject, Kate, but you've got the wrong text-books.
+You should have had a parcel of novels instead."
+
+Dorothy seated herself, and Katherine followed her example, Steele's
+"Fourteen-Weeks' Course" resting in her lap.
+
+"Every man," began Katherine, "should have a guardian to protect him."
+
+"From women?"
+
+"From all things that are deceptive, and not what they seem."
+
+"That sounds very sententious, Kate. What does it mean?"
+
+"It means that man is a simpleton, easily taken in. He is too honest
+for crafty women, who delude him shamelessly."
+
+"Whom have you been deluding, Kate?"
+
+"Dorothy, I am a sneak."
+
+Dorothy laughed.
+
+"Indeed, Katherine, you are anything but that. You couldn't do a mean
+or ungenerous action if you tried your best."
+
+"You think, Dorothy, I could reform?" she asked, breathlessly, leaning
+forward.
+
+"Reform? You don't need to reform. You are perfectly delightful as you
+are, and I know no man who is worthy of you. That's a woman's opinion;
+one who knows you well, and there is nothing dishonest about the
+opinion, either, in spite of your tirade against our sex."
+
+"Dorothy, three days ago, be the same more or less, I received a
+letter from John Lamont."
+
+"Yes, I saw it on the table, and surmised it was from him."
+
+"Did you? You were quite right. The reading of that letter has
+revolutionized my character. I am a changed woman, Dorothy, and
+thoroughly ashamed of myself. When I remember how I have deluded that
+poor, credulous young man, in making him believe I understood even the
+fringe of what he spoke about, it fills me with grief at my perfidy,
+but I am determined to amend my ways if hard study will do it, and
+when next I see him I shall talk to him worthily like a female Thomas
+A. Edison."
+
+Again Dorothy laughed.
+
+"Now, that's heartless of you, Dorothy. Don't you see I'm in deadly
+earnest? Must my former frivolity dog my steps through life? When I
+call to mind that I made fun to you of his serious purpose in life,
+the thought makes me cringe and despise myself."
+
+"Nonsense, Kate, don't go to the other extreme. I remember nothing you
+have said that needs withdrawal. You have never made a malicious
+remark in your life, Kate. Don't make me defend you against yourself.
+You have determined, I take it, to plunge into the subjects which
+interest the man you are going to marry. That is a perfectly laudable
+ambition, and I am quite sure you will succeed."
+
+"I know I don't deserve all that, Dorothy, but I like it just the
+same. I like people to believe in me, even if I sometimes lose faith
+in myself. May I read you an extract from his letter?"
+
+"Don't if you'd rather not."
+
+"I'd rather, Dorothy, if it doesn't weary you, but you will understand
+when you have heard it, in what a new light I regard myself."
+
+The letter proved to be within the leaves of the late Mr. Steele's
+book on Chemistry, and from this volume she extracted it, pressed it
+for a moment against her breast with her open hand, gazing across at
+her friend.
+
+"Dorothy, my first love-letter!"
+
+She turned the crisp, thin pages, and began:
+
+"'You may recollect that foot-note which you marked with red ink in
+the book you so kindly gave me on the subject of Catalysis, which did
+not pertain to the subject of the volume in question, and yet was so
+illuminative to any student of chemistry. They have done a great deal
+with Catalysis in Germany with amazing commercial results, but the
+subject is one so recent that I had not previously gone thoroughly
+into it.'"
+
+Katherine paused in the reading, and looked across at her auditor, an
+expression almost of despair in her eloquent eyes.
+
+"Dorothy, what under heaven is Catalysis?"
+
+"Don't ask me," replied Dorothy, suppressing a laugh, struck by the
+ludicrousness of any young and beautiful woman pressing any such
+sentiments as these to her bosom.
+
+"Have you ever heard of a Catalytic process, Dorothy?" beseeched
+Katherine. "It is one of the phrases he uses."
+
+"Never; go on with the letter, Kate."
+
+"'I saw at once that if I could use Catalytic process which would be
+instantaneous in its solidifying effect on my liquid limestone,
+instead of waiting upon slow evaporation, I could turn out building
+stone faster than one can make brick. You, I am sure, with your more
+alert mind, saw this when you marked that passage in red.'"
+
+"Oh, Dorothy," almost whimpered Katherine, leaning back, "how can I go
+on? Don't you see what a sneak I am? It was bad enough to cozen with
+my heedless, random markings of the book, but to think that line of
+red ink might have been marked in his blood, for I nearly sent the
+poor boy to his death."
+
+"Go on, Katherine, go on, go on!"
+
+"'In my search for a Catalytic whose substance would remain unchanged
+after the reaction, I quite overlooked the chemical ingredients of one
+of the materials I was dealing with, and the result was an explosion
+which nearly blew the roof off the shop, and quite startled poor
+Drummond out of a year's growth. However, no real harm has been done,
+while I have been taught a valuable lesson; to take into account all
+the elements I am using. I must not become so intent on the subject I
+am pursuing as to ignore everything else.' And now, Dorothy, I want to
+ask you a most intimate question, which I beg of you to answer as
+frankly as I have confided in you."
+
+"I know what your question is, Kate. A girl who is engaged wishes to
+see her friend in the same position. You would ask me if I am in love
+with Alan Drummond, and I answer perfectly frankly that I am not."
+
+"You are quite sure of that, Dorothy?"
+
+"Quite. He is the only man friend I have had, except my own father,
+and I willingly confess to a sisterly interest in him."
+
+"Well, if that is all--"
+
+"It is all, Kate. Why?"
+
+"Because there is something about him in this letter, which I would
+read to you if I thought you didn't care."
+
+"Oh, he is in love with Jack's sister, very likely. I should think
+that would be a most appropriate arrangement. Jack is his best friend,
+and perhaps a lover would weaken the influence which Tolstoi exerts
+over an emotional person's mind. Lieutenant Drummond, with his sanity,
+would probably rescue a remnant of her estates."
+
+"Oh, well, if you can talk as indifferently as that, you are all
+right, Dorothy. No, there is no other woman in the case. Here's what
+Jack says:
+
+"'It is amazing how little an Englishman understands people of other
+nations. Here is my tall friend Drummond marching nonchalantly among
+dangers of which he has not the least conception. The authorities whom
+he thinks so courteous are fooling him to the top of his bent. There
+is, of course, no danger of his arrest, but nevertheless the eyes of
+the police are upon him, and he will not believe it, any more than be
+will believe he is being hoodwinked by the Foreign Minister. What I
+fear is that he will be bludgeoned on the street some dark night, or
+involved in a one-sided duel. Twice I have rescued him from an
+imminent danger which he has not even seen. Once in a restaurant a
+group of officers, apparently drunk, picked a quarrel and drew swords
+upon him. I had the less difficulty in getting him away because he
+fears a broil, or anything that will call down upon him the attention
+of his wooden-headed cousin in the Embassy. On another occasion as we
+were coming home toward midnight, a perfectly bogus brawl broke out
+suddenly all around us. Drummond was unarmed, but his huge fists sent
+sprawling two or three of his assailants. I had a revolver, and held
+the rest off, and so we escaped. I wish he was safely back in London
+again.' What do you think of that, Dorothy?"
+
+"I think exactly what Mr. Lamont thinks. Lieutenant Drummond's mission
+to Russia seems to me a journey of folly."
+
+"After all, I am glad you don't care, Dorothy. He should pay attention
+to what Jack says, for Jack knows Russia, and he doesn't. Still, let
+us hope he will come safely out of St. Petersburg. And now, Dot, for
+breakfast, because I must get to work."
+
+Next morning Dorothy saw a letter for herself on the table in the now
+familiar hand-writing, and was more relieved than perhaps she would
+have confessed even to her closest friend, when she saw the
+twopence-halfpenny English stamp on the envelope. Yet its contents
+were startling enough, and this letter she did not read to Katherine
+Kempt, but bore its anxiety alone.
+
+DEAR MISS AMHURST:
+
+I write you in great trouble of mind, not trusting this letter to the
+Russian post-office, but sending it by an English captain to be posted
+in London. Two days ago Jack Lamont disappeared; a disappearance as
+complete as if he had never existed. The night before last, about ten
+o'clock, I thought I heard him come into his shop below my room.
+Sometimes he works there till daylight, and as, when absorbed in his
+experiments, he does not relish interruptions, even from me, I go on
+with my reading until he comes upstairs. Toward eleven o'clock I
+thought I heard slight sounds of a scuffle, and a smothered cry. I
+called out to him, but received no answer. Taking a candle, I went
+downstairs, but everything was exactly as usual, the doors locked, and
+not even a bench overturned. I called aloud, but only the echo of this
+barn of a room replied. I lit the gas and made a more intelligent
+search, but with no result. I unlocked the door, and stood out in the
+street, which was quite silent and deserted. I began to doubt that I
+had heard anything at all, for, as I have told you, my nerves lately
+have been rather prone to the jumps. I sat up all night waiting for
+him, but he did not come. Next day I went, as had been previously
+arranged, to the Foreign Office, but was kept waiting in an anteroom
+for two hours, and then told that the Minister could not see me. I met
+a similar repulse at the Admiralty. I dined alone at the restaurant
+Jack and I frequent, but saw nothing of him. This morning he has not
+returned, and I am at my wit's end, not in the least knowing what to
+do. It is useless for me to appeal to the embassy of my country, for,
+Jack being a Russian, it has no jurisdiction. The last letter I
+received from you was tampered with. The newspaper extract you spoke
+of was not there, and one of the sheets of the letter was missing.
+Piffling business, I call it, this interfering with private
+correspondence.
+
+Such was the last letter that Alan Drummond was ever to send to
+Dorothy Amhurst.
+
+  CHAPTER XI
+
+ THE SNOW
+
+SUMMER waned; the evenings became chill, although the sun pretended at
+noon that its power was undiminished. Back to town from mountain and
+sea shore filtered the warm-weather idlers, but no more letters came
+from St. Petersburg to the hill by the Hudson. So far as our girls
+were concerned, a curtain of silence had fallen between Europe and
+America.
+
+The flat was now furnished, and the beginning of autumn saw it
+occupied by the two friends. Realization in this instance lacked the
+delight of anticipation. At last Katherine was the bachelor girl she
+had longed to be, but the pleasures of freedom were as Dead Sea fruit
+to the lips. At last Dorothy was effectually cut off from all thoughts
+of slavery, with unlimited money to do what she pleased with, yet
+after all, of what advantage was it in solving the problem that
+haunted her by day and filled her dreams by night. She faced the world
+with seeming unconcern, for she had not the right to mourn, even if
+she knew he were dead. He had made no claim; had asked for no
+affection; had written no word to her but what all the world might
+read. Once a week she made a little journey up the Hudson to see how
+her church was coming on, and at first Katherine accompanied her, but
+now she went alone. Katherine was too honest a girl to pretend an
+interest where she felt none. She could not talk of architecture when
+she was thinking of a man and his fate. At first she had been
+querulously impatient when no second communication came. Her own
+letters, she said, must have reached him, otherwise they would have
+been returned. Later, dumb fear took possession of her, and she grew
+silent, plunged with renewed energy into her books, joined a technical
+school, took lessons, and grew paler and paler until her teachers
+warned her she was overdoing it. Inwardly she resented the serene
+impassiveness of her friend, who consulted calmly with the architect
+upon occasion about the decoration of the church, when men's liberty
+was gone, and perhaps their lives. She built up within her mind a
+romance of devotion, by which her lover, warning in vain the stolid
+Englishman, had at last been involved in the ruin that Drummond's
+stubbornness had brought upon them both, and unjustly implicated the
+quiet woman by her side in the responsibility of this sacrifice. Once
+or twice she spoke with angry impatience of Drummond and his
+stupidity, but Dorothy neither defended nor excused, and so no open
+rupture occurred between the two friends, for a quarrel cannot be
+one-sided.
+
+But with a woman of Katherine's temperament the final outburst had to
+come, and it came on the day that the first flurry of snow fell
+through the still air, capering in large flakes past the windows of
+the flat down to the muddy street far below. Katherine was standing by
+the window, with her forehead leaning against the plate glass, in
+exactly the attitude that had been her habit in the sewing-room at Bar
+Harbor, but now the staccato of her fingers on the sill seemed to drum
+a Dead March of despair. The falling snow had darkened the room, and
+one electric light was aglow over the dainty Chippendale desk at which
+Dorothy sat writing a letter. The smooth, regular flow of the pen over
+the paper roused Katherine to a frenzy of exasperation. Suddenly she
+brought her clenched fist down on the sill where her fingers had been
+drumming.
+
+"My God," she cried, "how can you sit there like an automaton with the
+snow falling?"
+
+Dorothy put down her pen.
+
+"The snow falling?" she echoed. "I don't understand!"
+
+"Of course you don't. You don't think of the drifts in Siberia, and
+the two men you have known, whose hands you have clasped, manacled,
+driven through it with the lash of a Cossack's whip."
+
+Dorothy rose quietly, and put her hands on the shoulders of the girl,
+feeling her frame tremble underneath her touch.
+
+"Katherine," she said, quietly, but Katherine, with a nervous twitch
+of her shoulders flung off the friendly grasp.
+
+"Don't touch me," she cried. "Go back to your letter-writing. You and
+the Englishman are exactly alike; unfeeling, heartless. He with his
+selfish stubbornness has involved an innocent man in the calamity his
+own stupidity has brought about."
+
+"Katherine, sit down. I want to talk calmly with you."
+
+"Calmly! Calmly! Yes, that is the word. It is easy for you to be calm
+when you don't care. But I care, and I cannot be calm."
+
+"What do you wish to do, Katherine?"
+
+"What can I do? I am a pauper and a dependent, but one thing I am
+determined to do, and that is to go and live in my father's house."
+
+"If you were in my place, what would you do Katherine?"
+
+"I would go to Russia."
+
+"What would you do when you arrived there?"
+
+"If I had wealth I would use it in such a campaign of bribery and
+corruption in that country of tyrants that I should release two
+innocent men. I'd first find out where they were, then I'd use all the
+influence I possessed with the American Ambassador to get them set
+free."
+
+"The American Ambassador, Kate, cannot move to release either an
+Englishman or a Russian."
+
+"I'd do it somehow. I wouldn't sit here like a stick or a stone,
+writing letters to my architect."
+
+"Would you go to Russia alone?"
+
+"No, I should take my father with me."
+
+"That is an excellent idea, Kate. I advise you to go north by
+to-night's train, if you like, and see him, or telegraph to him to
+come and see us."
+
+Kate sat down, and Dorothy drew the curtains across the window pane
+and snapped on the central cluster of electric lamps.
+
+"Will you come with me if I go north?" asked Kate, in a milder tone
+than she had hitherto used.
+
+"I cannot. I am making an appointment with a man in this room
+to-morrow."
+
+"The architect, I suppose," cried Kate with scorn.
+
+"No, with a man who may or may not give me information of Lamont or
+Drummond."
+
+Katherine stared at her open-eyed.
+
+"Then you have been doing something?"
+
+"I have been trying, but it is difficult to know what to do. I have
+received information that the house in which Mr. Lamont and Mr.
+Drummond lived is now deserted, and no one knows anything of its
+former occupants. That information comes to me semi-officially, but it
+does not lead far. I have started inquiry through more questionable
+channels; in other words, I have invoked the aid of a Nihilist
+society, and although I am quite determined to go to Russia with you,
+do not be surprised if I am arrested the moment I set foot in St.
+Petersburg."
+
+"Dorothy, why did you not let me know?"
+
+"I was anxious to get some good news to give you, but it has not come
+yet."
+
+"Oh, Dorothy," moaned Katherine, struggling to keep back the tears
+that would flow in spite of her. Dorothy patted her on the shoulder.
+
+"You have been a little unjust," she said, "and I am going to prove
+that to you, so that in trying to make amends you may perhaps stop
+brooding over this crisis that faces two poor lone women. You wrong
+the Englishman, as you call him. Jack was arrested at least two days
+before he was. Nihilist spies say that both of them were arrested, the
+Prince first, and the Englishman several days later. I had a letter
+from Mr. Drummond a short time after you received yours from Mr.
+Lamont. I never showed it to you, but now things are so bad that they
+cannot be worse, and you are at liberty to read the letter if you wish
+to do so. It tells of Jack's disappearance, and of Drummond's agony of
+mind and helplessness in St. Petersburg. Since he has never written
+again, I am sure he was arrested later. I don't know which of the two
+was most at fault for what you call stubbornness, but I believe the
+explosion had more to do with the arrests than any action of theirs."
+
+"And I was the cause of that," wailed Katherine.
+
+"No, no, my dear girl. No one is to blame but the tyrant of Russia.
+Now the Nihilists insist that neither of these men has been sent to
+Siberia. They think they are in the prison of 'St. Peter and St.
+Paul.' That information came to me to-day in the letter I was just now
+answering. So, Katherine, I think you have been unjust to the
+Englishman. If he had been arrested first, there might be some grounds
+for what you charge, but they evidently gave him a chance to escape.
+He had his warning in the disappearance of his friend, and he had
+several days in which to get out of St. Petersburg, but he stood his
+ground."
+
+"I'm sorry, Dorothy. I'm a silly fool, and to-day, when I saw the
+snow-- well, I got all wrought up."
+
+"I think neither of the men are in the snow, and now I am going to say
+something else, and then never speak of the subject again. You say I
+didn't care, and of course you are quite right, for I confessed to you
+that I didn't. But just imagine-- imagine-- that I cared. The Russian
+Government can let the Prince go at any moment, and there's nothing
+more to be said. He has no redress, and must take the consequences of
+his nationality. But if the Russian Government have arrested the
+Englishman; if they have put him in the prison of 'St. Peter and St.
+Paul,' they dare not release him, unless they are willing to face war.
+The Russian Government can do nothing in his case but deny, demand
+proof, and obliterate all chance of the truth ever being known. Alan
+Drummond is doomed: they dare not release him. Now think for a moment
+how much worse my case would be than yours, if-- if--" her voice
+quivered and broke for the moment, then with tightly clenched fists
+she recovered control of herself, and finished: "if I cared."
+
+"Oh, Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy!" gasped Katherine, springing to her
+feet.
+
+"No, no, don't jump at any false conclusion. We are both nervous
+wrecks this afternoon. Don't misunderstand me. I don't care-- I don't
+care, except that I hate tyranny, and am sorry for the victims of it."
+
+"Dorothy, Dorothy!"
+
+"We need a sane man in the house, Kate. Telegraph for your father to
+come down and talk to us both. I must finish my letter to the
+Nihilist."
+
+"Dorothy!" said Katherine, kissing her.
+
+  CHAPTER XII
+
+ THE DREADED TROGZMONDOFF
+
+THE Nihilist was shown into the dainty drawing room of the flat, and
+found Dorothy Amhurst alone, as he had stipulated, waiting for him. He
+was dressed in a sort of naval uniform and held a peaked cap in his
+hand, standing awkwardly there as one unused to luxurious
+surroundings. His face was bronzed with exposure to sun and storm, and
+although he appeared to be little more than thirty years of age his
+closely cropped hair was white. His eyes were light blue, and if ever
+the expression of a man's countenance betokened stalwart honesty, it
+was the face of this sailor. He was not in the least Dorothy's idea of
+a dangerous plotter.
+
+"Sit down," she said, and he did so like a man ill at ease.
+
+"I suppose Johnson is not your real name," she began.
+
+"It is the name I bear in America, Madam."
+
+"Do you mind my asking you some questions?"
+
+"No, Madam, but if you ask me anything I am not allowed to answer I
+shall not reply."
+
+"How long have you been in the United States?"
+
+"Only a few months, Madam."
+
+"How come you to speak English so well?"
+
+"In my young days I shipped aboard a bark plying between Helsingfors
+and New York."
+
+"You are a Russian?"
+
+"I am a Finlander, Madam."
+
+"Have you been a sailor all your life?"
+
+"Yes, Madam. For a time I was an unimportant officer on board a
+battleship in the Russian Navy, until I was discovered to be a
+Nihilist, when I was cast into prison. I escaped last May, and came to
+New York."
+
+"What have you been doing since you arrived here?"
+
+"I was so fortunate as to become mate on the turbine yacht 'The
+Walrus,' owned by Mr. Stockwell."
+
+"Oh, that's the multi-millionaire whose bank failed a month ago?"
+
+"Yes, Madam."
+
+"But does he still keep a yacht?"
+
+"No, Madam. I think he has never been aboard this one, although it is
+probably the most expensive boat in these waters. I am told it cost
+anywhere from half a million to a million. She was built by
+Thornycroft, like a cruiser, with Parson's turbine engines in her.
+After the failure, Captain and crew were discharged, and I am on board
+as a sort of watchman until she is sold, but there is not a large
+market for a boat like 'The Walrus,' and I am told they will take the
+fittings out of her, and sell her as a cruiser to one of the South
+American republics."
+
+"Well, Mr. Johnson, you ought to be a reliable man, if the Court has
+put you in charge of so valuable a property."
+
+"I believe I am considered honest, Madam."
+
+"Then why do you come to me asking ten thousand dollars for a letter
+which you say was written to me, and which naturally belongs to me?"
+
+The man's face deepened into a mahogany brown, and he shifted his cap
+uneasily in his hands.
+
+"Madam, I am not acting for myself. I am Secretary of the Russian
+Liberation Society. They, through their branch at St. Petersburg, have
+conducted some investigations on your behalf."
+
+"Yes, for which I paid them very well."
+
+Johnson bowed.
+
+"Our object, Madam, is the repression of tyranny. For that we are in
+continual need of money. It is the poor, and not the millionaires, who
+subscribe to our fund. It has been discovered that you are a rich
+woman, who will never miss the money asked, and so the demand was
+made. Believe me, Madam, I am acting by the command of my comrades. I
+tried to persuade them to leave compensation to your own generosity,
+but they refused. If you consider their demand unreasonable, you have
+but to say so, and I will return and tell them your decision."
+
+"Have you brought the letter with you?"
+
+"Yes, Madam."
+
+"Must I agree to your terms before seeing it?"
+
+"Yes, Madam."
+
+"Have you read it?"
+
+"Yes, Madam."
+
+"Do you think it worth ten thousand dollars?"
+
+The sailor looked up at the decorated ceiling for several moments
+before he replied.
+
+"That is a question I cannot answer," he said at last. "It all depends
+on what you think of the writer."
+
+"Answer one more question. By whom is the letter signed?"
+
+"There is no signature, Madam. It was found in the house where the two
+young men lived. Our people searched the house from top to bottom
+surreptitiously, and they think the writer was arrested before he had
+finished the letter. There is no address, and nothing to show for whom
+it is intended, except the phrase beginning, 'My dearest Dorothy.'"
+
+The girl leaned back in her chair, and drew a long breath. "It is not
+for me," she said, hastily; then bending forward, she cried suddenly:
+
+"I agree to your terms: give it to me."
+
+The man hesitated, fumbling in his inside pocket.
+
+"I was to get your promise in writing," he demurred.
+
+"Give it to me, give it to me," she demanded. "I do not break my
+word."
+
+He handed her the letter.
+
+"My dearest Dorothy," she read, in writing well known to her. "You may
+judge my exalted state of mind when you see that I dare venture on
+such a beginning. I have been worrying myself and other people all to
+no purpose. I have received a letter from Jack this morning, and so
+suspicious had I grown that for a few moments I suspected the writing
+was but an imitation of his. He is a very impulsive fellow, and can
+think of only one thing at a time, which accounts for his success in
+the line of invention. He was telegraphed to that his sister was ill,
+and left at once to see her. I had allowed my mind to become so
+twisted by my fears for his safety that, as I tell you, I suspected
+the letter to be counterfeit at first. I telegraphed to his estate,
+and received a prompt reply saying that his sister was much better,
+and that he was already on his way back, and would reach me at eleven
+to-night. So that's what happens when a grown man gets a fit of
+nerves. I drew the most gloomy conclusions from the fact that I had
+been refused admission to the Foreign Office and the Admiralty.
+Yesterday that was all explained away. The business is at last
+concluded, and I was shown copies of the letters which have been
+forwarded to my own chiefs at home. Nothing could be more
+satisfactory. To-morrow Jack and I will be off to England together.
+
+"My dearest Dorothy (second time of asking), I am not a rich man, but
+then, in spite of your little fortune of Bar Harbor, you are not a
+rich woman, so we stand on an equality in that, even though you are so
+much my superior in everything else. I have five hundred pounds a
+year, which is something less than two thousand five hundred dollars,
+left me by my father. This is independent of my profession. I am very
+certain I will succeed in the Navy now that the Russian Government has
+sent those letters, so, the moment I was assured of that, I determined
+to write and ask you to be my wife. Will you forgive my impatience,
+and pander to it by cabling to me at the Bluewater Club, Pall Mall,
+the word 'Yes' or the word 'Undecided'? I shall not allow you the
+privilege of cabling 'No.' And please give me a chance of pleading my
+case in person, if you use the longer word. Ah, I hear Jack's step on
+the stair. Very stealthily he is coming, to surprise me, but I'll
+surprise--"
+
+Here the writing ended. She folded the letter, and placed it in her
+desk, sitting down before it.
+
+"Shall I make the check payable to you, or to the Society?"
+
+"To the Society, if you please, Madam."
+
+"I shall write it for double the amount asked. I also am a believer in
+liberty."
+
+"Oh, Madam, that is a generosity I feel we do not deserve. I should
+like to have given you the letter after all you have done for us with
+no conditions attached."
+
+"I am quite sure of that," said Dorothy, bending over her writing. She
+handed him the check, and he rose to go.
+
+"Sit down again, if you please. I wish to talk further with you. Your
+people in St. Petersburg think my friends have not been sent to
+Siberia? Are they sure of that?"
+
+"Well, Madam, they have means of knowing those who are transported,
+and they are certain the two young men were not among the recent gangs
+sent. They suppose them to be in the fortress of 'St. Peter and St.
+Paul', at least that's what they say."
+
+"You speak as if you doubted it."
+
+"I do doubt it."
+
+"They have been sent to Siberia after all?"
+
+"Ah, Madam, there are worse places than Siberia. In Siberia there is a
+chance: in the dreadful Trogzmondoff there is none."
+
+"What is the Trogzmondoff?"
+
+"A bleak 'Rock in the Baltic,' Madam, the prison in which death is the
+only goal that releases the victim."
+
+Dorothy rose trembling, staring at him, her lips white.
+
+"'A Rock in the Baltic!' Is that a prison, and not a fortress, then?"
+
+"It is both prison and fortress, Madam. If Russia ever takes the risk
+of arresting a foreigner, it is to the Trogzmondoff he is sent. They
+drown the victims there; drown them in their cells. There is a spring
+in the rock, and through the line of cells it runs like a beautiful
+rivulet, but the pulling of a lever outside stops the exit of the
+water, and drowns every prisoner within. The bodies are placed one by
+one on a smooth, inclined shute of polished sandstone, down which this
+rivulet runs so they glide out into space, and drop two hundred feet
+into the Baltic Sea. No matter in what condition such a body is found,
+or how recent may have been the execution, it is but a drowned man in
+the Baltic. There are no marks of bullet or strangulation, and the
+currents bear them swiftly away from the rock."
+
+"How come you to know all this which seems to have been concealed from
+the rest of the world?"
+
+"I know it, Madam, for the best of reasons. I was sentenced this very
+year to Trogzmondoff. In my youth trading between Helsingfors and New
+York, I took out naturalization papers in New York, because I was one
+of the crew on an American ship. When they illegally impressed me at
+Helsingfors and forced me to join the Russian Navy, I made the best of
+a bad bargain, and being an expert seaman, was reasonably well
+treated, and promoted, but at last they discovered I was in
+correspondence with a Nihilist circle in London, and when I was
+arrested, I demanded the rights of an American citizen. That doomed
+me. I was sent, without trial, to the Trogzmondoff in April of this
+year. Arriving there I was foolish enough to threaten, and say my
+comrades had means of letting the United States Government know, and
+that a battleship would teach the gaolers of the rock better manners.
+
+"The cells hewn in the rock are completely dark, so I lost all count
+of time. You might think we would know night from day by the bringing
+in of our meals, but such was not the case. The gaoler brought in a
+large loaf of black bread, and said it was to serve me for four days.
+He placed the loaf on a ledge of rock about three feet from the floor,
+which served as both table and bed. In excavating the cell this ledge
+had been left intact, with a bench of stone rising from the floor
+opposite. Indeed, so ingenious had been the workmen who hewed out this
+room that they carved a rounded stone pillow at one end of the shelf.
+
+"I do not know how many days I had been in prison when the explosion
+occurred. It made the whole rock quiver, and I wondered what had
+happened. Almost immediately afterward there seemed to be another
+explosion, not nearly so harsh, which I thought was perhaps an echo of
+the first. About an hour later my cell door was unlocked, and the
+gaoler, with another man holding a lantern, came in. My third loaf of
+black bread was partly consumed, so I must have been in prison nine or
+ten days. The gaoler took the loaf outside, and when he returned. I
+asked him what had happened. He answered in a surly fashion that my
+American warship had fired at the rock, and that the rock had struck
+back, whereupon she sailed away, crippled."
+
+Dorothy, who had been listening intently to this discourse, here
+interrupted with:
+
+"It was an English war-ship that fired the shell, and the Russian shot
+did not come within half a mile of her."
+
+The sailor stared at her in wide-eyed surprise.
+
+"You see, I have been making inquiries," she explained. "Please go
+on."
+
+"I never heard that it was an English ship. The gaoler sneered at me,
+and said he was going to send me after the American vessel, as I
+suppose he thought it was. I feared by his taking away of the bread
+that it was intended to starve me to death, and was sorry I had not
+eaten more at my last meal. I lay down on the shelf of rock, and soon
+fell asleep. I was awakened by the water lapping around me. The cell
+was intensely still. Up to this I had always enjoyed the company of a
+little brook that ran along the side of the cell farthest from the
+door. Its music had now ceased, and when I sprang up I found myself to
+the waist in very cold water. I guessed at once the use of the levers
+outside the cell in the passage which I had noticed in the light of
+the lantern on the day I entered the place, and I knew now why it was
+that the prison door was not pierced by one of those gratings which
+enable the gaoler in the passage to look into the cell any time of
+night or day. Prisoners have told me that the uncertainty of an inmate
+who never knew when he might be spied upon added to the horror of the
+situation, but the water-tight doors of the Trogzmondoff are free from
+this feature, and for a very sinister reason.
+
+"The channel in the floor through which the water runs when the cell
+is empty, and the tunnel at the ceiling through which the water flows
+when the cell is full, give plenty of ventilation, no matter how
+tightly the door may he closed. The water rose very gradually until it
+reached the top outlet, then its level remained stationary. I floated
+on the top quite easily, with as little exertion as was necessary to
+keep me in that position. If I raised my head, my brow struck the
+ceiling. The next cell to mine, lower down, was possibly empty. I
+heard the water pour into it like a little cataract. The next cell
+above, and indeed all the cells in that direction were flooded like my
+own. Of course it was no trouble for me to keep afloat; my only danger
+was that the intense coldness of the water would numb my body beyond
+recovery. Still, I had been accustomed to hardships of that kind
+before now, in the frozen North. At last the gentle roar of the
+waterfall ceased, and I realized my cell was emptying itself. When I
+reached my shelf again, I stretched my limbs back and forth as
+strenuously as I could, and as silently, for I wished no sound to give
+any hint that I was still alive, if, indeed, sound could penetrate to
+the passage, which is unlikely. Even before the last of the water had
+run away from the cell, I lay stretched out at full length on the
+floor, hoping I might have steadiness enough to remain death-quiet
+when the men came in with the lantern. I need have had no fear. The
+door was opened, one of the men picked me up by the heels, and, using
+my legs as if they were the shafts of a wheelbarrow, dragged me down
+the passage to the place where the stream emerged from the last cell,
+and into this torrent he flung me. There was one swift, brief moment
+of darkness, then I shot, feet first, into space, and dropped down,
+down, down through the air like a plummet, into the arms of my
+mother."
+
+"Into what?" cried Dorothy, white and breathless, thinking the recital
+of these agonies had turned the man's brain.
+
+"The Baltic, Madam, is the Finlander's mother. It feeds him in life,
+carries him whither he wishes to go, and every true Finlander hopes to
+die in her arms. The Baltic seemed almost warm after what I had been
+through, and the taste of the salt on my lips was good. It was a
+beautiful starlight night in May, and I floated around the rock, for I
+knew that in a cove on the eastern side, concealed from all view of
+the sea, lay a Finland fishing-boat, a craft that will weather any
+storm, and here in the water was a man who knew how to handle it.
+Prisoners are landed on the eastern side, and such advantage is taken
+of the natural conformation of this precipitous rock, that a man
+climbing the steep zigzag stairway which leads to the inhabited
+portion is hidden from sight of any craft upon the water even four or
+five hundred yards away. Nothing seen from the outside gives any token
+of habitation. The fishing-boat, I suppose, is kept for cases of
+emergency, that the Governor may communicate with the shore if
+necessary. I feared it might be moored so securely that I could not
+unfasten it. Security had made them careless, and the boat was tied
+merely by lines to rings in the rock, the object being to keep her
+from bruising her sides against the stone, rather than to prevent any
+one taking her away. I pushed her out into the open, got quietly
+inside, and floated with the swift tide, not caring to raise a sail
+until I was well out of gunshot distance. Once clear of the rock I
+spread canvas, and by daybreak was long out of sight of land. I made
+for Stockholm, and there being no mark or name on the boat to denote
+that it belonged to the Russian Government, I had little difficulty in
+selling it. I told the authorities what was perfectly true: that I was
+a Finland sailor escaping from the tyrant of my country, and anxious
+to get to America. As such events are happening practically every week
+along the Swedish coast I was not interfered with, and got enough
+money from the sale of the boat to enable me to dress myself well, and
+take passage to England, and from there first-class to New York on a
+regular liner.
+
+"Of course I could have shipped as a sailor from Stockholm easy
+enough, but I was tired of being a common sailor, and expected, if I
+was respectably clothed, to get a better position than would otherwise
+be the case. This proved true, for crossing the ocean I became
+acquainted with Mr. Stockwell, and he engaged me as mate of his yacht.
+That's how I escaped from the Trogzmondoff, Madam, and I think no one
+but a Finlander could have done it."
+
+"I quite agree with you," said Dorothy. "You think these two men I
+have been making inquiry about have been sent to the Trogzmondoff?"
+
+"The Russian may not be there, Madam, but the Englishman is sure to be
+there."
+
+"Is the cannon on the western side of the rock?"
+
+"I don't know, Madam. I never saw the western side by daylight. I
+noticed nothing on the eastern side as I was climbing the steps, to
+show that any cannon was on the Trogzmondoff at all."
+
+"I suppose you had no opportunity of finding out how many men garrison
+the rock?"
+
+"No, Madam. I don't think the garrison is large. The place is so
+secure that it doesn't need many men to guard it. Prisoners are never
+taken out for exercise, and, as I told you, they are fed but once in
+four days."
+
+"How large a crew can 'The Walrus' carry?"
+
+"Oh, as many as you like, Madam. The yacht is practically an ocean
+liner."
+
+"Is there any landing stage on the eastern side of the rock?"
+
+"Practically none, Madam. The steamer stood out, and I was landed in
+the cove I spoke of at the foot of the stairway."
+
+"It wouldn't be possible to bring a steamer like 'The Walrus'
+alongside the rock, then?"
+
+"It would be possible in calm weather, but very dangerous even then."
+
+"Could you find that rock if you were in command of a ship sailing the
+Baltic?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Madam."
+
+"If twenty or thirty determined men were landed on the stairway, do
+you think they could capture the garrison?"
+
+"Yes, if they were landed secretly, but one or two soldiers at the top
+with repeating rifles might hold the stairway against an army, while
+their ammunition lasted."
+
+"But if a shell were fired from the steamer, might not the attacking
+company get inside during the confusion among the defenders?"
+
+"That is possible, Madam, but a private steamer firing shells, or,
+indeed, landing a hostile company, runs danger of meeting the fate of
+a pirate."
+
+"You would not care to try it, then?"
+
+"I? Oh, I should be delighted to try it, if you allow me to select the
+crew. I can easily get aboard the small arms and ammunition necessary,
+but I am not so sure about the cannon."
+
+"Very good. I need not warn you to be extremely cautious regarding
+those you take into your confidence. Meanwhile, I wish you to
+communicate with the official who is authorized to sell the yacht. I
+am expecting a gentleman to-morrow in whose name the vessel will
+probably be bought, and I am hoping he will accept the captaincy of
+it."
+
+"Is he capable of filling that position, Madam? Is he a sailor?"
+
+"He was for many years captain in the United States Navy. I offer you
+the position of mate, but I will give you captain's pay, and a large
+bonus in addition if you faithfully carry out my plans, whether they
+prove successful or not. I wish you to come here at this hour
+to-morrow, with whoever is authorized to sell or charter the steamer.
+You may say I am undecided whether to buy or charter. I must consult
+Captain Kempt on that point."
+
+"Thank you, Madam, I shall be here this time to-morrow."
+
+  CHAPTER XIII
+
+ ENTRAPPED
+
+PRINCE IVAN LERMONTOFF came to consider the explosion one of the
+luckiest things that had ever occurred in his workshop. Its happening
+so soon after he reached St. Petersburg he looked upon as particularly
+fortunate, because this gave him time to follow the new trend of
+thought along which his mind had been deflected by such knowledge as
+the unexpected outcome of his experiment had disclosed to him. The
+material he had used as a catalytic agent was a new substance which he
+had read of in a scientific review, and he had purchased a small
+quantity of it in London. If such a minute portion produced results so
+tremendous, he began to see that a man with an apparently innocent
+material in his waistcoat pocket might probably be able to destroy a
+naval harbor, so long as water and stone were in conjunction. There
+was also a possibility that a small quantity of ozak, as the stuff was
+called, mixed with pure water, would form a reducing agent for
+limestone, and perhaps for other minerals, which would work much
+quicker than if the liquid was merely impregnated with carbonic acid
+gas. He endeavored to purchase some ozak from Mr. Kruger, the chemist
+on the English quay, but that good man had never heard of it, and a
+day's search persuaded him that it could not be got in St. Petersburg,
+so the Prince induced Kruger to order half a pound of it from London
+or Paris, in which latter city it had been discovered. For the arrival
+of this order the Prince waited with such patience as he could call to
+his command, and visited poor Mr. Kruger every day in the hope of
+receiving it.
+
+One afternoon he was delighted to hear that the box had come, although
+it had not yet been unpacked.
+
+"I will send it to your house this evening," said the chemist. "There
+are a number of drugs in the box for your old friend Professor Potkin
+of the University, and he is even more impatient for his consignment
+than you are for yours. Ah, here he is," and as he spoke the venerable
+Potkin himself entered the shop.
+
+He shook hands warmly with Lermontoff, who had always been a favorite
+pupil of his, and learned with interest that he had lately been to
+England and America.
+
+"Cannot you dine with me this evening at half-past five?" asked the
+old man. "There are three or four friends coming, to whom I shall be
+glad to introduce you."
+
+"Truth to tell, Professor," demurred the Prince, "I have a friend
+staying with me, and I don't just like to leave him alone."
+
+"Bring him with you, bring him with you," said the Professor, "but in
+any case be sure you come yourself. I shall be expecting you. Make
+your excuses to your friend if he does not wish to endure what he
+might think dry discussion, because we shall talk nothing but
+chemistry and politics."
+
+The Prince promised to be there whether his friend came or no. The
+chemist here interrupted them, and told the Professor he might expect
+his materials within two hours.
+
+"And your package," he said to the Prince, "I shall send about the
+same time. I have been very busy, and can trust no one to unpack this
+box but myself."
+
+"You need not trouble to send it, and in any case I don't wish to run
+the risk of having it delivered at a wrong address by your messenger.
+I cannot afford to wait so long as would be necessary to duplicate the
+order. I am dining with the Professor to-night, so will drive this
+way, and take the parcel myself."
+
+"Perhaps," said the chemist, "it would be more convenient if I sent
+your parcel to Professor Potkin's house?"
+
+"No," said the Prince decisively, "I shall call for it about five
+o'clock."
+
+The Professor laughed.
+
+"We experimenters," he said, "never trust each other," so they shook
+hands and parted.
+
+On returning to his workshop, Lermontoff bounded up the stairs, and
+hailed his friend the Lieutenant.
+
+"I say, Drummond, I'm going to dine to-night with Professor Potkin of
+the University, my old teacher in chemistry. His hour is half-past
+five, and I've got an invitation for you. There will be several
+scientists present, and no women. Will you come?"
+
+"I'd a good deal rather not," said the Englishman, "I'm wiring into
+these books, and studying strategy; making plans for an attack upon
+Kronstadt."
+
+"Well, you take my advice, Alan, and don't leave any of those plans
+round where the St. Petersburg police will find them. Such a line of
+study is carried on much safer in London than here. You'd be very
+welcome, Drummond, and the old boy would be glad to see you. You don't
+need to bother about evening togs-- plain living and high thinking,
+you know. I'm merely going to put on a clean collar and a new tie, as
+sufficient for the occasion."
+
+"I'd rather not go, Jack, if you don't mind. If I'm there you'll all
+be trying to talk English or French, and so I'd feel myself rather a
+damper on the company. Besides, I don't know anything about science,
+and I'm trying to learn something about strategy. What time do you
+expect to be back?"
+
+"Rather early; ten or half-past."
+
+"Good, I'll wait up for you."
+
+At five o'clock Jack was at the chemist's and received his package. On
+opening it he found the ozak in two four-ounce, glass-stoppered
+bottles, and these be put in his pocket.
+
+"Will you give me three spray syringes, as large a size as you have,
+rubber, glass, and metal. I'm not sure but this stuff will attack one
+or other of them, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life
+running down to your shop."
+
+Getting the syringes, he jumped into his cab, and was driven to the
+Professor's.
+
+"You may call for me at ten," he said to the cabman.
+
+There were three others besides the Professor and himself, and they
+were all interested in learning the latest scientific news from New
+York and London.
+
+It was a quarter past ten when the company separated. Lermontoff
+stepped into his cab, and the driver went rattling up the street. In
+all the talk the Prince had said nothing of his own discovery, and now
+when he found himself alone his mind reverted to the material in his
+pocket, and he was glad the cabman was galloping his horse, that he
+might be the sooner in his workshop. Suddenly he noticed that they
+were dashing down a street which ended at the river.
+
+"I say," he cried to the driver, "you've taken the wrong turning. This
+is a blind street. There's neither quay nor bridge down here. Turn
+back."
+
+"I see that now," said the driver over his shoulder. "I'll turn round
+at the end where it is wider."
+
+He did turn, but instead of coming up the street again, dashed through
+an open archway which led into the courtyard of a large building
+fronting the Neva. The moment the carriage was inside, the gates
+clanged shut.
+
+"Now, what in the name of Saint Peter do you mean by this?" demanded
+the Prince angrily.
+
+The cabman made no reply, but from a door to the right stepped a tall,
+uniformed officer, who said:
+
+"Orders, your Highness, orders. The isvoshtchik is not to blame. May I
+beg of your Highness to accompany me inside?"
+
+"Who the devil are you?" demanded the annoyed nobleman.
+
+"I am one who is called upon to perform a disagreeable duty, which
+your Highness will make much easier by paying attention to my
+requests."
+
+"Am I under arrest?"
+
+"I have not said so, Prince Ivan."
+
+"Then I demand that the gates be opened that I may return home, where
+more important business awaits me than talking to a stranger who
+refuses to reveal his identity."
+
+"I hope you will pardon me, Prince Lermontoff. I act, as the
+isvoshtchik has acted, under compulsion. My identity is not in
+question. I ask you for the second time to accompany me."
+
+"Then, for the second time I inquire, am I under arrest? If so, show
+me your warrant, and then I will go with you, merely protesting that
+whoever issued such a warrant has exceeded his authority."
+
+"I have seen nothing of a warrant, your Highness, and I think you are
+confusing your rights with those pertaining to individuals residing in
+certain countries you have recently visited."
+
+"You have no warrant, then?"
+
+"I have none. I act on my superior's word, and do not presume to
+question it. May I hope that you will follow me without a further
+parley, which is embarrassing to me, and quite unhelpful to yourself.
+I have been instructed to treat you with every courtesy, but
+nevertheless force has been placed at my disposal. I am even to take
+your word of honor that you are unarmed, and your Highness is well
+aware that such leniency is seldom shown in St. Petersburg."
+
+"Well, sir, even if my word of honor failed to disarm me, your
+politeness would. I carry a revolver. Do you wish it?"
+
+"If your Highness will condescend to give it to me."
+
+The Prince held the weapon, butt forward, to the officer, who received
+it with a gracious salutation.
+
+"You know nothing of the reason for this action?"
+
+"Nothing whatever, your Highness."
+
+"Where are you going to take me?"
+
+"A walk of less than three minutes will acquaint your Highness with
+the spot."
+
+The Prince laughed.
+
+"Oh, very well," he said. "May I write a note to a friend who is
+waiting up for me?"
+
+"I regret, Highness, that no communications whatever can be allowed."
+
+The Prince stepped down from the vehicle, walked diagonally across a
+very dimly lighted courtyard with his guide, entered that section of
+the rectangular building which faced the Neva, passed along a hall
+with one gas jet burning, then outside again, and immediately over a
+gang-plank that brought him aboard a steamer. On the lower deck a
+passage ran down the center of the ship, and along this the conductor
+guided his prisoner, opened the door of a stateroom in which candles
+were burning, and a comfortable bed turned down for occupancy.
+
+"I think your Highness will find everything here that you need. If
+anything further is required, the electric bell will summon an
+attendant, who will get it for you."
+
+"Am I not to be confronted with whoever is responsible for my arrest?"
+
+"I know nothing of that, your Highness. My duty ends by escorting you
+here. I must ask if you have any other weapon upon you?"
+
+"No, I have not."
+
+"Will you give me your parole that you will not attempt to escape?"
+
+"I shall escape if I can, of course."
+
+"Thank you, Excellency," replied the officer, as suavely as if
+Lermontoff had given his parole. Out of the darkness he called a tall,
+rough-looking soldier, who carried a musket with a bayonet at the end
+of it. The soldier took his stand beside the door of the cabin.
+
+"Anything else?" asked the Prince.
+
+"Nothing else, your Highness, except good-night."
+
+"Oh, by the way, I forgot to pay my cabman. Of course it isn't his
+fault that he brought me here."
+
+"I shall have pleasure in sending him to you, and again, good-night."
+
+"Good-night," said the Prince.
+
+He closed the door of his cabin, pulled out his note-book, and rapidly
+wrote two letters, one of which he addressed to Drummond and the other
+to the Czar. When the cabman came he took him within the cabin and
+closed the door.
+
+"Here," he said in a loud voice that the sentry could overhear if he
+liked, "how much do I owe you?"
+
+The driver told him.
+
+"That's too much, you scoundrel," he cried aloud, but as he did so he
+placed three gold pieces in the palm of the driver's hand together
+with the two letters, and whispered:
+
+"Get these delivered safely, and I'll give you ten times this money if
+you call on Prince Lermontoff at the address on that note."
+
+The man saluted, thanked him, and retired; a moment later he heard the
+jingle of a bell, and then the steady throb of an engine. There was no
+window to the stateroom, and he could not tell whether the steamer was
+going up or down the river. Up, he surmised, and he suspected his
+destination was Schlusselburg, the fortress-prison on an island at the
+source of the Neva. He determined to go on deck and solve the question
+of direction, but the soldier at the door brought down his gun and
+barred the passage.
+
+"I am surely allowed to go on deck?"
+
+"You cannot pass without an order from the captain."
+
+"Well, send the captain to me, then."
+
+"I dare not leave the door," said the soldier.
+
+Lermontoff pressed the button, and presently an attendant came to
+learn what was wanted.
+
+"Will you ask the captain to come here?"
+
+The steward departed, and shortly after returned with a big, bronzed,
+bearded man, whose bulk made the stateroom seem small.
+
+"You sent for the captain, and I am here."
+
+"So am I," said the Prince jauntily. "My name is Lermontoff. Perhaps
+you have heard of me?"
+
+The captain shook his shaggy head.
+
+"I am a Prince of Russia, and by some mistake find myself your
+passenger instead of spending the night in my own house. Where are you
+taking me, Captain?"
+
+"It is forbidden that I should answer questions."
+
+"Is it also forbidden that I should go on deck?"
+
+"The General said you were not to be allowed to leave this stateroom,
+as you did not give your parole."
+
+"How can I escape from a steamer in motion, Captain?"
+
+"It is easy to jump into the river, and perhaps swim ashore."
+
+"So he is a general, is he? Well, Captain, I'll give you my parole
+that I shall not attempt to swim the Neva on so cold a night as this."
+
+"I cannot allow you on deck now," said the Captain, "but when we are
+in the Gulf of Finland you may walk the deck with the sentry beside
+you."
+
+"The Gulf of Finland!" cried Lermontoff. "Then you are going down the
+river?"
+
+The big Captain looked at him with deep displeasure clouding his brow,
+feeling that he had been led to give away information which he should
+have kept to himself.
+
+"You are not going up to Schlusselburg, then?"
+
+"I told your Highness that I am not allowed to answer questions. The
+General, however, has given me a letter for you, and perhaps it may
+contain all you may want to know."
+
+"The General has given you a letter, eh? Then why don't you let me
+have it?"
+
+"He told me not to disturb you to-night, but place it before you at
+breakfast to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, we're going to travel all night, are we?"
+
+"Yes, Excellency."
+
+"Did the General say you should not allow me to see the letter
+to-night?"
+
+"No, your Excellency; he just said, 'Do not trouble his Highness
+to-night, but give him this in the morning.'"
+
+"In that case let me have it now."
+
+The Captain pulled a letter from his pocket and presented it to the
+Prince. It contained merely the two notes which Lermontoff had written
+to Drummond and to the Czar.
+
+  CHAPTER XIV
+
+ A VOYAGE INTO THE UNKNOWN
+
+AFTER the Captain left him, Lermontoff closed and bolted the door,
+then sat down upon the edge of his bed to meditate upon the situation.
+He heard distant bells ringing on shore somewhere, and looking at his
+watch saw it was just eleven o'clock. It seemed incredible that
+three-quarters of an hour previously he had left the hospitable doors
+of a friend, and now was churning his way in an unknown steamer to an
+unknown destination. It appeared impossible that so much could have
+happened in forty-five minutes. He wondered what Drummond was doing,
+and what action he would take when he found his friend missing.
+
+However, pondering over the matter brought no solution of the mystery,
+so, being a practical young man, he cast the subject from his mind,
+picked up his heavy overcoat, which he had flung on the bed, and hung
+it up on the hook attached to the door. As he did this his hand came
+in contact with a tube in one of the pockets, and for a moment he
+imagined it was his revolver, but he found it was the metal syringe he
+had purchased that evening from the chemist. This set his thoughts
+whirling in another direction. He took from an inside pocket one of
+the bottles of ozak, examining it under the candle light, wishing he
+had a piece of rock with which to experiment. Then with a yawn he
+replaced the materials in his overcoat pocket, took off his boots, and
+threw himself on the bed, thankful it was not an ordinary shelf bunk,
+but a generous and comfortable resting-place. Now Katherine appeared
+before his closed eyes, and hand in hand they wandered into dreamland
+together.
+
+When he awoke it was pitch dark in his cabin. The candles, which he
+had neglected to extinguish, had burned themselves out. The short,
+jerky motion of the steamer indicated that he was aboard a small
+vessel, and that this small vessel was out in the open sea. He
+believed that a noise of some kind had awakened him, and this was
+confirmed by a knock at his door which caused him to spring up and
+throw back the bolt. The steward was there, but in the dim light of
+the passage he saw nothing of the sentinel. He knew it was daylight
+outside.
+
+"The Captain, Excellency, wishes to know if you will breakfast with
+him or take your meal in your room?"
+
+"Present my compliments to the Captain, and say I shall have great
+pleasure in breakfasting with him."
+
+"It will be ready in a quarter of an hour, Excellency."
+
+"Very good. Come for me at that time, as I don't know my way about the
+boat."
+
+The Prince washed himself, smoothed out his rumpled clothes as well as
+he could, and put on his boots. While engaged in the latter operation
+the door opened, and the big Captain himself entered, inclosed in
+glistening oilskins.
+
+"Hyvaa pyvaa, Highness," said the Captain. "Will you walk the deck
+before breakfast?"
+
+"Good-day to you," returned the Prince, "and by your salutation I take
+you to be a Finn."
+
+"I am a native of Abo," replied the Captain, "and as you say, a Finn,
+but I differ from many of my countrymen, as I am a good Russian also."
+
+"Well, there are not too many good Russians, and here is one who would
+rather have heard that you were a good Finn solely."
+
+"It is to prevent any mistake," replied the Captain, almost roughly,
+"that I mention I am a good Russian."
+
+"Right you are, Captain, and as I am a good Russian also, perhaps good
+Russian Number One can tell me to what part of the world he is
+conveying good Russian Number Two, a man guiltless of any crime, and
+unwilling, at this moment, to take an enforced journey."
+
+"We may both be good, but the day is not, Highness. It has been
+raining during the night, and is still drizzling. I advise you to put
+on your overcoat."
+
+"Thanks, Captain, I will."
+
+The Captain in most friendly manner took the overcoat from its hook,
+shook it out, and held it ready to embrace its owner. Lermontoff
+shoved right arm, then left, into the sleeves, hunched the coat up
+into place, and buttoned it at the throat.
+
+"Again, Captain, my thanks. Lead the way and I will follow."
+
+They emerged on deck into a dismal gray morning. No land or craft of
+any kind was in sight. The horizon formed a small, close circle round
+the ship. Clouds hung low, running before the wind, and bringing
+intermittently little dashes of rain that seemed still further to
+compress the walls of horizon. The sea was not what could be called
+rough, but merely choppy and fretful, with short waves that would not
+have troubled a larger craft. The steamer proved to be a small,
+undistinguished dingy-looking boat, more like a commercial tramp than
+a government vessel. An officer, apparently the mate, stood on the
+bridge, sinewy hands grasping the rail, peering ahead into the white
+mist that was almost a fog. The promenade deck afforded no great scope
+for pedestrianism, but Captain and prisoner walked back and forth over
+the restricted space, talking genially together as if they were old
+friends. Nevertheless there was a certain cautious guardedness in the
+Captain's speech; the wary craft of an unready man who is in the
+presence of a person more subtle than himself. The bluff Captain
+remembered he had been caught napping the night before, when, after
+refusing to tell the Prince the direction of the steamer, he had given
+himself away by mentioning the Gulf of Finland. Lermontoff noticed
+this reluctance to plunge into the abyss of free conversation, and so,
+instead of reassuring him he would ask no more questions, he merely
+took upon his own shoulders the burden of the talk, and related to the
+Captain certain wonders of London and New York.
+
+The steward advanced respectfully to the Captain, and announced
+breakfast ready, whereupon the two men followed him into a saloon not
+much larger than the stateroom Lermontoff had occupied the night
+before, and not nearly so comfortably furnished. A plenteous breakfast
+was supplied, consisting principally of fish, steaming potatoes, black
+bread, and very strong tea. The Captain swallowed cup after cup of
+this scalding beverage, and it seemed to make him more and more genial
+as if it had been wine. Indeed, as time went on he forgot that it was
+a prisoner who sat before him, for quite innocently he said to the
+steward who waited on them:
+
+"Have the poor devils below had anything to eat?"
+
+"No orders, sir," replied the steward.
+
+"Oh, well, give them something-- something hot. It may be their last
+meal," then turning, he met the gaze of the Prince, demanded roughly
+another cup of tea, and explained:
+
+"Three of the crew took too much vodka in St. Petersburg yesterday."
+
+The Prince nodded carelessly, as if he believed, and offered his open
+cigarette case to the Captain, who shook his head.
+
+"I smoke a pipe," he growled.
+
+The Captain rose with his lighted pipe, and together they went up on
+deck again. The Prince saw nothing more of the tall sentinel who had
+been his guard the night before, so without asking permission he took
+it for granted that his movements, now they were in the open sea, were
+unrestricted, therefore he walked up and down the deck smoking
+cigarettes. At the stroke of a bell the Captain mounted the bridge and
+the mate came down.
+
+Suddenly out of the thickness ahead loomed up a great black British
+freighter making for St. Petersburg, as the Prince supposed. The two
+steamers, big and little, were so close that each was compelled to
+sheer off a bit; then the Captain turned on the bridge and seemed for
+a moment uncertain what to do with his prisoner. A number of men were
+leaning over the bulwarks of the British ship, and it would have been
+quite possible for the person on one boat to give a message to those
+on the other. The Prince, understanding the Captain's quandary, looked
+up at him and smiled, but made no attempt to take advantage of his
+predicament. Some one on board the English ship shouted and fluttered
+a handkerchief, whereupon the Prince waved his cigarette in the air,
+and the big boat disappeared in the thickness of the east.
+
+Lermontoff walked the deck, thinking very seriously about his
+situation, and wondering where they intended to take him. If he were
+to be put in prison, it must be in some place of detention on the
+coast of Finland, which seemed strange, because he understood that the
+fortresses there were already filled with dissatisfied inhabitants of
+that disaffected land. His first impression had been that banishment
+was intended, and he had expected to be landed at some Swedish or
+German port, but a chance remark made by the Captain at breakfast
+inclined him to believe that there were other prisoners on board not
+quite so favorably treated as himself. But why should he be sent out
+of Russia proper, or even removed from St. Petersburg, which, he was
+well aware, suffered from no lack of gaols. The continued voyage of
+the steamer through an open sea again aroused the hope that Stockholm
+was the objective point. If they landed him there it merely meant a
+little temporary inconvenience, and, once ashore, he hoped to concoct
+a telegram so apparently innocent that it would win through to his
+friend, and give Drummond at least the knowledge of his abiding-place.
+The thought of Drummond aroused all his old fear that the Englishman
+was to be the real victim, and this enforced voyage was merely a
+convenient method of getting himself out of the way.
+
+After lunch a dismal drizzle set in that presently increased to a
+steady downpour, which drove Lermontoff to his cabin, and that room
+being unprovided with either window or electric light, the Prince
+struck a match to one of the candles newly placed on the washstand. He
+pushed the electric button summoning the steward, and, giving him some
+money, asked if there was such a thing as a piece of stone on board,
+carried as ballast, or for any other reason. The steward said he would
+inquire, and finally returned with a sharpening stone used for the
+knives in the galley. Bolting his door, Lermontoff began an
+experiment, and at once forgot he was a prisoner. He filled the
+wash-basin with water, and opening one of the glass-stoppered bottles,
+took out with the point of his knife a most minute portion of the
+substance within, which he dissolved in the water with no apparent
+effect. Standing the whetstone up on end, he filled the glass syringe,
+and directed a fine, vaporous spray against the stone. It dissolved
+before his eyes as a sand castle on the shore dissolves at the touch
+of an incoming tide.
+
+"By St. Peter of Russia!" he cried, "I've got it at last! I must write
+to Katherine about this."
+
+Summoning the steward again to take away this fluid, and bring him
+another pailful of fresh water, Lermontoff endeavored to extract some
+information from the deferential young man.
+
+"Have you ever been in Stockholm?"
+
+"No, Excellency."
+
+"Or in any of the German ports?"
+
+"No, Excellency."
+
+"Do you know where we are making for now?"
+
+"No, Excellency."
+
+"Nor when we shall reach our destination?"
+
+"No, Excellency."
+
+"You have some prisoners aboard?"
+
+"Three drunken sailors, Excellency."
+
+"Yes, that's what the Captain said. But if it meant death for a sailor
+to be drunk, the commerce of the world would speedily stop."
+
+"This is a government steamer, Excellency, and if a sailor here
+disobeys orders he is guilty of mutiny. On a merchant vessel they
+would merely put him in irons."
+
+"I see. Now do you want to earn a few gold pieces?"
+
+"Excellency has been very generous to me already," was the
+non-committal reply of the steward, whose eyes nevertheless twinkled
+at the mention of gold.
+
+"Well, here's enough to make a jingle in your pocket, and here are two
+letters which you are to try to get delivered when you return to St.
+Petersburg."
+
+"Yes, Excellency."
+
+"You will do your best?"
+
+"Yes, Excellency."
+
+"Well, if you succeed, I'll make your fortune when I'm released."
+
+"Thank you, Excellency."
+
+That night at dinner the Captain opened a bottle of vodka, and
+conversed genially on many topics, without touching upon the
+particular subject of liberty. He partook sparingly of the stimulant,
+and, to Lermontoff's disappointment, it did not in the least loosen
+his tongue, and thus, still ignorant of his fate, the Prince turned in
+for the second night aboard the steamer.
+
+When he awoke next morning he found the engines had stopped, and, as
+the vessel was motionless, surmised it had reached harbor. He heard
+the intermittent chuck-chuck of a pony engine, and the screech of an
+imperfectly-oiled crane, and guessed that cargo was being put ashore.
+
+"Now," he said to himself, "if my former sentinel is at the door they
+are going to take me to prison. If he is absent, I am to be set free."
+
+He jumped up, threw back the bolt, opened the door. There was no one
+there. In a very few minutes he was on deck, and found that the
+steamer was lying in the lee of a huge rock, which reminded him of
+Mont St. Michel in Normandy, except that it was about half again as
+high, and three times as long, and that there were no buildings of any
+kind upon it, nor, indeed, the least sign of human habitation.
+
+The morning was fine; in the east the sun had just risen, and was
+flooding the grim rock with a rosy light. Except this rock, no trace
+of land was visible as far as the eye could see. Alongside the steamer
+was moored a sailing-boat with two masts, but provided also with
+thole-pins, and sweeps for rowing. The sails were furled, and she had
+evidently been brought to the steamer's side by means of the oars.
+Into this craft the crane was lowering boxes, bags, and what-not,
+which three or four men were stowing away. The mate was superintending
+this transshipment, and the Captain, standing with his back against
+the deck-house, was handing one by one certain papers, which
+Lermontoff took to be bills of lading, to a young man who signed in a
+book for each he received. When this transaction was completed, the
+young man saluted the Captain, and descended over the ship's side to
+the sail-boat.
+
+"Good morning, Captain. At anchor, I see," said Lermontoff.
+
+"No, not at anchor. Merely lying here. The sea is too deep, and
+affords no anchorage at this point."
+
+"Where are all these goods going?"
+
+The Captain nodded his head at the rock, and Lermontoff gazed at it
+again, running his eyes from top to bottom without seeing any vestige
+of civilization.
+
+"Then you lie to the lee of this rock, and the small boat takes the
+supplies ashore?"
+
+"Exactly," said the Captain.
+
+"The settlement, I take it, is on the other side. What is it-- a
+lighthouse?"
+
+"There's no lighthouse," said the Captain.
+
+"Sort of coastguard, then?"
+
+"Yes, in a way. They keep a lookout. And now, Highness, I see your
+overcoat is on your back. Have you left anything in your room?"
+
+The Prince laughed.
+
+"No, Captain, I forgot to bring a portmanteau with me."
+
+"Then I must say farewell to you here."
+
+"What, you are not going to maroon me on this pebble in the ocean?"
+
+"You will be well taken care of, Highness."
+
+"What place is this?"
+
+"It is called the Trogzmondoff, Highness, and the water surrounding
+you is the Baltic."
+
+"Is it Russian territory?"
+
+"Very, very Russian," returned the Captain drawing a deep breath.
+"This way, if your Highness pleases. There is a rope ladder, which is
+sometimes a little unsteady for a landsman, so be careful."
+
+"Oh, I'm accustomed to rope ladders. Hyvasti, Captain."
+
+"Hyvasti, your Highness."
+
+And with this mutual good-by in Finnish, the Prince went down the
+swaying ladder.
+
+  CHAPTER XV
+
+ "A HOME ON THE ROLLING DEEP"
+
+FOR once the humorous expression had vanished from Captain Kempt's
+face, and that good-natured man sat in the dainty drawing-room of the
+flat a picture of perplexity. Dorothy had told him the story of the
+Nihilist, saying she intended to purchase the yacht, and outlining
+what she proposed to do with it when it was her own. Now she sat
+silent opposite the genial Captain, while Katherine stood by the
+window, and talked enough for two, sometimes waxing indignant, and
+occasionally giving, in terse language, an opinion of her father, as
+is the blessed privilege of every girl born in the land of the free,
+while the father took the censure with the unprotesting mildness of
+his nature.
+
+"My dear girls, you really must listen to reason. What you propose to
+do is so absurd that it doesn't even admit of argument. Why, it's a
+filibustering expedition, that's what it is. You girls are as crazy as
+Walker of Nicaragua. Do you imagine that a retired Captain of the
+United States Navy is going to take command of a pirate craft of far
+less legal standing than the 'Alabama,' for then we were at war, but
+now we are at peace. Do you actually propose to attack the domain of a
+friendly country! Oh!" cried the Captain, with a mighty explosion of
+breath, for at this point his supply of language entirely gave out.
+
+"No one would know anything about it," persisted Katherine.
+
+"Not know about it? With a crew of men picked up here in New York, and
+coming back to New York? Not know about it? Bless my soul, the papers
+would be full of it before your men were an hour on shore. In the
+first place, you'd never find the rock."
+
+"Then what's the harm of going in search of it?" demanded his
+daughter. "Besides that, Johnson knows exactly where it is."
+
+"Johnson, Johnson! You're surely not silly enough to believe Johnson's
+cock-and-bull story?"
+
+"I believe every syllable he uttered. The man's face showed that he
+was speaking the truth."
+
+"But, my dear Kate, you didn't see him at all, as I understand the
+yarn. He was here alone with you, was he not, Dorothy?"
+
+Dorothy smiled sadly.
+
+"I told Kate all about it, and gave my own impression of the man's
+appearance."
+
+"You are too sensible a girl to place any credit in what he said,
+surely?"
+
+"I did believe him, nevertheless," replied Dorothy.
+
+"Why, look you here. False in one thing, false in all. I'll just take
+a single point. He speaks of a spring sending water through the cells
+up there in the rock. Now, that is an impossibility. Wherever a spring
+exists, it comes from a source higher than itself."
+
+"There are lots of springs up in the mountains," interrupted
+Katherine. "I know one on Mount Washington that is ten times as high
+as the rock in the Baltic."
+
+"Quite so, Katherine, quite so, but nevertheless there is a lake,
+subterraneous or above ground, which feeds your White Mountain spring,
+and such a lake must be situated higher than the spring is. Why, girl,
+you ought to study hydrometeorology as well as chemistry. Here is a
+rock jutting up in midocean--"
+
+"It's in the Baltic, near the Russian coast," snapped Kate, "and I've
+no doubt there are mountains in Finland that contain the lake which
+feeds the spring."
+
+"How far is that rock from the Finnish coast, then?"
+
+"Two miles and a half," said Kate, quick as an arrow speeding from a
+bow.
+
+"Captain, we don't know how far it is from the coast," amended
+Dorothy.
+
+"I'll never believe the thing exists at all."
+
+"Why, yes it does, father. How can you speak like that? Don't you know
+Lieutenant Drummond fired at it?"
+
+"How do you know it was the same rock?"
+
+"Because the rock fired back at him. There can't be two like that in
+the Baltic."
+
+"No, nor one either," said the Captain, nearing the end of his
+patience.
+
+"Captain Kempt," said Dorothy very soothingly, as if she desired to
+quell the rising storm, "you take the allegation about the spring of
+water to prove that Johnson was telling untruths. I expect him here
+within an hour, and I will arrange that you have an opportunity,
+privately, of cross-examining him. I think when you see the man, and
+listen to him, you will believe. What makes me so sure that he is
+telling the truth is the fact that he mentioned the foreign vessel
+firing at this rock, which I knew to be true, and which he could not
+possibly have learned anything about."
+
+"He might very well have learned all particulars from the papers,
+Dorothy. They were full enough of the subject at the time, and,
+remembering this, he thought to strengthen his story by--"
+
+Katherine interrupted with great scorn.
+
+"By adding verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing
+narrative."
+
+"Quite so, Kate; exactly what I was going to say myself. But to come
+back to the project itself. Granting the existence of the rock,
+granting the truth of Johnson's story, granting everything, granting
+even that the young men are imprisoned there, of which we have not the
+slightest proof, we could no more succeed in capturing that place from
+a frail pleasure yacht--"
+
+"It's built like a cruiser," said Katherine.
+
+"Even if it were built like a battleship we would have no chance
+whatever. Why, that rock might defy a regular fleet. Our venture would
+simply be a marine Jameson Raid which would set the whole world
+laughing when people came to hear of it."
+
+"Johnson said he could take it with half a dozen men."
+
+"No, Kate," corrected Dorothy, "he said the very reverse; that two or
+three determined men on the rock with repeating rifles could defeat a
+host. It was I who suggested that we should throw a shell, and then
+rush the entrance in the confusion."
+
+Captain Kempt threw up his hands in a gesture of despair.
+
+"Great heavens, Dorothy Amhurst, whom I have always regarded as the
+mildest, sweetest and most charming of girls; to hear you calmly
+propose to throw a shell among a lot of innocent men defending their
+own territory against a perfectly unauthorized invasion! Throw a
+shell, say you, as if you were talking of tossing a copper to a
+beggar! Oh, Lord, I'm growing old. What will become of this younger
+generation? Well, I give it up. Dorothy, my dear, whatever will happen
+to those unfortunate Russians, I shall never recover from the shock of
+your shell. The thing is absolutely impossible. Can't you see that the
+moment you get down to details? How are you going to procure your
+shells, or your shell-firing gun? They are not to be bought at the
+first hardware store you come to on Sixth Avenue."
+
+"Johnson says he can get them," proclaimed Kate with finality.
+
+"Oh, damn Johnson! Dorothy, I beg your pardon, but really, this
+daughter of mine, combined with that Johnson of yours, is just a
+little more than I can bear."
+
+"Then what are we to do?" demanded his daughter. "Sit here with folded
+hands?"
+
+"That would be a great deal better than what you propose. You should
+do something sane. You mustn't involve a pair of friendly countries in
+war. Of course the United States would utterly disclaim your act, and
+discredit me if I were lunatic enough to undertake such a wild goose
+chase, which I'm not; but, on the other hand, if two of our girls
+undertook such an expedition, no man can predict the public clamor
+that might arise. Why, when the newspapers get hold of a question, you
+never know where they will end it. Undoubtedly you two girls should be
+sent to prison, and, with equal undoubtedness, the American people
+wouldn't permit it."
+
+"You bet they wouldn't," said Katherine, dropping into slang.
+
+"Well, then, if they wouldn't, there's war."
+
+"One moment, Captain Kempt," said Dorothy, again in her mildest tones,
+for voices had again begun to run high, "you spoke of doing something
+sane. You understand the situation. What should you counsel us to do?"
+
+The Captain drew a long breath, and leaned back in his chair.
+
+"There, Dad, it's up to you," said Katherine. "Let us hear your
+proposal, and then you'll learn how easy it is to criticise."
+
+"Well," said the Captain hesitatingly, "there's our diplomatic
+service--"
+
+"Utterly useless: one man is a Russian, and the other an Englishman.
+Diplomacy not only can do nothing, but won't even try," cried Kate
+triumphantly.
+
+"Yet," said the Captain, with little confidence, "although the two men
+are foreigners, the two girls are Americans."
+
+"We don't count: we've no votes," said Kate. "Besides, Dorothy tried
+the diplomatic service, and could not even get accurate information
+from it. Now, father, third time and out."
+
+"Four balls are out, Kate, and I've only fanned the air twice. Now,
+girls, I'll tell you what I'd do. You two come with me to Washington.
+We will seek a private interview with the President. He will get into
+communication with the Czar, also privately, and outside of all
+regular channels. The Czar will put machinery in motion that is sure
+to produce those two young men much more effectually and speedily than
+any cutthroat expedition on a yacht."
+
+"I think," said Dorothy, "that is an excellent plan."
+
+"Of course it is," cried the Captain enthusiastically. "Don't you see
+the pull the President will have? Why, they've put an Englishman into
+'the jug,' and when the President communicates this fact to the Czar
+he will be afraid to refuse, knowing that the next appeal may be from
+America to England, and when you add a couple of American girls to
+that political mix-up, why, what chance has the Czar?"
+
+"The point you raise, Captain," said Dorothy, "is one I wish to say a
+few words about. The President cannot get Mr. Drummond released,
+because the Czar and all his government will be compelled to deny that
+they know anything of him. Even the President couldn't guarantee that
+the Englishman would keep silence if he were set at liberty. The Czar
+would know that, but your plan would undoubtedly produce Prince Ivan
+Lermontoff. All the president has to do is to tell the Czar that the
+Prince is engaged to an American girl, and Lermontoff will be allowed
+to go."
+
+"But," objected the Captain, "as the Prince knows the Englishman is in
+prison, how could they be sure of John keeping quiet when Drummond is
+his best friend?"
+
+"He cannot know that, because the Prince was arrested several days
+before Drummond was.
+
+"They have probably chucked them both into the same cell," said the
+Captain, but Dorothy shook her head.
+
+"If they had intended to do that, they would doubtless have arrested
+them together. I am sure that one does not know the fate of the other,
+therefore the Czar can quite readily let Lermontoff go, and he is
+certain to do that at a word from the President. Besides this, I am as
+confident that Jack is not in the Trogzmondoff, as I am sure that
+Drummond is. Johnson said it was a prison for foreigners."
+
+"Oh, Dorothy," cried the Captain, with a deep sigh, "if we've got back
+again to Johnson--" He waved his hand and shook his head.
+
+The maid opened the door and said, looking at Dorothy:
+
+"Mr. Paterson and Mr. Johnson."
+
+"Just show them into the morning room," said Dorothy, rising. "Captain
+Kempt, it is awfully good of you to have listened so patiently to a
+scheme of which you couldn't possibly approve."
+
+"Patiently!" sniffed the daughter.
+
+"Now I want you to do me another kindness."
+
+She went to the desk and picked up a piece of paper.
+
+"Here is a check I have signed-- a blank check. I wish you to buy the
+yacht 'Walrus' just as she stands, and make the best bargain you can
+for me. A man is so much better at this kind of negotiation than a
+woman."
+
+"But surely, my dear Dorothy, you won't persist in buying this yacht?"
+
+"It's her own money, father," put in Katherine.
+
+"Keep quiet," said the Captain, rising, for the first time speaking
+with real severity, whereupon Katherine, in spite of the fact that she
+was older than twenty-one, was wise enough to obey.
+
+"Yes, I am quite determined, Captain," said Dorothy sweetly.
+
+"But, my dear woman, don't you see how you've been hoodwinked by this
+man Johnson? He is shy of a job. He has already swindled you out of
+twenty thousand dollars."
+
+"No, he asked for ten only, Captain Kempt, and I voluntarily doubled
+the amount."
+
+"Nevertheless, he has worked you up to believe that these young men
+are in that rock. He has done this for a very crafty purpose, and his
+purpose seems likely to succeed. He knows he will be well paid, and
+you have promised him a bonus besides. If he, with his Captain Kidd
+crew, gets you on that yacht, you will only step ashore by giving him
+every penny you possess. That's his object. He knows you are starting
+out to commit a crime-- that's the word, Dorothy, there's no use in
+our mincing matters-- you will be perfectly helpless in his hands. Of
+course, I could not allow my daughter Kate to go on such an
+expedition."
+
+"I am over twenty-one years old," cried Kate, the light of rebellion
+in her eyes.
+
+"I do not intend that either of you shall go, Katherine."
+
+"Dorothy, I'll not submit to that," cried Katherine, with a rising
+tremor of anger in her voice, "I shall not be set aside like a child.
+Who has more at stake than I? And as for capturing the rock, I'll
+dynamite it myself, and bring home as large a specimen of it as the
+yacht will carry, and set it up on Bedloe's Island beside the Goddess
+and say, 'There's your statue of Liberty, and there's your statue of
+Tyranny!'"
+
+"Katherine," chided her father, "I never before believed that a child
+of mine could talk such driveling nonsense."
+
+"Paternal heredity, father," retorted Kate.
+
+"Your Presidential plan, Captain Kempt," interposed Dorothy, "is
+excellent so far as Prince Lermontoff is concerned, but it cannot
+rescue Lieutenant Drummond. Now, there are two things you can do for
+me that will make me always your debtor, as, indeed, I am already, and
+the first is to purchase for me the yacht. The second is to form your
+own judgment of the man Johnson, and if you distrust him, then engage
+for me one-half the crew, and see that they are picked Americans."
+
+"First sane idea I have heard since I came into this flat," growled
+the Captain.
+
+"The Americans won't let the Finlander hold me for ransom, you may
+depend upon that."
+
+It was a woe-begone look the gallant Captain cast on the demure and
+determined maiden, then, feeling his daughter's eye upon him, he
+turned toward her.
+
+"I'm going, father," she said, with a firmness quite equal to his own,
+and he on his part recognized when his daughter had toed the danger
+line. He indulged in a laugh that had little of mirth in it.
+
+"All I can say is that I am thankful you haven't made up your minds to
+kidnap the Czar. Of course you are going, Kate, So am I."
+
+  CHAPTER XVI
+
+ CELL NUMBER NINE
+
+AS the sailing-boat cast off, and was shoved away from the side of the
+steamer, there were eight men aboard. Six grasped the oars, and the
+young clerk who had signed for the documents given to him by the
+Captain took the rudder, motioning Lermontoff to a seat beside him.
+All the forward part of the boat, and, indeed, the space well back
+toward the stern, was piled with boxes and bags.
+
+"What is this place called?" asked the Prince, but the young steersman
+did not reply.
+
+Tying the boat to iron rings at the small landing where the steps
+began, three of the men shipped their oars. Each threw a bag over his
+shoulder, walked up half a dozen steps and waited. The clerk motioned
+Lermontoff to follow, so he stepped on the shelf of rock and looked
+upward at the rugged stairway cut between the main island and an
+outstanding perpendicular ledge of rock. The steps were so narrow that
+the procession had to move up in Indian file; three men with bags,
+then the Prince and the clerk, followed by three more men with boxes.
+Lermontoff counted two hundred and thirty-seven steps, which brought
+him to an elevated platform, projecting from a doorway cut in the
+living rock, but shielded from all sight of the sea. The eastern sun
+shone through this doorway, but did not illumine sufficiently the
+large room whose walls, ceiling and floor were of solid stone. At the
+farther end a man in uniform sat behind a long table on which burned
+an oil lamp with a green shade. At his right hand stood a broad, round
+brazier containing glowing coals, after the Oriental fashion, and the
+officer was holding his two hands over it, and rubbing them together.
+The room, nevertheless, struck chill as a cellar, and Lermontoff heard
+a constant smothered roar of water.
+
+The clerk, stepping forward and saluting, presented to the Governor
+seated there the papers and envelopes given him by the Captain. The
+officer selected a blue sheet of paper, and scrutinized it for a
+moment under the lamp.
+
+"Where are the others?"
+
+"We have landed first the supplies, Governor; then the boat will
+return for the others."
+
+The Governor nodded, and struck a bell with his open palm. There
+entered a big man with a bunch of keys at his belt, followed by
+another who carried a lighted lantern.
+
+"Number Nine," said the Governor to the gaolers.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir, am I a prisoner?" asked Lermontoff.
+
+The Governor gave utterance to a sound that was more like the grunt of
+a pig than the ejaculation of a man. He did not answer, but looked up
+at the questioner, and the latter saw that his face, gaunt almost as
+that of a living skeleton, was pallid as putty.
+
+"Number Nine," he repeated, whereupon the gaoler and the man with the
+lantern put a hand each on Lermontoff's shoulders, and marched him
+away. They walked together down a long passage, the swaying lantern
+casting its yellow rays on the iron bolts of door after door, until at
+last the gaoler stopped, threw back six bolts, inserted a key,
+unlocked the door, and pushed it ponderously open. The lantern showed
+it to be built like the door of a safe, but unlike that of a safe it
+opened inwards. As soon as the door came ajar Lermontoff heard the
+sound of flowing water, and when the three entered, he noticed a rapid
+little stream sparkling in the rays of the lantern at the further end
+of the cell. He saw a shelf of rock and a stone bench before it. The
+gaoler placed his hands on a black loaf, while the other held up the
+lantern.
+
+"That will last you four days," said the gaoler.
+
+"Well, my son, judging from the unappetizing look of it, I think it
+will last me much longer."
+
+The gaoler made no reply, but he and the man with the lantern retired,
+drawing the door heavily after them. Lermontoff heard the bolts thrust
+into place, and the turn of the key; then silence fell, all but the
+babbling of the water. He stood still in the center of the cell, his
+hands thrust deep in the pockets of his overcoat, and, in spite of
+this heavy garment, he shivered a little.
+
+"Jack, my boy," he muttered, "this is a new deal, as they say in the
+West. I can imagine a man going crazy here, if it wasn't for that
+stream. I never knew what darkness meant before. Well, let's find out
+the size of our kingdom."
+
+He groped for the wall, and stumbling against the stone bench, whose
+existence he had forgotten, pitched head forward to the table, and
+sent the four-day loaf rolling on the floor. He made an ineffectual
+grasp after the loaf, fearing it might fall into the stream and be
+lost to him, but he could not find it, and now his designs for
+measuring the cell gave place to the desire of finding that loaf. He
+got down on his hands and knees, and felt the stone floor inch by inch
+for half an hour, as he estimated the time, but never once did he
+touch the bread.
+
+"How helpless a man is in the dark, after all," he muttered to
+himself. "I must do this systematically, beginning at the edge of the
+stream."
+
+On all fours he reached the margin of the rivulet, and felt his way
+along the brink till his head struck the opposite wall. He turned
+round, took up a position that he guessed was three feet nearer the
+door, and again traversed the room, becoming so eager in the search
+that he forgot for the moment the horror of his situation, just as,
+when engaged in a chemical experiment, everything else vanished from
+his mind, and thus after several journeys back and forth he was again
+reminded of the existence of the stone bench by butting against it
+when he knew he was still several feet from the wall. Rubbing his
+head, he muttered some unfavorable phrases regarding the immovable
+bench, then crawled round it twice, and resumed his transverse
+excursions. At last he reached the wall that held the door, and now
+with breathless eagerness rubbed his shoulder against it till he came
+to the opposite corner. He knew he had touched with knees and hands
+practically every square inch of space in the floor, and yet no bread.
+
+"Now, that's a disaster," cried he, getting up on his feet, and
+stretching himself. "Still, a man doesn't starve in four days. I've
+cast my bread on the waters. It has evidently gone down the stream.
+Now, what's to hinder a man escaping by means of that watercourse?
+Still, if he did, what would be the use? He'd float out into the
+Baltic Sea, and if able to swim round the rock, would merely be
+compelled to knock at the front door and beg admission again. No, by
+Jove, there's the boat, but they probably guard it night and day, and
+a man in the water would have no chance against one in the boat.
+Perhaps there's gratings between the cells. Of course, there's bound
+to be. No one would leave the bed of a stream clear for any one to
+navigate. Prisoners would visit each other in their cells, and that's
+not allowed in any respectable prison. I wonder if there's any one
+next door on either side of me. An iron grid won't keep out the sound.
+I'll try," and going again to the margin of the watercourse, he
+shouted several times as loudly as he could, but only a sepulchral
+echo, as if from a vault, replied to him.
+
+"I imagine the adjoining cells are empty. No enjoyable companionship
+to be expected here. I wonder if they've got the other poor devils up
+from the steamer yet. I'll sit down on the bench and listen."
+
+He could have found the bench and shelf almost immediately by groping
+round the wall, but he determined to exercise his sense of direction,
+to pit himself against the darkness.
+
+"I need not hurry," he said, "I may be a long time here."
+
+In his mind he had a picture of the cell, but now that he listened to
+the water it seemed to have changed its direction, and he found he had
+to rearrange this mental picture, and make a different set of
+calculations to fit the new position. Then he shuffled slowly forward
+with hands outstretched, but he came to the wall, and not to the
+bench. Again he mapped out his route, again endeavored, and again
+failed.
+
+"This is bewildering," he muttered. "How the darkness baffles a man.
+For the first time in my life I appreciate to the full the benediction
+of God's command, 'Let there be light.'"
+
+He stood perplexed for a few moments, and, deeply thinking, his hands
+automatically performed an operation as the servants of habit. They
+took from his pocket his cigarette case, selected a tube of tobacco,
+placed it between his lips, searched another pocket, brought out a
+match-box, and struck a light. The striking of the match startled
+Lermontoff as if it had been an explosion; then he laughed, holding
+the match above his head, and there at his feet saw the loaf of black
+bread. It seemed as if somebody had twisted the room end for end. The
+door was where he thought the stream was, and thus he learned that
+sound gives no indication of direction to a man blindfolded. The match
+began to wane, and feverishly he lit his cigarette.
+
+"Why didn't I think of the matches, and oh! what a pity I failed to
+fill my pockets with them that night of the Professor's dinner party!
+To think that matches are selling at this moment in Sweden two hundred
+and fifty for a halfpenny!"
+
+Guided by the spark at the end of his cigarette, he sought the bench
+and sat down upon it. He was surprised to find himself so little
+depressed as was actually the case. He did not feel in the least
+disheartened. Something was going to happen on his behalf; of that he
+was quite certain. It was perfectly ridiculous that even in Russia a
+loyal subject, who had never done any illegal act in his life, a
+nobleman of the empire, and a friend of the Czar, should be
+incarcerated for long without trial, and even without accusation. He
+had no enemies that he knew of, and many friends, and yet he
+experienced a vague uneasiness when be remembered that his own course
+of life had been such that he would not be missed by his friends. For
+more than a year he had been in England, at sea, and in America, so
+much absorbed in his researches that he had written no private letters
+worth speaking of, and if any friend were asked his whereabouts, he
+was likely to reply:
+
+"Oh, Lermontoff is in some German university town, or in England, or
+traveling elsewhere. I haven't seen him or heard of him for months.
+Lost in a wilderness or in an experiment, perhaps."
+
+These unhappy meditations were interrupted by the clang of bolts. He
+thought at first it was his own door that was being opened, but a
+moment later knew it was the door of the next cell up-stream. The
+sound, of course, could not penetrate the extremely thick wall, but
+came through the aperture whose roof arched the watercourse. From the
+voices he estimated that several prisoners were being put into one
+cell, and he wondered whether or not he cared for a companion. It
+would all depend. If fellow-prisoners hated each other, their enforced
+proximity might prove unpleasant.
+
+"We are hungry," he heard one say. "Bring us food."
+
+The gaoler laughed.
+
+"I will give you something to drink first."
+
+"That's right," three voices shouted. "Vodka, vodka!"
+
+Then the door clanged shut again, and he heard the murmur of voices in
+Russian, but could not make out what was said. One of the new
+prisoners, groping round, appeared to have struck the stone bench, as
+he himself had done. The man in the next cell swore coarsely, and
+Lermontoff, judging from such snatches of their conversation as he
+could hear that they were persons of a low order, felt no desire to
+make their more intimate acquaintance, and so did not shout to them,
+as he had intended to do. And now he missed something that had become
+familiar; thought it was a cigarette he desired, for the one he had
+lit had been smoked to his very lips, then he recognized it was the
+murmur of the stream that had ceased.
+
+"Ah, they can shut it off," he said. "That's interesting. I must
+investigate, and learn whether or no there is communication between
+the cells. Not very likely, though."
+
+He crawled on hands and knees until he came to the bed of the stream,
+which was now damp, but empty. Kneeling down in its course, he worked
+his way toward the lower cell, and, as he expected, came to stout iron
+bars. Crouching thus he sacrificed a second match, and estimated that
+the distance between the two cells was as much as ten feet of solid
+rock, and saw also that behind the perpendicular iron bars were
+another horizontal set, then another perpendicular, then a fourth
+horizontal.
+
+While in this position he was startled by a piercing scream to the
+rear. He backed out from the tunnel and stood upright once more. He
+heard the sound of people splashing round in water. The screamer began
+to jabber like a maniac, punctuating his ravings with shrieks. Another
+was cursing vehemently, and a third appealing to the saints.
+Lermontoff quickly knelt down in the watercourse, this time facing the
+upper cell, and struck his third match. He saw that a steel shield,
+reminding him of the thin shutter between the lenses of a camera, had
+been shot across the tunnel behind the second group of cross bars, and
+as an engineer be could not but admire the skill of the practical
+expert who had constructed this diabolical device, for in spite of the
+pressure on the other side, hardly a drop of water oozed through. He
+tried to reach this shield, but could not. It was just beyond the
+touch of his fingers, with his arm thrust through the two sets of
+bars, but if he could have stretched that far, with the first bar
+retarding his shoulder, he knew his hand would be helpless even if he
+had some weapon to puncture the steel shield. The men would be drowned
+before he could accomplish anything unless he was at the lever in the
+passage outside.
+
+Crawling into his cell again he heard no more of the chatter and cries
+of the maniac, and he surmised that the other two were fighting for
+places on bench or shelf, which was amply large enough to have
+supported both, had they not been too demented with fear to recognize
+that fact. The cursing man was victorious, and now he stood alone on
+the shelf, roaring maledictions. Then there was the sound of a plunge,
+and Lermontoff, standing there, helpless and shivering, heard the
+prisoner swim round and round his cell like a furious animal,
+muttering and swearing.
+
+"Don't exhaust yourself like that," shouted Lermontoff. "If you want
+to live, cling to the hole at either of the two upper corners. The
+water can't rise above you then, and you can breathe till it
+subsides."
+
+The other either did not hear, or did not heed, but tore round and
+round in his confined tank, thrashing the water like a dying whale.
+
+"Poor devil," moaned Jack. "What's the use of telling him what to do.
+He is doomed in any case. The other two are now better off."
+
+A moment later the water began to dribble through the upper aperture
+into Jack's cell, increasing and increasing until there was the roar
+of a waterfall, and he felt the cold splashing drops spurt against
+him. Beyond this there was silence. It was perhaps ten minutes after
+that the lever was pulled, and the water belched forth from the lower
+tunnel like a mill race broken loose, temporarily flooding the floor
+so that Jack was compelled to stand on the bench.
+
+He sunk down shivering on the stone shelf, laid his arms on the stone
+pillow, and buried his face in them.
+
+"My God, my God!" he groaned.
+
+  CHAPTER XVII
+
+ A FELLOW SCIENTIST
+
+IN this position Jack slept off and on, or rather, dozed into a kind
+of semi-stupor, from which he awoke with a start now and then, as he
+thought be heard again the mingled cries of devotion and malediction.
+At last he slept soundly, and awoke refreshed, but hungry. The loaf
+lay beside him, and with his knife he cut a slice from it, munching
+the coarse bread with more of relish than he had thought possible when
+he first saw it. Then he took out another cigarette, struck a match,
+looked at his watch, and lit the cigarette. It was ten minutes past
+two. He wondered if a night had intervened, but thought it unlikely.
+He had landed very early in the morning, and now it was afternoon. He
+was fearfully thirsty, but could not bring himself to drink from that
+stream of death. Once more he heard the bolts shot back.
+
+"They are going to throw the poor wretches into the sea," he muttered,
+but the yellow gleam of a lantern showed him it was his own door that
+had been unlocked.
+
+"You are to see the Governor," said the gaoler gruffly. "Come with
+me."
+
+Jack sprang to the floor of his cell, repressing a cry of delight.
+Nothing the grim Governor could do to him would make his situation any
+worse, and perhaps his persuasive powers upon that official might
+result in some amelioration of his position. In any case there was the
+brief respite of the interview, and he would gladly have chummed with
+the devil himself to be free a few moments from this black pit.
+
+Although the outside door of the Governor's room stood open, the room
+was not as well illumined as it had been before, for the sun had now
+gone round to the other side of the island, but to the prisoner's
+aching eyes it seemed a chamber of refulgence. The same lamp was
+burning on the table, giving forth an odor of bad oil, but in addition
+to this, two candles were lighted, which supplemented in some slight
+measure the efforts of the lamp. At the end of the table lay a number
+of documents under a paper-weight, arranged with the neat precision of
+a methodical man. The Governor had been warming his hands over the
+brazier, but ceased when Lermontoff was brought up standing before
+him. He lifted the paper-weight, took from under it the two letters
+which Lermontoff had given to the steward on the steamer, and handed
+them to the prisoner, who thus received them back for the second time.
+
+"I wish to say," remarked the Governor, with an air of bored
+indifference which was evidently quite genuine, "that if you make any
+further attempt to communicate with the authorities, or with friends,
+you will bring on yourself punishment which will be unpleasant."
+
+"As a subject of the Czar, I have the right to appeal to him," said
+the Prince.
+
+"The appeal you have written here," replied the Governor, "would have
+proved useless, even if it had been delivered. The Czar knows nothing
+of the Trogzmondoff, which is a stronghold entirely under the control
+of the Grand Dukes and of the Navy. The Trogzmondoff never gives up a
+prisoner."
+
+"Then I am here for a lifetime?"
+
+"Yes," rejoined the Governor, with frigid calmness, "and if you give
+me no trouble you will save yourself some inconvenience."
+
+"Do you speak French?" asked the Prince.
+
+"Net."
+
+"English?"
+
+"Net."
+
+"Italian?"
+
+"Net."
+
+"German?"
+
+"Da."
+
+"Then," continued Lermontoff in German, "I desire to say a few words
+to you which I don't wish this gaoler to understand. I am Prince Ivan
+Lermontoff, a personal friend of the Czar's, who, after all, is master
+of the Grand Dukes and the Navy also. If you will help to put me into
+communication with him, I will guarantee that no harm comes to you,
+and furthermore will make you a rich man."
+
+The Governor slowly shook his head.
+
+"What you ask is impossible. Riches are nothing to me. Bribery may do
+much in other parts of the Empire, but it is powerless in the
+Trogzmondoff. I shall die in the room adjoining this, as my
+predecessor died. I am quite as much a prisoner in the Trogzmondoff as
+is your Highness. No man who has once set foot in this room, either as
+Governor, employee, or prisoner, is allowed to see the mainland again,
+and thus the secret has been well kept. We have had many prisoners of
+equal rank with your Highness, friends of the Czar too, I dare say,
+but they all died on the Rock, and were buried in the Baltic."
+
+"May I not be permitted to receive certain supplies if I pay for them?
+That is allowed in other prisons."
+
+The Governor shook his head.
+
+"I can let you have a blanket," he said, "and a pillow, or a sheepskin
+if you find it cold at first, but my power here is very limited, and,
+as I tell you, the officers have little more comfort than the
+prisoners."
+
+"Oh, I don't care anything about comfort," protested Lermontoff. "What
+I want is some scientific apparatus. I am a student of science. I have
+nothing to do with politics, and have never been implicated in any
+plot. Someone in authority has made a stupid mistake, and so I am
+here. This mistake I am quite certain will be discovered and remedied.
+I hold no malice, and will say nothing of the place, once I am free.
+It is no business of mine. But I do not wish to have the intervening
+time wasted. I should like to buy some electrical machinery, and
+materials, for which I am willing to pay any price that is asked."
+
+"Do you understand electricity?" questioned the Governor, and for the
+first time his impassive face showed a glimmer of interest.
+
+"Do I understand electricity? Why, for over a year I have been chief
+electrician on a war-ship."
+
+"Perhaps then," said the Governor, relapsing into Russian again, "you
+can tell me what is wrong with our dynamo here in the Rock. After
+repeated requisition they sent machinery for lighting our offices and
+passages with electricity. They apparently did not care to send an
+electrician to the Trogzmondoff, but forwarded instead some books of
+instruction. I have been working at it for two years and a half, but I
+am still using oil lamps and candles. We wired the place without
+difficulty." He held up the candle, and showed, depending from the
+ceiling, a chandelier of electric lamps which Lermontoff had not
+hitherto noticed, various brackets, and one or two stand lamps in a
+corner, with green silk-covered wire attached.
+
+"May I see your dynamo?" asked Lermontoff.
+
+The Governor, with one final warming of his hands, took up a candle,
+told the gaoler to remove the shade from the lamp and bring it, led
+the way along a passage, and then into a room where the prisoner, on
+first entering, had heard the roar of water.
+
+"What's this you have. A turbine? Does it give you any power?"
+
+"Oh, it gives power enough," said the Governor.
+
+"Let's see how you turn on the stream."
+
+The Governor set the turbine at work, and the dynamo began to hum, a
+sound which, to the educated ear of Lermontoff, told him several
+things.
+
+"That's all right, Governor, turn it off. This is a somewhat
+old-fashioned dynamo, but it ought to give you all the light you can
+use. You must be a natural born electrician, or you never could have
+got this machinery working as well as it does."
+
+The dull eyes of the Governor glowed for one brief moment, then
+resumed their customary expression of saddened tiredness.
+
+"Now," said Jack, throwing off his coat, "I want a wrench,
+screwdriver, hammer and a pair of pincers if you've got them."
+
+"Here is the tool chest," said the Governor, and Jack found all he
+needed. Bidding the Governor hold the candle here, there and
+elsewhere, and ordering the gaoler about as if he were an apprentice,
+Jack set energetically to work, and for half an hour no one spoke.
+
+"Turn on that water again," he commanded.
+
+The Governor did so, and the machine whirred with quite a different
+note. Half a dozen electric lamps in the room flooded the place with a
+dazzling white glow.
+
+"There you are," cried Jack, rubbing the oil off his hands on a piece
+of coarse sacking. "Now, Tommy, put these things back in the tool
+chest," he said to the gaoler. Then to the Governor:
+
+"Let's see how things look in the big room."
+
+The passage was lit, and the Governor's room showed every mark on
+wall, ceiling and floor.
+
+"I told you, Governor," said Jack with a laugh, "that I didn't know
+why I was sent here, but now I understand. Providence took pity on
+you, and ordered me to strike a light."
+
+At that moment the gaoler entered with his jingling keys, and the
+enthusiastic expression faded from the Governor's face, leaving it
+once more coldly impassive, but he spoke in German instead of Russian.
+
+"I am very much indebted to your Highness, and it grieves me that our
+relationship remains unchanged."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," cried Lermontoff breezily, "If it is within
+your power to allow me to come and give you some lessons in
+electricity and the care of dynamos, I shall be very glad to do so."
+
+To this offer the Governor made no reply, but he went on still in
+German.
+
+"I shall transfer you to cell Number One, which is not only more
+comfortable, but the water there is pure. Did you say you spoke
+English?"
+
+"Yes, quite as well as I do Russian."
+
+The Governor continued, with nevertheless a little hesitation: "On the
+return of the steamer there will be an English prisoner. I will give
+him cell Number Two, and if you don't talk so loud that the gaoler
+hears you, it may perhaps make the day less wearisome."
+
+"You are very kind," said Jack, rigidly suppressing any trace of
+either emotion or interest as he heard the intelligence; leaping at
+once to certain conclusions, nevertheless. "I shan't ask for anything
+more, much as I should like to mention candles, matches, and tobacco."
+
+"It is possible you may find all three in Number One before this time
+to-morrow;" then in Russian the Governor said to the goaler:
+
+"See if Number One is ready."
+
+The gaoler departed, and the Governor, throwing open a drawer in his
+table, took out two candles, a box of matches, and a packet of
+cigarettes.
+
+"Put these in your pocket," he said. "The cell door opens very slowly,
+so you will always know when the gaoler is coming. In that case blow
+out your light and conceal your candle. It will last the longer."
+
+The gaoler returned.
+
+"The cell is ready, Excellency," he said.
+
+"Take away the prisoner," commanded the Governor, gruffly.
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ CELL NUMBER ONE
+
+CELL Number One was a great improvement on Number Nine. There was no
+shelf of rock, or stone bench, but a cot bed in the corner, a table,
+and a wooden chair. The living spring issued from the living rock in a
+corner of the room. When the gaoler and his assistant had retired and
+shoved in the outside bolts, Jack lit his candle and a cigarette,
+feeling almost happy. He surveyed the premises now with more care. The
+bed was of iron and fastened to the floor. On the top of it was a
+mattress, a pillow, and a pair of blankets. At its head a little
+triangular shelf of rock had been left in the corner, and on this
+reposed a basin of tin, while a coarse piece of sacking took the place
+of a towel. Jack threw off his overcoat and flung it on the bed,
+intent on a satisfactory wash. He heard something jingle in the
+pockets, and forgetting for the moment what it could possibly be,
+thrust his hand in, and pulled out a glass-stoppered bottle of ozak.
+He held it out at arm's length, and stared at it for some moments like
+a man hypnotized.
+
+"Holy Saint Peter!" he cried, "to think that I should have forgotten
+this!"
+
+He filled the tin basin with water, and placed it on the table. Again
+he dissolved a minute portion of the chemical, and again filled the
+syringe.
+
+"I must leave no marks on the wall that may arouse attention," he
+said, and taking the full syringe to the arch over the torrent, and
+placing the candle on the floor beside him, he gently pushed in the
+piston. The spray struck the rock, and the rock dissolved slightly but
+perceptibly. Coming back to the table he stood for a few minutes in
+deep thought. Although the cot bed was fixed to the floor, and
+although it was possible that the shelf in the next cell coincided
+with its position, the risk of discovery was too great to cut a
+passage between the two cells there. The obvious spot to attack was
+the interior of the tunnel through which the streamlet ran, but Jack,
+testing the temperature of the water with his hand, doubted his
+physical ability to remain in that ice-cold current more than a few
+minutes at a time, and if he worked in the tunnel he would be all but
+submerged. He feared he would perish with cold and cramp before he had
+made any impression on the rock.
+
+To the edge of the stream he drew the table, and, mounting it,
+examined the upper orifice through which the water escaped when the
+cell was full. He found he could stand on the table and work in
+comfort until he had excavated sufficient rock to allow him to clamber
+into the upper tunnel and so continue his operations. The water he
+used would flow through the tunnel, and down to the main stream in the
+next cell. All he had to do was to dissolve a semi-circular hole in
+the rock that would bend round the end of those steel bars, and enter
+the tunnel again on the other side. Eager to be at work, he took the
+full basin, shoved it far along the tunnel until it was stopped by the
+bars, then, placing his candle beside it, and standing on the table,
+he began operations.
+
+The limestone, under the influence of the spray, dissolved very
+slowly, and by the time the basin of water was exhausted, all the
+effect visible under the light of the candle was an exceedingly slight
+circular impression which was barely visible to the naked eye.
+
+"I must make the solution stronger, I think," he said, grievously
+disappointed at the outcome of his labors, and as he looked at it he
+heard the clank of the withdrawing bolts. Blowing out the candle he
+sprang to the floor of the cell, picked up the table, set it down in
+the center of the room, groped for the chair, and sat down, his heart
+palpitating wildly at the fear of discovery.
+
+Followed as usual by the man with the lantern, the gaoler came in,
+carrying a bowl of hot steaming soup, which he placed on the table,
+then he took from his pocket a spoon, a small hunk of black bread, and
+a piece of cheese. In the light of the lantern Lermontoff consulted
+his watch, and found it was six o'clock. The gaoler took the lantern
+from his assistant, held it high, and looked round the room, while
+Lermontoff gazed at him in anxiety, wondering whether that brutal
+looking official suspected anything. Apparently he did not, but merely
+wished to satisfy himself that everything was in order, for he said
+more mildly than he had hitherto spoken:
+
+"It is a long time since any one occupied this cell."
+
+Then his eye rested on the vacant corner shelf.
+
+"Ah, Excellency," he continued, "pardon me, I have forgotten. I must
+bring you a basin."
+
+"I'd rather you brought me a candle," said Lermontoff nonchalantly,
+although his lips were dry, and he moistened them as he spoke; then,
+to learn whether money was valueless on the rock, as the Governor had
+intimated, he drew from his pocket one of the remaining gold pieces,
+glad that he happened to have so many, and slipped it into the palm of
+the gaoler's hand, whose fingers clutched it as eagerly as if he were
+in St. Petersburg.
+
+"I think a candle can be managed, Excellency. Shall I bring a cup?"
+
+"I wish you would."
+
+The door was again locked and bolted, but before Lermontoff had
+finished his soup, and bread and cheese, it was opened again. The
+gaoler placed a tin basin, similar to the former one, on the ledge,
+put a candle and a candle-stick on the table, and a tin cup beside
+them.
+
+"I thought there was no part of Russia where bribery was extinct,"
+said the Prince to himself, as the door closed again for the night.
+
+After supper Lermontoff again shined his table, stood upon it, lit his
+candle, and resumed his tunnelling, working hard until after midnight.
+His progress was deplorably slow, and the spraying of the rock proved
+about as tiring a task as ever he had undertaken. His second
+basin-full of solution was made a little stronger, but without
+perceptible improvement, in its effect. On ceasing operations for the
+night he found himself in a situation common to few prisoners, that of
+being embarrassed with riches. He possessed two basins, and one of
+them must be concealed. Of course he might leave his working basin in
+the upper tunnel where it had rested when the gaoler had brought in
+his supper, but he realized that at any moment the lantern's rays
+might strike its shining surface, and so bring on an investigation of
+the upper tunnel, certain to prove the destruction of his whole
+scheme. A few minutes thought, however, solved the problem admirably:
+he placed the basin face downwards in the rapid stream which swept it
+to the iron bars between the two cells, and there it lay quite
+concealed with the swift water rippling over it. This done, he flung
+off his clothes, and got into bed, not awakening until the gaoler and
+his assistant brought in bread, cheese and coffee for breakfast.
+
+The next day he began to feel the inconveniences of the Governor's
+friendship, and wished he were safely back to the time when one loaf
+lasted four days, for if such were now the case, he would be free of
+the constant state of tension which the ever-recurring visits of the
+gaoler caused. He feared that some day he might become so absorbed in
+his occupation that he would not hear the withdrawing of the bolt, and
+thus, as it were, be caught in the act.
+
+Shortly after lunch the Governor sent for him, and asked many
+questions pertaining to the running of the dynamo. Lermontoff
+concealed his impatience, and set about his instructions with
+exemplary earnestness. Russian text books on electricity at hand were
+of the most rudimentary description, and although the Governor could
+speak German he could not read it, so the two volumes he possessed in
+that language were closed to him. Therefore John was compelled to
+begin at the very A B C of the science.
+
+The Governor, however, became so deeply interested that he momentarily
+forgot his caution, unlocked a door, and took Lermontoff into a room
+which he saw was the armory and ammunition store-house of the prison.
+On the floor of this chamber the Governor pointed out a large battery
+of accumulators, and asked what they were for. Lermontoff explained
+the purposes of the battery, meanwhile examining it thoroughly, and
+finding that many of the cells had been all but ruined in transit,
+through the falling away of the composition in the grids. Something
+like half of the accumulators, however, were intact and workable;
+these he uncoupled and brought into the dynamo room, where he showed
+the Governor the process of charging. He saw in the store room a box
+containing incandescent lamps, coils of silk-covered wire and other
+material that made his eyes glisten with delight. He spoke in German.
+
+"If you will give me a coil of this wire, one or two of the lamps, and
+an accumulator, or indeed half a dozen of them, I will trouble you no
+more for candles."
+
+The Governor did not reply at the moment, but a short time after asked
+Lermontoff in Russian how long it would be before the accumulators
+were charged. Lermontoff stated the time, and the Governor told the
+gaoler to bring the prisoner from the cell at that hour, and so
+dismissed his instructor.
+
+One feature of this interview which pleased Lermontoff was that
+however much the Governor became absorbed in these lessons, he never
+allowed himself to remain alone with his prisoner. It was evident that
+in his cooler moments the Governor had instructed the gaoler and his
+assistant to keep ever at the heels of the Prince and always on the
+alert. Two huge revolvers were thrust underneath the belt of the
+gaoler, and the lantern-holder, was similarly armed. Lermontoff was
+pleased with this, for if the Governor had trusted him entirely, even
+though he demanded no verbal parole, it would have gone against his
+grain to strike down the chief as he ruthlessly intended to do when
+the time was ripe for it, and in any case, he told himself, no matter
+how friendly the Governor might be, he had the misfortune to stand
+between his prisoner and liberty.
+
+Lermontoff was again taken from his cell about half an hour before the
+time he had named for the completion of the charging, and although the
+Governor said nothing of his intention, the gaoler and his man brought
+to the cell six charged batteries, a coil of wire, and a dozen lamps.
+Lermontoff now changed his working methods. He began each night as
+soon as he had finished dinner, and worked till nearly morning,
+sleeping all day except when interrupted by the gaoler. Jack,
+following the example of Robinson Crusoe, attempted to tie knots on
+the tail of time by cutting notches with his knife on the leg of the
+table, but most days he forgot to perform this operation, and so his
+wooden almanac fell hopelessly out of gear. He estimated that he had
+been a little more than a week in prison when he heard by the clang of
+the bolts that the next cell was to have an occupant.
+
+"I must prepare a welcome for him," he said, and so turned out the
+electric light at the end of the long flexible wire. He had arranged a
+neat little switch of the accumulator, and so snapped the light on and
+off at his pleasure, without the trouble of unscrewing the nuts which
+held in place one of the copper ends of the wire. Going to the edge of
+the stream and lighting his candle, he placed the glass bulb in the
+current, paid out the flexible line attached to it, and allowed the
+bulb to run the risk of being smashed against the iron bars of the
+passage, but the little globe negotiated the rapids without even a
+perceptible clink, and came to rest in the bed of the torrent
+somewhere about the center of the next cell, tugging like a fish on a
+hook. Then Jack mounted the table, leaned into the upper tunnel, and
+listened.
+
+"I protest," Drummond cried, speaking loudly, as if the volume of
+sound would convey meaning to alien ears, "I protest against this as
+an outrage, and demand my right of communication with the British
+Ambassador."
+
+Jack heard the gaoler growl: "This loaf of bread will last you for
+four days," but as this statement was made in Russian, it conveyed no
+more meaning to the Englishman than had his own protest of a moment
+before brought intelligence to the gaoler. The door clanged shut, and
+there followed a dead silence.
+
+"Now we ought to hear some good old British oaths," said Jack to
+himself, but the silence continued.
+
+"Hullo, Alan," cried Jack through the bars, "I said you would be
+nabbed if you didn't leave St. Petersburg. You'll pay attention to me
+next time I warn you."
+
+There was no reply, and Jack became alarmed at the continued
+stillness, then he heard his friend mutter:
+
+"I'll be seeing visions by and by. I thought my brain was stronger
+than it is-- could have sworn that was Jack's voice."
+
+Jack got speedily and quietly down, turned on the switch, and hopped
+up on the table again, peering through. He knew that the stream had
+now become a river of fire, and that it was sending to the ceiling an
+unholy, unearthly glow.
+
+"Oh, damn it all!" groaned Drummond, at which Jack roared with
+laughter.
+
+"Alan," he shouted, "fish out that electric bulb from the creek and
+hold it aloft; then you'll see where you are. I'm in the next cell;
+Jack Lamont, Electrician and Coppersmith: all orders promptly attended
+to: best of references, and prices satisfactory."
+
+"Jack, is that really you, or have I gone demented?"
+
+"Oh, you always were demented, Alan, but it is I, right enough. Pick
+up the light and tell me what kind of a cell you've got."
+
+"Horrible!" cried Drummond, surveying his situation. "Walls apparently
+of solid rock, and this uncanny stream running across the floor."
+
+"How are you furnished? Shelf of rock, stone bench?"
+
+"No, there's a table, cot bed, and a wooden chair."
+
+"Why, my dear man, what are you growling about? They have given you
+one of the best rooms in the hotel. You're in the Star Chamber."
+
+"Where in the name of heaven are we?"
+
+"Didn't you recognize the rock from the deck of a steamer?"
+
+"I never saw the deck of a steamer."
+
+"Then how did you come here?"
+
+"I was writing a letter in my room when someone threw a sack over my
+head, and tied me up in a bundle, so that it was a close shave I
+wasn't smothered. I was taken in what I suppose was a cab and flung
+into what I afterwards learned was the hold of a steamer. When the
+ship stopped, I was carried like a sack of meal on someone's shoulder,
+and unhampered before a gaunt specter in uniform, in a room so
+dazzling with electric light that I could hardly see. That was a few
+minutes ago, Now I am here, and starving. Where is this prison?"
+
+
+
+"Like the Mikado, as Kate would say, the authorities are bent on
+making the punishment fit the crime. You are in the rock of the
+Baltic, which you fired at with that gun of yours. I told you those
+suave officials at St. Petersburg were playing with you."
+
+"But why have they put you here, Jack?"
+
+"Oh, I was like the good dog Tray, who associated with questionable
+company, I suppose, and thus got into trouble."
+
+"I'm sorry."
+
+"You ought to be glad. I'm going to get out of this place, and I don't
+believe you could break gaol, unassisted, in twenty years. Here is
+where science confronts brutality. I say, Drummond, bring your table
+over to the corner, and mount it, then we can talk without shouting.
+Not much chance of any one outside hearing us, even if we do clamor,
+but this is a damp situation, and loud talk is bad for the throat. Cut
+a slice of that brown bread and lunch with me. You'll find it not half
+bad, as you say in England, especially when you are hungry. Now,"
+continued Jack, as his friend stood opposite him, and they found by
+experiment that their combined reach was not long enough to enable
+them to shake hands through the bars, "now, while you are luxuriating
+in the menu of the Trogzmondoff, I'll give you a sketch of my plan for
+escape."
+
+"Do," said Drummond.
+
+"I happen to have with me a pair of bottles containing a substance
+which, if dissolved in water, and sprinkled on this rock, will
+disintegrate it. It proves rather slow work, I must admit, but I
+intend to float in to you one of the bottles, and the apparatus, so
+that you may help me on your side, which plan has the advantage of
+giving you useful occupation, and allowing us to complete our task in
+half the time, like the engineers on each side of the Simplon Tunnel."
+
+"If there are bars in the lower watercourse," objected Drummond,
+"won't you run a risk of breaking your bottle against them?"
+
+"Not the slightest. I have just sent that much thinner electric lamp
+through, but in this case I'll just tie up the bottle and squirt gun
+in my stocking, attach that to the wire, and the current will do the
+rest. You can unload, and I'll pull my stocking back again. If I dared
+wrench off a table leg, I could perhaps shove bottle and syringe
+through to you from here, but the material would come to a dead center
+in the middle of this tunnel, unless I had a stick to push it within
+your reach.
+
+"Very well; we'll work away until our excavation connects, and we have
+made it of sufficient diameter for you to squeeze through. You are
+then in my cell. We put out our lights, and you conceal yourself
+behind the door. Gaoler and man with the lantern come in. You must be
+very careful not to close the door, because if you once shove it shut
+we can't open it from this side, even though it is unlocked and the
+bolts drawn. It fits like wax, and almost hermetically seals the room.
+You spring forward, and deal the gaoler with your fist one of your
+justly celebrated English knock-down blows, immediately after felling
+the man with the lantern. Knowing something of the weight of your
+blow, I take it that neither of the two men will recover consciousness
+until we have taken off their outer garments, secured revolvers and
+keys. Then we lock them in, you and I on the outside."
+
+"My dear Jack, we don't need any tunnel to accomplish that. The first
+time these two men come into my room, I can knock them down as easily
+here as there."
+
+"I thought of that, and perhaps you could, but you must remember we
+have only one shot. If you made a mistake; if the lantern man bolted
+and fired his pistol, and once closed the door-- he would not need to
+pause to lock it-- why, we are done for. I should be perfectly
+helpless in the next room, and after the attempt they'd either drown
+us, or put us into worse cells as far apart as possible."
+
+"I don't think I should miss fire," said Drummond, confidently,
+"still, I see the point, and will obey orders."
+
+"My official position on the rock, ever since I arrived, has been that
+of electrical tutor-in-chief to the Governor. I have started his
+dynamo working, and have wired such portions of the place as were not
+already wired before. During these lessons I have kept my eyes open.
+So far as the prison is concerned, there is the Governor, a sort of
+head clerk, the gaoler and his assistant; four men, and that is all.
+The gaoler's assistant appears to be the cook of the place, although
+the cooking done is of the most limited description. The black bread
+is brought from St. Petersburg, I think, as also tinned meat and soup;
+so the cuisine is on a somewhat limited scale."
+
+"Do you mean to say that only these four men are in charge of the
+prison?"
+
+"Practically so, but there is the garrison as well. The soldiers live
+in a suite of rooms directly above us, and as near as I can form an
+opinion, there are fourteen men and two officers. When a steamer
+arrives they draft as many soldiers as are necessary, unload the boat;
+then the Tommies go upstairs again. The military section apparently
+holds little intercourse with the officials, whom they look upon as
+gaolers. I should judge that the military officer is chief of the
+rock, because when he found the Governor's room lit by electricity, he
+demanded the same for his quarters. That's how I came to get upstairs.
+Now, these stairs are hewn in the rock, are circular, guarded by heavy
+oaken doors top and bottom, and these doors possess steel bolts on
+both sides of them. It is thus possible for either the military
+authorities upstairs, or the civil authorities, to isolate themselves
+from the others. In case of a revolt among the soldiers, the Governor
+could bolt them into their attic, and they would find great difficulty
+in getting out. Now, my plan of procedure is this. We will disarm
+gaoler and assistant, take their keys, outside garments and caps. The
+gaoler's toggery will fit you, and the other fellow's may do for me.
+Then we will lock them in here, and if we meet clerk or Governor in
+the passages we will have time to overcome either or both before they
+are aware of the change. I'll go up the circular stair, bolt from the
+inside the upper door, and afterwards bolt the lower door. Then we
+open all the cells, and release the other prisoners, descend from the
+rock, get into the Finnish fishing boat, keep clear of the two cannon
+that are up above us, and sail for the Swedish coast. We can't miss
+it; we have only to travel west, and ultimately we are safe. There is
+only one danger, which is that we may make our attempt when the
+steamer is here, but we must chance that."
+
+"Isn't there any way of finding out? Couldn't you pump the Governor?"
+
+"He is always very much on his guard, and is a taciturn man. The
+moment the tunnel is finished I shall question him about some further
+electrical material, and then perhaps I may get a hint about the
+steamer. I imagine she comes irregularly, so the only safe plan would
+be for us to make our attempt just after she had departed."
+
+"Would there be any chance of our finding a number of the military
+downstairs?"
+
+"I don't think so. Now that they have their electric light they spend
+their time playing cards and drinking vodka."
+
+"Very well, Jack, that scheme seems reasonably feasible. Now, get
+through your material to me, and issue your instructions."
+
+  CHAPTER XIX
+
+ "STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE"
+
+IN a very short time Drummond became as expert at the rock dissolving
+as was his friend. He called it piffling slow work, but was
+nevertheless extremely industrious at it, although days and weeks and,
+as they suspected, months, passed before the hands of the two friends
+met in the center of the rock. One lucky circumstance that favored
+them was the habit of the gaoler in visiting Drummond only once every
+four days.
+
+The Lieutenant made his difficult passage, squeezing through the newly
+completed tunnel half an hour after a loaf had been set upon his
+table. Jack knew that the steamer had recently departed, because, two
+days before, the Governor had sent for him, and had exhibited a
+quantity of material recently landed, among other things a number of
+electric bells and telephones which the Governor was going to have set
+up between himself and the others, and also between his room and that
+of the clerk and gaoler. There were dry batteries, and primary
+batteries, and many odds and ends, which made Jack almost sorry he was
+leaving the place.
+
+Heavy steps, muffled by the thickness of the door, sounded along the
+outer passage.
+
+"Ready?" whispered Jack. "Here they come. Remember if you miss your
+first blow, we're goners, you and I."
+
+Drummond made no reply, for the steps had come perilously near and he
+feared to be heard. Noiselessly he crossed the cell and took up his
+position against the wall, just clear of the space that would be
+covered by the opening of the door.
+
+At the same moment Jack switched off the light, leaving the room
+black. Each of the two waiting prisoners could hear the other's short
+breathing through the darkness.
+
+On came the shuffling footsteps of the gaoler and lantern-bearer. They
+had reached the door of Number One, had paused, had passed on and
+stopped in front of Number Two.
+
+"Your cell!" whispered Jack, panic-stricken. "And they weren't due to
+look in on you for four days. It's all up! They'll discover the cell
+is empty and give the-- Where are you going, man?" he broke off, as
+Drummond, leaving his place near the door, groped his way hurriedly
+along the wall.
+
+"To squeeze my way back and make a fight for it. It's better than--"
+
+"Wait!"
+
+Lamont's hand was on his shoulder, and he whispered a sharp command
+for silence. The two attendants had halted in front of Number Two, and
+while the lantern-bearer fumbled with the awkward bolt, his companion
+was saying:
+
+"Hold on! After all, I'll bring the other his food first, I think."
+
+"But," remonstrated the lantern-bearer, "the Governor said we were to
+bring the Englishman to him at once."
+
+"What if he did? How will he know we stole a half minute to give the
+Prince his dinner? If we bring the Englishman upstairs first, the
+Prince may have to wait an hour before we can get back with the
+Englishman."
+
+"Let him wait, then."
+
+"With his pocket full of roubles? Not I. He may decide to give no more
+of his gold pieces to a gaoler who lets him go hungry too long."
+
+"I've got the door unfastened now and--"
+
+"Then fasten it again and come back with me to Number One."
+
+Faint as were the words, deadened by intervening walls, their purport
+reached Jack.
+
+"Back to your place," he whispered, "they're coming!"
+
+The rattle of bolts followed close on his words. The great door of
+Number One swung ponderously inward. The lantern-bearer, holding his
+light high in front of him, entered; then stepped to one side to admit
+the gaoler, who came close after, the tray of food in his outstretched
+hands.
+
+Unluckily for the captives' plan, it was to the side of the cell
+opposite to that where Alan crouched that the lantern-bearer had taken
+his stand. There was no way of reaching him at a bound. The open door
+stood between. Were the gaoler to be attacked first, his
+fellow-attendant could readily be out of the cell and half-way up the
+corridor before Alan might hope to reach him.
+
+The friends had counted on both men entering the room together and
+crossing as usual to the table. This change of plan disconcerted them.
+Already the gaoler had set down his tray and was turning toward the
+door. Alan, helpless, stood impotently in the shadow, biting his blond
+mustache with helpless rage. In another second their cherished
+opportunity would vanish. And, as the gaoler's next visit was to be to
+Number Two, discovery stared them in the eyes.
+
+It was Jack who broke the momentary spell of apathy. He was standing
+at the far end of the cell, near the stream.
+
+"Here!" he called sharply to the lantern-bearer, "bring your light. My
+electric apparatus is out of order, and I've mislaid my matches. I
+want to fix--"
+
+The lantern-bearer, obediently, had advanced into the room. He was
+half-way across it while Lamont was still speaking. Then, from the
+corner of his eye, he spied Alan crouching in the angle behind the
+door, now fully exposed to the rays of the lantern.
+
+The man whirled about in alarm just as Alan sprang. In consequence the
+Englishman's mighty fist whizzed past his head, missing it by a full
+inch.
+
+The gaoler, recovering from his amaze, whipped out one of the
+revolvers he wore in his belt. But Jack, leaping forward, knocked it
+from his hand before he could fire; and, with one hand clapped across
+the fellow's bearded lips, wound his other arm about the stalwart body
+so as to prevent for the instant the drawing of the second pistol.
+
+Alan's first blow had missed clean; but his second did not. Following
+up his right-hand blow with all a trained boxer's swift dexterity, he
+sent a straight left hander flush on the angle of the light-bearer's
+jaw. The man dropped his lantern and collapsed into a senseless heap
+on the floor, while Alan, with no further delay, rushed toward the
+gaoler.
+
+The fall of the lantern extinguished the light. The cell was again
+plunged in dense blackness, through which could be heard the panting
+and scuffing of the Prince and the gaoler.
+
+Barely a second of time had elapsed since first Jack had seized the
+man, but that second had sufficed for the latter to summon his great
+brute strength and shake off his less gigantic opponent and to draw
+his pistol.
+
+"Quick, Alan!" gasped Jack. "He's got away from me. He'll--"
+
+Drummond, guided by his friend's voice, darted forward through the
+darkness, caught his foot against the sprawling body of the
+lantern-bearer and fell heavily, his arms thrown out in an instinctive
+gesture of self-preservation. Even as he lost his balance he heard a
+sharp click, directly in front of him. The gaoler had pulled the
+trigger, and his pistol-- contract-made and out of order, like many of
+the weapons of common soldiers in Russia's frontier posts-- had missed
+fire.
+
+To that luckiest of mishaps, the failure of a defective cartridge to
+explode, the friends owed their momentary safety.
+
+As Alan pitched forward, one of his outing arms struck against an
+obstacle. It was a human figure, and from the feel of the leather
+straps, which his fingers touched in the impact, he knew it was the
+gaoler and not Lamont.
+
+Old football tactics coming to memory, Alan clung to the man his arm
+had chanced upon, and bore him along to the ground; Jack, who had
+pressed forward in the darkness, being carried down as well by the
+other's fall.
+
+Gaoler, Prince and Englishman thus struggled on the stone floor in one
+indistinguishable heap. It was no ordinary combat of two to one, for
+neither of the prisoners could say which was the gaoler and which his
+friend. The gaoler, troubled by no such doubts, laid about him
+lustily, and was only prevented from crying out by the fact that his
+heavy fur cap had, in the fall, become jammed down over his face as
+far as the chin and could not for the moment be dislodged.
+
+He reached for and drew the sword-bayonet that hung at his side (for
+his second pistol had become lost in the scrimmage), and thrust
+blindly about him. Once, twice his blade met resistance and struck
+into flesh.
+
+"Jack," panted Alan, "the beast's stabbing. Get yourself loose and
+find the electric light."
+
+As he spoke, Alan's hand found the gaoler's throat. He knew it was not
+Alan's from the rough beard that covered it. The gaoler, maddened by
+the pressure, stabbed with fresh fury; most of his blows, fortunately,
+going wild in the darkness.
+
+Alan's free hand reached for and located the arm that was wielding the
+bayonet, and for a moment the two wrestled desperately for its
+possession.
+
+Then a key clicked, and the room was flooded with incandescent light,
+just as Alan, releasing his grip on the Russian's throat, dealt him a
+short-arm blow on the chin with all the power of his practiced
+muscles. The gaoler relaxed his tense limbs and lay still, while Alan,
+bleeding and exhausted, struggled to his feet.
+
+"Hot work, eh?" he panted. "Hard position to land a knockout from. But
+I caught him just right. He'll trouble us no more for a few minutes, I
+fancy. You're bleeding! Did he wound you?"
+
+"Only a scratch along my check. And you?"
+
+"A cut on the wrist and another on the shoulder, I think. Neither of
+them bad, thanks to the lack of aim in the dark. Close call, that! Now
+to tie them up. Not a movement from either yet."
+
+"You must have come close to killing them with those sledge-hammer
+blows of yours!"
+
+"It doesn't much matter," said the imperturbable pugilist, "they'll be
+all right in half an hour. It's knowing where to hit. If there are
+only four men downstairs, we don't need to wear the clothes of these
+beasts. Let us take only the bunch of keys and the revolvers."
+
+Securing these the two stepped out into the passage, locked and bolted
+the door; then Jack, who knew his way, proceeded along the passage to
+the stairway, leaped nimbly up the steps, bolted the door leading to
+the military quarters, then descended and bolted the bottom door.
+
+"Now for the clerk, and then for the Governor."
+
+The clerk's room connected with the armory, which was reached by
+passing through the apartment that held turbine and dynamo, which they
+found purring away merrily.
+
+Covering the frightened clerk with four revolvers, Jack told him in
+Russian that if he made a sound it would be his last. They took him,
+opened cell Number Three, which was empty, and thrust him in.
+
+Jangling the keys, the two entered the Governor's room. The ancient
+man looked up, but not a muscle of his face changed; even his fishy
+eyes showed no signs of emotion or surprise.
+
+"Governor," said Jack with deference, "although you are under the
+muzzles of a quartet of revolvers, no harm is intended you. However,
+you must not leave your place until you accompany us down to the boat,
+when I shall hand the keys over to you, and in cell Number One you
+will find gaoler and lantern man a little worse for wear, perhaps, but
+still in the ring, I hope. In Number Three your clerk is awaiting you.
+I go now to release your prisoners. All communication between yourself
+and the military is barred. I leave my friend on guard until I return
+from the cells. You must not attempt to summon assistance, or cry out,
+or move from your chair. My friend does not understand either Russian
+or German, so there is no use in making any appeal to him, and much as
+I like you personally, and admire your assiduity in science, our case
+is so desperate that if you make any motion whatever, he will be
+compelled to shoot you dead."
+
+The Governor bowed.
+
+"May I continue my writing?" he asked.
+
+Jack laughed heartily.
+
+"Certainly," and with that he departed to the cells, which he unlocked
+one by one, only to find them all empty.
+
+Returning, he said to the Governor:
+
+"Why did you not tell me that we were your only prisoners?"
+
+"I feared," replied the Governor mildly, "that you might not believe
+me."
+
+"After all, I don't know that I should,", said Jack, holding out his
+hand, which the other shook rather unresponsively.
+
+"I want to thank you," the Governor said slowly, "for all you have
+told me about electricity. That knowledge I expect to put to many
+useful purposes in the future, and the exercise of it will also make
+the hours drag less slowly than they did before you came."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," cried Jack with enthusiasm. "I am sure you are
+very welcome to what teaching I have been able to give you, and no
+teacher could have wished a more apt pupil."
+
+"It pleases me to hear you say that, Highness, although I fear I have
+been lax in my duties, and perhaps the knowledge of this place which
+you have got through my negligence, has assisted you in making an
+escape which I had not thought possible."
+
+Jack laughed good-naturedly.
+
+"All's fair in love and war," he said. "Imprisonment is a section of
+war. I must admit that electricity has been a powerful aid to us. But
+you cannot blame yourself, Governor, for you always took every
+precaution, and the gaoler was eternally at my heels. You can never
+pretend that you trusted me, you know."
+
+"I tried to do my duty," said the old man mournfully, "and if
+electricity has been your helper, it has not been with my sanction.
+However, there is one point about electricity which you impressed upon
+me, which is that although it goes quickly, there is always a return
+current."
+
+"What do you mean by that, Governor?"
+
+"Is it not so? It goes by a wire, and returns through the earth. I
+thought you told me that."
+
+"Yes, but I don't quite see why you mention that feature of the case
+at this particular moment."
+
+"I wanted to be sure what I have stated is true. You see, when you are
+gone there will be nobody I can ask."
+
+All this time the aged Governor was holding Jack's hand rather limply.
+Drummond showed signs of impatience.
+
+"Jack," he cried at last, "that conversation may be very interesting,
+but it's like smoking on a powder mine. One never knows what may
+happen. I shan't feel safe until we're well out at sea, and not even
+then. Get through with your farewells as soon as possible, and let us
+be off."
+
+"Right you are, Alan, my boy. Well, Governor, I'm reluctantly
+compelled to bid you a final good-by, but here's wishing you all sorts
+of luck."
+
+The old man seemed reluctant to part with him, and still clung to his
+hand.
+
+"I wanted to tell you," he said, "of another incident, almost as
+startling as your coming into this room a while since, that happened
+six or eight months ago. As perhaps you know, we keep a Finland
+fishing-boat down in the cove below."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Jack impatiently, drawing away his hand.
+
+"Well, six or eight months ago that boat disappeared, and has never
+been heard of since. None of our prisoners was missing; none of the
+garrison was missing; my three assistants were still here, yet in the
+night the boat was taken away."
+
+"Really. How interesting! Never learned the secret, did you?"
+
+"Never, but I took precautions, when we got the next boat, that it
+should be better guarded, so I have had two men remain upon it night
+and day."
+
+"Are your two men armed, Governor?"
+
+"Yes, they are."
+
+"Then they must surrender, or we will be compelled to shoot them. Come
+down with us, and advise them to surrender quietly, otherwise, from
+safe cover on the stairway, we can pot them in an open boat."
+
+"I will go down with you," said the Governor, "and do what I can."
+
+"Of course they will obey you."
+
+"Yes, they will obey me-- if they hear me. I was going to add that
+only yesterday did I arrange the electric bell down at the landing,
+with instructions to those men to take a telegram which I had written
+in case of emergencies, to the mainland, at any moment, night or day,
+when that bell rang. Your Highness, the bell rang more than half an
+hour ago. I have not been allowed out to see the result."
+
+The placid old man put his hand on the Prince's shoulder, as if
+bestowing a benediction upon him. Drummond, who did not understand the
+lingo, was amazed to see Jack fling off the Governor's grasp, and with
+what he took to be a crushing oath in Russian, spring to the door,
+which he threw open. He mounted the stone bench which gave him a view
+of the sea. A boat, with two sails spread, speeding to the southwest,
+across the strong westerly wind, was two miles or more away.
+
+"Marooned, by God!" cried the Prince, swinging round and presenting
+his pistol at the head of the Governor, who stood there like a statue
+of dejection, and made no sign.
+
+  CHAPTER XX
+
+ ARRIVAL OF THE TURBINE YACHT
+
+BEFORE Jack could fire, as perhaps he had intended to do, Drummond
+struck down his arm.
+
+"None of that, Jack," he said. "The Russian in you has evidently been
+scratched, and the Tartar has come uppermost. The Governor gave a
+signal, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, he did, and those two have got away while I stood babbling here,
+feeling a sympathy for the old villain. That's his return current,
+eh?"
+
+"He's not to blame," said Drummond. "It's our own fault entirely. The
+first thing to have done was to secure that boat."
+
+"And everything worked so beautifully," moaned Jack, "up to this
+point, and one mistake ruins it. We are doomed, Alan."
+
+"It isn't so bad as that, Jack," said the Englishman calmly. "Should
+those men reach the coast safely, as no doubt they will, it may cost
+Russia a bit of trouble to dislodge us."
+
+"Why, hang it all," cried Jack, "they don't need to dislodge us. All
+they've got to do is to stand off and starve us out. They are not
+compelled to fire a gun or land a man."
+
+"They'll have to starve their own men first. It's not likely we're
+going to go hungry and feed our prisoners."
+
+"Oh, we don't mind a little thing like that, we Russians. They may
+send help, or they may not. Probably a cruiser will come within
+hailing distance and try to find out what the trouble is. Then it will
+lie off and wait till everybody's dead, and after that put in a new
+Governor and another garrison."
+
+"You take too pessimistic a view, Jack. This isn't the season of the
+year for a cruiser to lie off in the Baltic. Winter is coming on. Most
+of the harbors in Finland will be ice-closed in a month, and there's
+no shelter hereabouts in a storm. They'll attack; probably open shell
+fire on us for a while, then attempt to land a storming party. That
+will be fun for us if you've got good rifles and plenty of
+ammunition."
+
+Jack raised his head.
+
+"Oh, we're well-equipped," he said, "if we only have enough to eat."
+
+Springing to his feet, all dejection gone, he said to the Governor:
+
+"Now, my friend, we're compelled to put you into a cell. I'm sorry to
+do this, but there is no other course open. Where is your larder, and
+what quantity of provisions have you in stock?"
+
+A gloomy smile added to the dejection of the old man's countenance.
+
+"You must find that out for yourself," he said.
+
+"Are the soldiers upstairs well supplied with food?"
+
+"I will not answer any of your questions."
+
+"Oh, very well. I see you are determined to go hungry yourself. Until
+I am satisfied that there is more than sufficient for my friend and
+me, no prisoner in my charge gets anything to eat. That's the sort of
+gaoler I am. The stubborn old beast!" he cried in English, turning to
+Drummond, "won't answer my questions."
+
+"What were you asking him?"
+
+"I want to know about the stock of provisions."
+
+"It's quite unnecessary to ask about the grub: there's sure to be
+ample."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why? Because we have reached the beginning of winter, as I said
+before. There must be months when no boat can land at this rock. It's
+bound to be provisioned for several months ahead at the very lowest
+calculation. Now, the first thing to do is to put this ancient Johnny
+in his little cell, then I'll tell you where our chief danger lies."
+
+The Governor made neither protest nor complaint, but walked into
+Number Nine, and was locked up.
+
+"Now, Johnny, my boy," said Drummond, "our anxiety is the soldiers.
+The moment they find they are locked in they will blow those two doors
+open in just about half a jiffy. We can, of course, by sitting in
+front of the lower door night and day, pick off the first four or five
+who come down, but if the rest make a rush we are bound to be
+overpowered. They have, presumably, plenty of powder, probably some
+live shells, petards, and what-not, that will make short work even of
+those oaken doors. What do you propose to do?"
+
+"I propose," said Jack, "to fill their crooked stairway with cement.
+There are bags and bags of it in the armory."
+
+The necessity for this was prevented by an odd circumstance. The two
+young men were seated in the Governor's room, when at his table a
+telephone bell rang. Jack had not noticed this instrument, and now
+took up the receiver.
+
+"Hello, Governor," said a voice, "your fool of a gaoler has bolted the
+stairway door, and we can't open it."
+
+"Oh, I beg pardon," replied Jack, in whatever imitation of the
+Governor's voice he could assume. "I'll see to it at once myself."
+
+He hung up the receiver and told his comrade what had happened.
+
+"One or both of these officers are coming down. If we get the officers
+safely into a cell, there will be nobody to command the men, and it is
+more than likely that the officers carry the keys of the powder room.
+I'll turn out the electric lamps in the hall, and light the lantern.
+You be ready at the foot of the stairway to fire if they make the
+slightest resistance."
+
+The two officers came down the circular stairway, grumbling at the
+delay to which they had been put. Lermontoff took advantage of the
+clamping of their heavy boots in the echoing stairway to shove in the
+bolts once more, and then followed them, himself followed by Drummond,
+into the Governor's room. Switching on the electric light, he said:
+
+"Gentlemen, I am Prince Lermontoff, in temporary charge of this
+prison. The Governor is under arrest, and I regret that I must demand
+your swords, although I have every reason to believe that they will be
+handed back to you within a very few days after I have completed my
+investigations."
+
+The officers were too much accustomed to sudden changes in command to
+see anything odd in this turn of affairs. Lermontoff spoke with a
+quiet dignity that was very convincing, and the language he used was
+that of the nobility. The two officers handed him their swords without
+a word of protest.
+
+"I must ask you whether you have yet received your winter supply of
+food."
+
+"Oh, yes," said the senior officer, "we had that nearly a month ago."
+
+"Is it stored in the military portion of the rock, or below here?"
+
+"Our rations are packed away in a room upstairs."
+
+"I am sorry, gentlemen, that I must put you into cells until my
+mission is accomplished. If you will write a requisition for such
+rations as you are accustomed to receive, I shall see that you are
+supplied. Meanwhile, write also an order to whomsoever you entrust in
+command of the men during your absence, to grant no one leave to come
+downstairs, and ask him to take care that each soldier is rigidly
+restricted to the minimum quantity of vodka."
+
+The senior officer sat down at the table, and wrote the two orders.
+The men were then placed in adjoining cells, without the thought of
+resistance even occurring to them. They supposed there had been some
+changes at headquarters, and were rather relieved to have the
+assurance of the Prince that their arrest would prove temporary.
+Further investigation showed that there would be no danger of
+starvation for six months at least.
+
+Next day Jack, at great risk of his neck, scaled to the apex of the
+island, as he had thought of flying, if possible, a signal of distress
+that might attract some passing vessel. But even though he reached the
+sharp ridge, he saw at once that no pole could be erected there, not
+even if he possessed one. The wind aloft was terrific, and he gazed
+around him at an empty sea.
+
+When four days had passed they began to look for the Russian relief
+boat, which they knew would set out the moment the Governor's telegram
+reached St. Petersburg.
+
+On the fifth day Jack shouted down to Drummond, who was standing by
+the door.
+
+"The Russian is coming: heading direct for us. She's in a hurry, too,
+crowding on all steam, and eating up the distance like a torpedo-boat
+destroyer. I think it's a cruiser. It's not the old tub I came on,
+anyway."
+
+"Come down, then," answered Alan, "and we--"
+
+A cry from above interrupted him. Jack, having at first glance spied
+the vessel whose description he had shouted to Drummond, had now
+turned his eyes eastward and stood staring aghast toward the sunrise.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Alan.
+
+"Matter?" echoed Jack. "They must be sending the whole Russian Navy
+here in detachments to capture our unworthy selves. There's a second
+boat coming from the east-- nearer by two miles than the yacht. If I
+hadn't been all taken up with the other from the moment I climbed here
+I'd have seen her before."
+
+"Is she a yacht, too?"
+
+"No. Looks like a passenger tramp. Dirty and--"
+
+"Merchantman, maybe."
+
+"No. She's got guns on her--"
+
+"Merchantman fitted out for privateersman, probably. That's the sort
+of craft Russia would be likeliest to send to a secret prison like
+this. What flag does--"
+
+"No flag at all. Neither of them. They're both making for the rock,
+full steam, and from opposite sides. Neither can see the other, I
+suppose. I--"
+
+"From opposite sides? That doesn't look like a joint expedition. One
+of those ships isn't Russian. But which?"
+
+Jack had clambered down and stood by Alan's side.
+
+"We must make ready for defense in either case," he said. "In a few
+minutes we'll be able to see them both from the platform below."
+
+"One of those boats means to blow us out of existence if it can,"
+mused Jack. "The other cannot know of our existence. And yet, if she
+doesn't, what is she doing here, headed for the rock?"
+
+With that Jack scrambled, slid and jumped down. Drummond was very
+quiet and serious. Repeating rifles stood in a row on the opposite
+wall, easy to get at, but as far off as might be from the effects of a
+possible shell. The two young men now mounted the stone bench by the
+door, which allowed them to look over the ledge at the eastern sea.
+Presently the craft appeared round the end of the island, pure white,
+floating like a swan on the water, and making great headway.
+
+"By Jove!" said Jack, "she's a fine one. Looks like the Czar's yacht,
+but no Russian vessel I know of can make that speed."
+
+"She's got the ear-marks of Thornycroft build about her," commented
+Drummond. "By Jove, Jack, what luck if she should prove to be English.
+No flag flying, though."
+
+"She's heading for us," said Jack, "and apparently she knows which
+side the cannon is on. If she's Russian, they've taken it for granted
+we've captured the whole place, and are in command of the guns. There,
+she's turning."
+
+The steamer was abreast of the rock, and perhaps three miles distant.
+Now she swept a long, graceful curve westward and drew up about half a
+mile east of the rock.
+
+"Jove, I wish I'd a pair of good glasses," said Drummond. "They're
+lowering a boat."
+
+Jack showed more Highland excitement than Russian stolidity, as he
+watched the oncoming of a small boat, beautifully riding the waves,
+and masterfully rowed by sailors who understood the art. Drummond
+stood imperturbable as a statue.
+
+"The sweep of those oars is English, Jack, my boy."
+
+As the boat came nearer and nearer Jack became more and more agitated.
+
+"I say, Alan, focus your eyes on that man at the rudder. I think my
+sight's failing me. Look closely. Did you ever see him before?"
+
+"I think I have, but am not quite sure."
+
+"Why, he looks to me like my jovial and venerable father-in-law,
+Captain Kempt, of Bar Harbor. Perfectly absurd, of course: it can't
+be."
+
+"He does resemble the Captain, but I only saw him once or twice."
+
+"Hooray, Captain Kempt, how are you?" shouted Jack across the waters.
+
+The Captain raised his right hand and waved it, but made no attempt to
+cover the distance with his voice. Jack ran pell-mell down the steps,
+and Drummond followed in more leisurely fashion. The boat swung round
+to the landing, and Captain Kempt cried cordially:
+
+"Hello, Prince, how are you? And that's Lieutenant Drummond, isn't it?
+Last time I had the pleasure of seeing you, Drummond, was that night
+of the ball."
+
+"Yes," said Drummond. "I was very glad to see you then, but a hundred
+times happier to see you to-day."
+
+"I was just cruising round these waters in my yacht, and I thought I'd
+take a look at this rock you tried to obliterate. I don't see any
+perceptible damage done, but what can you expect from British
+marksmanship?"
+
+"I struck the rock on the other side, Captain. I think your remark is
+unkind, especially as I've just been praising the watermanship of your
+men."
+
+"Now, are you boys tired of this summer resort?" asked Captain Kempt.
+"Is your baggage checked, and are you ready to go? Most seaside places
+are deserted this time of year."
+
+"We'll be ready in a moment, captain," cried his future son-in-law. "I
+must run up and get the Governor. We've put a number of men in prison
+here, and they'll starve if not released. The Governor's a good old
+chap, though he played it low down on me a few days ago," and with
+that Jack disappeared up the stairway once more.
+
+"Had a gaol-delivery here?" asked the Captain.
+
+"Well, something by way of that. The Prince drilled a hole in the
+rock, and we got out. We've put the garrison in pawn, so to speak, but
+I've been mighty anxious these last few days because the sail-boat
+they had here, and two of the garrison, escaped to the mainland with
+the news. We were anxiously watching your yacht, fearing it was
+Russian. Jack thought it was the Czar's yacht. How came you by such a
+craft, Captain? Splendid-looking boat that."
+
+"Oh, yes, I bought her a few days before I left New York. One likes to
+travel comfortably, you know. Very well fitted up she is."
+
+Jack shouted from the doorway:
+
+"Drummond, come up here and fling overboard these loaded rifles. We
+can't take any more chances. I'm going to lock up the ammunition room
+and take the key with me as a souvenir."
+
+"Excuse me, Captain," said Drummond, who followed his friend, and
+presently bundles of rifles came clattering down the side of the
+precipice, plunging into the sea. The two then descended the steps,
+Jack in front, Drummond following with the Governor between them.
+
+"Now, Governor," said Jack, "for the second time I am to bid you
+farewell. Here are the keys. If you accept them you must give me your
+word of honor that the boat will not be fired upon. If you do not
+promise that, I'll drop the bunch into the sea, and on your gray head
+be the consequences."
+
+"I give you my word of honor that you shall not be fired upon."
+
+"Very well, Governor. Here are the keys, and good-by."
+
+In the flurry of excitement over the yacht's appearance, both Jack and
+Drummond had temporarily forgotten the existence of the tramp steamer
+the former had seen beating toward the rock.
+
+Now Lamont suddenly recalled it.
+
+"By the way, Governor," he said, "the relief boat you so thoughtfully
+sent for is on her way here. She should reach the rock at almost any
+minute now. In fact, I fancy we've little time to waste if we want to
+avoid a brush. It would be a pity to be nabbed now at the eleventh
+hour. Good-by, once more."
+
+But the Governor had stepped between him and the boat.
+
+"I-- I am an old man," he said, speaking with manifest embarrassment.
+"I was sent to take charge of this prison as punishment for refusing
+to join a Jew massacre plot. Governorship here means no more nor less
+than a life imprisonment. My wife and children are on a little estate
+of mine in Sweden. It is twelve years since I have seen them. I--"
+
+"If this story is a ruse to detain us--"
+
+"No! No!" protested the Governor, and there was no mistaking his
+pathetic, eager sincerity. "But-- but I shall be shot-- or locked in
+one of the cells and the water turned on-- for letting you escape.
+Won't you take me with you? I will work my passage. Take me as far as
+Stockholm. I shall be free there-- free to join my wife and to live
+forever out of reach of the Grand Dukes. Take me--"
+
+"Jump in!" ordered Jack, coming to a sudden resolution. "Heaven knows
+I would not condemn my worst enemy to a perpetual life on this rock.
+And you've been pretty decent to us, according to your lights. Jump
+aboard, we've no time to waste."
+
+Nor did the Governor waste time in obeying. The others followed, and
+the boat shoved off. But scarcely had the oars caught the water when
+around the promontory came a large man-o'-war's launch, a rapid-fire
+gun mounted on her bows. She was manned by about twenty men in Russian
+police uniform.
+
+"From the 'tramp,'" commented Alan excitedly. "And her gun is trained
+on us."
+
+"Get down to work!" shouted Jack to the straining oarsmen.
+
+"No use!" groaned Kempt. "She'll cross within a hundred yards of us.
+There's no missing at such close range and on such a quiet sea. What a
+fool I was to--"
+
+The launch was, indeed, bearing down on them despite the rowers' best
+efforts, and must unquestionably cut them off before they could reach
+the yacht.
+
+Alan drew his revolver.
+
+"We've no earthly show against her," he remarked quietly, "and it
+seems hard to 'go down in sight of port.' But let's do what we can."
+
+"Put up that pop-gun," ordered Kempt. "She will sink us long before
+you're in range for revolver work. I'll run up my handkerchief for a
+white flag."
+
+"To surrender?"
+
+"What else can we do?"
+
+"And be lugged back to the rock, all of us? Not I, for one!"
+
+The launch was now within hailing distance, and every man aboard her
+was glaring at the helpless little yacht-gig.
+
+"Wait!"
+
+It was the Governor who spoke. Rising from his seat in the stern, he
+hailed the officer who was sighting the rapid-fire gun.
+
+"Lieutenant Tschersky!" he called.
+
+At sight of the old man's lean, uniformed figure, rising from among
+the rest, there was visible excitement and surprise aboard the launch.
+The officer saluted and ordered the engine stopped that he might hear
+more plainly.
+
+"Lieutenant," repeated the Governor, "I am summoned aboard His
+Highness the Grand Duke Vladimir's yacht. You will proceed to the
+harbor and await my return to the rock. There has been a mutiny among
+the garrison, but I have quelled it."
+
+The officer saluted again, gave an order, and the launch's nose
+pointed for the rock.
+
+"Governor," observed Lamont, as the old man sank again into his seat,
+"you've earned your passage to Stockholm. You need not work for it."
+
+  CHAPTER XXI
+
+ THE ELOPEMENT
+
+THE girls on the yacht had no expectation that Captain Kempt would
+come back with the two young men. But when, through their powerful
+binoculars, the girls became aware that Drummond and the Prince were
+in the small boat, they both fled to the chief saloon, and sat there
+holding one another's hands. Even the exuberant Kate for once had
+nothing to say. She heard the voice of her father on deck, giving
+command to the mate.
+
+"Make for Stockholm, Johnson. Take my men-o'-war's men-- see that no
+one else touches the ammunition-- and fling the shells overboard.
+Heave the gun after them, and then clear out the rifles and ammunition
+the same way. When we reach Stockholm to-morrow morning, there must
+not be a gun on board this ship, and the ridiculous rumor that got
+abroad among your men that we were going to attack something or other,
+you will see is entirely unfounded. You impress that on them,
+Johnson."
+
+"Oh, Dorothy," whispered Katherine, drawing a deep breath. "If you are
+as frightened as I am, get behind me."
+
+"I think I will," answered Dorothy, and each squeezed the other's
+hand.
+
+"I tell you what it is, Captain," sounded the confident voice of the
+Prince. "This vessel is a beauty. You have done yourself fine. I had
+no idea you were such a sybarite. Why, I've been aboard the Czar's
+yacht, and I tell you it's nothing-- Great heavens! Katherine!" he
+shouted, in a voice that made the ceiling ring.
+
+She was now standing up and advanced toward him with both hands held
+out, a welcoming smile on her pretty lips, but he swooped down on her,
+flung his arms round her like a cabman beating warmth into his hands,
+kissed her on the brow, the two cheeks and the lips, swaying her back
+and forward as if about to fling her upstairs.
+
+"Stop, stop," she cried. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Before my
+father, too! You great Russian bear!" and, breathless, she put her
+open palm against his face, and shoved his head away from her.
+
+"Don't bother about me, Kate," said her father. "That's nothing to the
+way we acted when I was young. Come on, boys, to the smoking-room, and
+I'll mix you something good: real Kentucky, twenty-seven years in
+barrel, and I've got all the other materials for a Manhattan."
+
+"Jack, I am glad to see you," panted Katherine, all in disarray, which
+she endeavored to set right by an agitated touch here and there. "Now,
+Jack, I'm going to take you to the smoking-room, but you'll have to
+behave yourself as you walk along the deck. I won't be made a
+spectacle of before the crew."
+
+"Come along, Drummond," said the Captain, "and bring Miss Dorothy with
+you."
+
+But Drummond stood in front of Dorothy Amhurst, and held out his hand.
+
+"You haven't forgotten me, Miss Amhurst, I hope?"
+
+"Oh, no," she replied, with a very faint smile, taking his hand.
+
+"It seems incredible that you are here," he began. "What a lucky man I
+am. Captain Kempt takes his yacht to rescue his son-in-law that is to
+be, and incidentally rescues me as well, and then to find you here! I
+suppose you came because your friend Miss Kempt was aboard?"
+
+"Yes, we are all but inseparable."
+
+"I wrote you a letter, Miss Amhurst, the last night I was in St.
+Petersburg in the summer."
+
+"Yes, I received it."
+
+"No, not this one. It was the night I was captured, and I never got a
+chance to post it. It was an important letter-- for me."
+
+"I thought it important-- for me," replied Dorothy, now smiling quite
+openly. "The Nihilists got it, searching your room after you had been
+arrested. It was sent on to New York, and given to me."
+
+"Is that possible? How did they know it was for you?"
+
+"I had been making inquiries through the Nihilists."
+
+"I wrote you a proposal of marriage, Dorothy."
+
+"It certainly read like it, but you see it wasn't signed, and you
+can't be held to it."
+
+He reached across the table, and grasped her two hands.
+
+"Dorothy, Dorothy," he cried, "do you mean you would have cabled
+'Yes'?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You would not?"
+
+"Of course not. I should have cabled 'Undecided.' One gets more for
+one's money in sending a long word. Then I should have written--" she
+paused, and he cried eagerly:
+
+"What?"
+
+"What do you think?" she asked.
+
+"Well, do you know, Dorothy, I am beginning to think my incredible
+luck will hold, and that you'd have written 'Yes.'"
+
+"I don't know about the luck: that would have been the answer."
+
+He sprang up, bent over her, and she, quite unaffectedly raised her
+face to his.
+
+"Oh, Dorothy," he cried.
+
+"Oh, Alan," she replied, with quivering voice, "I never thought to see
+you again. You cannot imagine the long agony of this voyage, and not
+knowing what had happened."
+
+"It's a blessing, Dorothy, you had learned nothing about the
+Trogzmondoff."
+
+"Ah, but I did: that's what frightened me. We have a man on board who
+was flung for dead from that dreadful rock. The Baltic saved him; his
+mother, he calls it."
+
+Drummond picked her up in his arms, and carried her to the luxurious
+divan which ran along the side of the large room. There they sat down
+together, out of sight of the stairway.
+
+"Did you get all of my letters?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"You know I am a poor man?"
+
+"I know you said so."
+
+"Don't you consider my position poverty? I thought every one over
+there had a contempt for an income that didn't run into tens of
+thousands."
+
+"I told you, Alan, I had been unused to money, and so your income
+appears to me quite sufficient."
+
+"Then you are not afraid to trust in my future?"
+
+"Not the least: I believe in you."
+
+"Oh, you dear girl. If you knew how sweet that sounds! Then I may tell
+you. When I was in London last I ran down to Dartmouth in Devonshire.
+I shall be stationed there. You see, I have finished my foreign
+cruising, and Dartmouth is, for a time at least, to be my home.
+There's a fine harbor there, green hills and a beautiful river running
+between them, and I found such a lovely old house; not grand at all,
+you know, but so cosey and comfortable, standing on the heights
+overlooking the harbor, in an old garden filled with roses, shrubs,
+and every kind of flower; vines clambering about the ancient house.
+Two servants would keep it going like a shot. Dorothy, what do you
+say?"
+
+Dorothy laughed quietly and whole heartedly.
+
+"It reads like a bit from an old English romance. I'd just love to see
+such a house."
+
+"You don't care for this sort of thing, do you?" he asked, glancing
+round about him.
+
+"What sort of thing?"
+
+"This yacht, these silk pannellings, these gorgeous pictures, the
+carving, the gilt, the horribly expensive carpet."
+
+"You mean should I feel it necessary to be surrounded by such luxury?
+I answer most emphatically, no. I like your ivy-covered house at
+Dartmouth much better."
+
+For a moment neither said anything: lips cannot speak when pressed
+together.
+
+"Now, Dorothy, I want you to elope with me. We will be in Stockholm
+long before daylight to-morrow at the rate this boat is going. I'll
+get ashore as soon as practicable, and make all inquiries at the
+consulate about being married. I don't know what the regulations are,
+but if it is possible to be married quietly, say in the afternoon,
+will you consent to that, and then write a letter to Captain Kempt,
+thanking him for the trip on the yacht, and I'll write, thanking him
+for all he has done for me, and after that we'll make for England
+together. I've got a letter of credit in my pocket, which luckily the
+Russians did not take from me. I shall find all the money we need at
+Stockholm, then we'll cross the Swedish country, sail to Denmark, make
+our way through Germany to Paris, if you like, or to London. We shan't
+travel all the time, but just take nice little day trips, stopping at
+some quaint old town every afternoon and evening."
+
+"You mean to let Captain Kempt, Katherine, and the Prince go to
+America alone?"
+
+"Of course. Why not? They don't want us, and I'm quite sure we-- well,
+Dorothy, we'd be delighted to have them, to be sure-- but still, I've
+knocked a good deal about Europe, and there are some delightful old
+towns I'd like to show you, and I hate traveling with a party."
+
+Dorothy laughed so heartily that her head sank on his shoulder.
+
+"Yes, I'll do that," she said at last.
+
+And they did.
+
+ THE END
+
+
+
+
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
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+<title>A Rock in the Baltic</title>
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+Title: A Rock in the Baltic
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+Author: Robert Barr
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+
+
+<h1>A Rock in the Baltic</h1>
+<h2>by Robert Barr, 1906</h2>
+  <HR>
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+<h4>THE INCIDENT AT THE BANK</h4>
+<P>
+IN the public room of the Sixth National Bank at Bar Harbor in Maine, Lieutenant
+Alan Drummond, H.M.S. "Consternation," stood aside to give precedence to
+a lady. The Lieutenant had visited the bank for the purpose of changing several
+crisp white Bank of England notes into the currency of the country he was
+then visiting. The lady did not appear to notice either his courtesy or his
+presence, and this was the more remarkable since Drummond was a young man
+sufficiently conspicuous even in a crowd, and he and she were, at that moment,
+the only customers in the bank. He was tall, well-knit and stalwart, blond
+as a Scandinavian, with dark blue eyes which he sometimes said jocularly
+were the colors of his university. He had been slowly approaching the cashier's
+window with the easy movement of a man never in a hurry, when the girl appeared
+at the door, and advanced rapidly to the bank counter with its brass wire
+screen surrounding the arched aperture behind which stood the cashier. Although
+very plainly attired, her gown nevertheless possessed a charm of simplicity
+that almost suggested complex Paris, and she wore it with that air of distinction
+the secret of which is supposed to be the exclusive property of French and
+American women.
+<P>
+The young man saw nothing of this, and although he appreciated the beauty
+of the girl, what struck him at that instant was the expression of anxiety
+on her face, whose apparently temporary pallor was accentuated by an abundance
+of dark hair. It seemed to him that she had resolutely set herself a task
+which she was most reluctant to perform. From the moment she entered the
+door her large, dark eyes were fixed almost appealingly on the cashier, and
+they beheld nothing else. Drummond, mentally slow as he usually was, came
+to the quick conclusion that this was a supreme moment in her life, on which
+perhaps great issues depended. He saw her left hand grasp the corner of the
+ledge in front of the cashier with a grip of nervous tension, as if the support
+thus attained was necessary to her. Her right hand trembled slightly as she
+passed an oblong slip of paper through the aperture to the calm and indifferent
+official.
+<P>
+"Will you give me the money for this check?" she asked in a low voice.
+<P>
+The cashier scrutinized the document for some time in silence. The signature
+appeared unfamiliar to him.
+<P>
+"One moment, madam," he said quietly, and retired to a desk in the back part
+of the bank, where he opened a huge book, turned over some leaves rapidly,
+and ran his finger down a page. His dilatory action seemed to increase the
+young woman's panic. Her pallor increased, and she swayed slightly, as if
+in danger of falling, but brought her right hand to the assistance of the
+left, and so steadied herself against the ledge of the cashier's counter.
+<P>
+"By Jove!" said the Lieutenant to himself, "there's something wrong here.
+I wonder what it is. Such a pretty girl, too!"
+<P>
+The cashier behind his screen saw nothing of this play of the emotions. He
+returned nonchalantly to his station, and asked, in commonplace tones:
+<P>
+"How will you have the money, madam?"
+<P>
+"Gold, if you please," she replied almost in a whisper, a rosy flush chasing
+the whiteness from her face, while a deep sigh marked the passing of a crisis.
+<P>
+At this juncture an extraordinary thing happened. The cashier counted out
+some golden coins, and passed them through the aperture toward their new
+owner.
+<P>
+"Thank you," said the girl. Then, without touching the money, she turned
+like one hypnotized, her unseeing eyes still taking no heed of the big
+Lieutenant, and passed rapidly out of the bank, The cashier paid no regard
+to this abandonment of treasure. He was writing some hieroglyphics on the
+cashed check.
+<P>
+"By Jove!" gasped the Lieutenant aloud, springing forward as he spoke, sweeping
+the coins into his hand, and bolting for the door. This was an action which
+would have awakened the most negligent cashier had he been in a trance.
+Automatically he whisked out a revolver which lay in an open drawer under
+his hand.
+<P>
+"Stop, you scoundrel, or I fire!" he shouted, but the Lieutenant had already
+disappeared. Quick as thought the cashier darted into the passage, and without
+waiting to unfasten the low door which separated the public and private rooms
+of the bank, leaped over it, and, bareheaded, gave chase. A British naval
+officer in uniform, rapidly overtaking a young woman, quite unconscious of
+his approach, followed by an excited, bareheaded man with a revolver in his
+grasp, was a sight which would quickly have collected a crowd almost anywhere,
+but it happened to be the lunch hour, and the inhabitants of that famous
+summer resort were in-doors; thus, fortunately, the street was deserted.
+The naval officer was there because the hour of the midday meal on board
+the cruiser did not coincide with lunch time on shore. The girl was there
+because it happened to be the only portion of the day when she could withdraw
+unobserved from the house in which she lived, during banking hours, to try
+her little agitating financial experiment. The cashier was there because
+the bank had no lunch hour, and because he had just witnessed the most suspicious
+circumstance that his constantly alert eye had ever beheld. Calm and
+imperturbable as a bank cashier may appear to the outside public, he is a
+man under constant strain during business hours. Each person with whom he
+is unacquainted that confronts him at his post is a possible robber who at
+any moment may attempt, either by violence or chicanery, to filch the treasure
+he guards. The happening of any event outside the usual routine at once arouses
+a cashier's distrust, and this sudden flight of a stranger with money which
+did not belong to him quite justified the perturbation of the cashier. From
+that point onward, innocence of conduct or explanation so explicit as to
+satisfy any ordinary man, becomes evidence of more subtle guilt to the mind
+of a bank official. The ordinary citizen, seeing the Lieutenant finally overtake
+and accost the hurrying girl, raise his cap, then pour into her outstretched
+hand the gold he had taken, would have known at once that here was an every-day
+exercise of natural politeness. Not so the cashier. The farther he got from
+the bank, the more poignantly did he realize that these two in front, both
+strangers to him, had, by their combined action, lured him, pistol and all,
+away from his post during the dullest hour of the day. It was not the decamping
+with those few pieces of gold which now troubled him: it was fear of what
+might be going on behind him. He was positive that these two had acted in
+conjunction. The uniform worn by the man did not impose upon him. Any thief
+could easily come by a uniform, and, as his mind glanced rapidly backwards
+over the various points of the scheme, he saw how effectual the plan was:
+first, the incredible remissness of the woman in leaving her gold on the
+counter; second, the impetuous disappearance of the man with the money; and,
+third, his own heedless plunge into the street after them. He saw the whole
+plot in a flash: he had literally leaped into the trap, and during his five
+or ten minutes' absence, the accomplices of the pair might have overawed
+the unarmed clerks, and walked off with the treasure. His cash drawer was
+unlocked, and even the big safe stood wide open. Surprise had as effectually
+lured him away as if he had been a country bumpkin. Bitterly and breathlessly
+did he curse his own precipitancy. His duty was to guard the bank, yet it
+had not been the bank that was robbed, but, at best a careless woman who
+had failed to pick up her money. He held the check for it, and the loss,
+if any, was hers, not the bank's, yet here he was, running bareheaded down
+the street like a fool, and now those two stood quite calmly together, he
+handing her the money, and thus spreading a mantle of innocence over the
+vile trick. But whatever was happening in the bank, he would secure two of
+the culprits at least. The two, quite oblivious of the danger that threatened
+them, were somewhat startled by a panting man, trembling with rage, bareheaded,
+and flourishing a deadly weapon, sweeping down upon them.
+<P>
+"Come back to the bank instantly, you two!" he shouted.
+<P>
+"Why?" asked the Lieutenant in a quiet voice.
+<P>
+"Because I say so, for one thing."
+<P>
+"That reason is unanswerable," replied the Lieutenant with a slight laugh,
+which further exasperated his opponent. "I think you are exciting yourself
+unnecessarily. May I beg you to put that pistol in your pocket? On the cruiser
+we always cover up the guns when ladies honor us with their presence. You
+wish me to return because I had no authority for taking the money? Right:
+come along."
+<P>
+The cashier regarded this as bluff, and an attempt to give the woman opportunity
+to escape.
+<P>
+"You must come back also," he said to the girl.
+<P>
+"I'd rather not," she pleaded in a low voice, and it was hardly possible
+to have made a more injudicious remark if she had taken the whole afternoon
+to prepare.
+<P>
+Renewed determination shone from the face of the cashier.
+<P>
+"You must come back to the bank," he reiterated.
+<P>
+"Oh, I say," protested the Lieutenant, "you are now exceeding your authority.
+I alone am the culprit. The young lady is quite blameless, and you have no
+right to detain her for a moment."
+<P>
+The girl, who had been edging away and showing signs of flight, which the
+bareheaded man, visibly on the alert, leaned forward ready to intercept,
+seemed to make up her mind to bow to the inevitable. Ignoring the cashier,
+she looked up at the blond Lieutenant with a slight smile on her pretty lips.
+<P>
+"It was really all my fault at the beginning," she said, "and very stupid
+of me. I am slightly acquainted with the bank manager, and I am sure he will
+vouch for me, if he is there."
+<P>
+With that she turned and walked briskly toward the bank, at so rapid a pace
+as to indicate that she did not wish an escort. The bareheaded official found
+his anger unaccountably deserting him, while a great fear that he had put
+his foot in it took its place.
+<P>
+"Really," said the Lieutenant gently, as they strode along together, "an
+official in your position should be a good judge of human nature. How any
+sane person, especially a young man, can look at that beautiful girl and
+suspect her of evil, passes my comprehension. Do you know her?"
+<P>
+"No," said the cashier shortly. "Do you?"
+<P>
+The Lieutenant laughed genially.
+<P>
+"Still suspicious, eh?" he asked. "No, I don't know her, but to use a banking
+term, you may bet your bottom dollar I'm going to. Indeed, I am rather grateful
+to you for your stubbornness in forcing us to return. It's a quality I like,
+and you possess it in marvelous development, so I intend to stand by you
+when the managerial censure is due. I'm very certain I met your manager at
+the dinner they gave us last night. Mr. Morton, isn't he?"
+<P>
+"Yes," growled the cashier, in gruff despondency.
+<P>
+"Ah, that's awfully jolly. One of the finest fellows I've met in ten years.
+Now, the lady said she was acquainted with him, so if I don't wheedle an
+introduction out of him, it will show that a man at a dinner and a man in
+a bank are two different individuals. You were looking for plots; so there
+is mine laid bare to you. It's an introduction, not gold, I'm conspiring
+for."
+<P>
+The cashier had nothing further to say. When they entered the bank together
+he saw the clerks all busily at work, and knew that no startling event had
+happened during his absence. The girl had gone direct to the manager's room,
+and thither the young men followed her. The bank manager was standing at
+his desk, trying to preserve a severe financial cast of countenance, which
+the twinkle in his eyes belied. The girl, also standing, had evidently been
+giving him a rapid sketch of what had occurred, but now fell into silence
+when accuser and accomplice appeared.
+<P>
+The advent of the Englishman was a godsend to the manager. He was too courteous
+a gentleman to laugh in the face of a lady who very seriously was relating
+a set of incidents which appealed to his sense of humor, so the coming of
+the Lieutenant enabled him to switch off his mirth on another subject, and
+in reply to the officer's cordial "Good-morning, Mr. Morton," he replied:
+<P>
+"Why, Lieutenant, I'm delighted to see you. That was a very jolly song you
+sang for us last night: I'll never forget it. What do you call it? Whittington
+Fair?" And he laughed outright, as at a genial recollection.
+<P>
+The Lieutenant blushed red as a girl, and stammered:
+<P>
+"Really, Mr. Morton, you know, that's not according to the rules of evidence.
+When a fellow comes up for trial, previous convictions are never allowed
+to be mentioned till after the sentence. Whiddicomb Fair should not be held
+against me in the present crisis."
+<P>
+The manager chuckled gleefully. The cashier, when he saw how the land lay,
+had quietly withdrawn, closing the door behind him.
+<P>
+"Well, Lieutenant, I think I must have this incident cabled to Europe," said
+Morton, "so the effete nations of your continent may know that a plain bank
+cashier isn't afraid to tackle the British navy. Indeed, Mr. Drummond, if
+you read history, you will learn that this is a dangerous coast for your
+warships. It seems rather inhospitable that a guest of our town cannot pick
+all the gold he wants out of a bank, but a cashier has necessarily somewhat
+narrow views on the subject. I was just about to apologize to Miss Amhurst,
+who is a valued client of ours, when you came in, and I hope, Miss Amhurst"&#151; he
+continued gravely, turning to the girl&#151; "that you will excuse us for the
+inconvenience to which you have been put."
+<P>
+"Oh, it does not matter in the least," replied the young woman, with nevertheless
+a sigh of relief. "It was all my own fault in so carelessly leaving the money.
+Some time, when less in a hurry than I am at the present moment, I will tell
+you how I came to make the blunder."
+<P>
+Meanwhile the manager caught and interpreted correctly an imploring look
+from the Lieutenant.
+<P>
+"Before you go, Miss Amhurst, will you permit me to introduce to you my friend,
+Lieutenant Drummond, of H.M.S. 'Consternation.'"
+<P>
+This ritual to convention being performed, the expression on the girl's face
+showed the renewal of her anxiety to be gone, and as she turned to the door,
+the officer sprang forward and opened it for her. If the manager expected
+the young man to return, he was disappointed, for Drummond threw over his
+shoulder the hasty remark:
+<P>
+"I will see you at the Club this evening," whereupon the genial Morton, finding
+himself deserted, sat down in his swivel chair and laughed quietly to himself.
+<P>
+There was the slightest possible shade of annoyance on the girl's face as
+the sailor walked beside her from the door of the manager's room, through
+the public portion of the bank to the exit, and the young man noticing this,
+became momentarily tongue-tied, but nevertheless persisted, with a certain
+awkward doggedness which was not going to allow so slight a hint that his
+further attendance was unnecessary, to baffle him. He did not speak until
+they had passed down the stone steps to the pavement, and then his utterance
+began with a half-embarrassed stammer, as if the shadow of displeasure demanded
+justification on his part.
+<P>
+"You&#151; you see, Miss Amhurst, we have been properly introduced."
+<P>
+For the first time he heard the girl laugh, just a little, and the sound
+was very musical to him.
+<P>
+"The introduction was of the slightest," she said. "I cannot claim even an
+acquaintance with Mr. Morton, although I did so in the presence of his persistent
+subordinate. I have met the manager of the bank but once before, and that
+for a few moments only, when he showed me where to sign my name in a big
+book."
+<P>
+"Nevertheless," urged Drummond, "I shall defend the validity of that introduction
+against all comers. The head of a bank is a most important man in every country,
+and his commendation is really very much sought after."
+<P>
+"You appear to possess it. He complimented your singing, you know," and there
+was a roguish twinkle in the girl's eye as she glanced up sideways at him,
+while a smile came to her lips as she saw the color again mount to his cheeks.
+She had never before met a man who blushed, and she could not help regarding
+him rather as a big boy than a person to be taken seriously. His stammer
+became more pronounced.
+<P>
+"I&#151; I think you are laughing at me, Miss Amhurst, and indeed I don't wonder
+at it, and I&#151; I am afraid you consider me even more persistent than the cashier.
+But I did want to tell you how sorry I am to have caused you annoyance."
+<P>
+"Oh, you have not done so," replied the girl quickly. "As I said before,
+it was all my own fault in the beginning."
+<P>
+"No, I shouldn't have taken the gold. I should have come up with you, and
+told you that it still awaited you in the bank, and now I beg your permission
+to walk down the street with you, because if any one were looking at us from
+these windows, and saw us pursued by a bareheaded man with a revolver, they
+will now, on looking out again, learn that it is all right, and may even
+come to regard the revolver and the hatless one as an optical delusion."
+<P>
+Again the girl laughed.
+<P>
+"I am quite unknown in Bar Harbor, having fewer acquaintances than even a
+stranger like yourself, therefore so far as I am concerned it does not in
+the least matter whether any one saw us or not. We shall walk together, then,
+as far as the spot where the cashier overtook us, and this will give me an
+opportunity of explaining, if not of excusing, my leaving the money on the
+counter. I am sure my conduct must have appeared inexplicable both to you
+and the cashier, although, of course, you would be too polite to say so."
+<P>
+"I assure you, Miss Amhurst&#151;"
+<P>
+"I know what you would say," she interrupted, with a vivacity which had not
+heretofore characterized her, "but, you see, the distance to the corner is
+short, and, as I am in a hurry, if you don't wish my story to be continued
+in our next&#151;"
+<P>
+"Ah, if there is to be a next&#151;" murmured the young man so fervently that
+it was now the turn of color to redden her cheeks.
+<P>
+"I am talking heedlessly," she said quickly. "What I want to say is this:
+I have never had much money. Quite recently I inherited what had been accumulated
+by a relative whom I never knew. It seemed so incredible, so strange&#151; well,
+it seems incredible and strange yet&#151; and I have been expecting to wake and
+find it all a dream. Indeed, when you overtook me at this spot where we now
+stand, I feared you had come to tell me it was a mistake; to hurl me from
+the clouds to the hard earth again."
+<P>
+"But it was just the reverse of that," he cried eagerly. "Just the reverse,
+remember. I came to confirm your dream, and you received from my hand the
+first of your fortune."
+<P>
+"Yes," she admitted, her eyes fixed on the sidewalk.
+<P>
+"I see how it was," he continued enthusiastically. "I suppose you had never
+drawn a check before."
+<P>
+"Never," she conceded.
+<P>
+"And this was merely a test. You set up your dream against the hard common
+sense of a bank, which has no dreams. You were to transform your vision into
+the actual, or find it vanish. When the commonplace cashier passed forth
+the coin, their jingle said to you, 'The supposed phantasy is real,' but
+the gold pieces themselves at that supreme moment meant no more to you than
+so many worthless counters, so you turned your back upon them."
+<P>
+She looked up at him, her eyes, though moist, illumined with pleasure inspired
+by the sympathy in his tones rather than the import of his words. The girl's
+life heretofore had been as scant of kindness as of cash, and there was a
+deep sincerity in his voice which was as refreshing to her lonesome heart
+as it was new to her experience. This man was not so stupid as he had pretended
+to be. He had accurately divined the inner meaning of what had happened.
+She had forgotten the necessity for haste which had been so importunate a
+few minutes before.
+<P>
+"You must be a mind-reader," she said.
+<P>
+"No, I am not at all a clever person," he laughed. "Indeed, as I told you,
+I am always blundering into trouble, and making things uncomfortable for
+my friends. I regret to say I am rather under a cloud just now in the service,
+and I have been called upon to endure the frown of my superiors."
+<P>
+"Why, what has happened?" she asked. After their temporary halt at the corner
+where they had been overtaken, they now strolled along together like old
+friends, her prohibition out of mind.
+<P>
+"Well, you see, I was temporarily in command of the cruiser coming down the
+Baltic, and passing an island rock a few miles away, I thought it would be
+a good opportunity to test a new gun that had been put aboard when we left
+England. The sea was very calm, and the rock most temptsome. Of course I
+knew it was Russian territory, but who could have imagined that such a point
+in space was inhabited by anything else than sea-gulls."
+<P>
+"What!" cried the girl, looking up at him with new interest. "You don't mean
+to say you are the officer that Russia demanded from England, and England
+refused to give up?"
+<P>
+"Oh, England could not give me up, of course, but she apologized, and assured
+Russia she had no evil intent. Still, anything that sets the diplomatists
+at work is frowned upon, and the man who does an act which his government
+is forced to disclaim becomes unpopular with his superiors."
+<P>
+"I read about it in the papers at the time. Didn't the rock fire back at
+you?"
+<P>
+"Yes, it did, and no one could have been more surprised than I when I saw
+the answering puff of smoke."
+<P>
+"How came a cannon to be there?"
+<P>
+"Nobody knows. I suppose that rock in the Baltic is a concealed fort, with
+galleries and gun-rooms cut in the stone after the fashion of our defences
+at Gibraltar. I told the court-martial that I had added a valuable bit of
+information to our naval knowledge, but I don't suppose this contention exercised
+any influence on the minds of my judges. I also called their attention to
+the fact that my shell had hit, while the Russian shot fell half a mile short.
+That remark nearly cost me my commission. A court-martial has no sense of
+humor."
+<P>
+"I suppose everything is satisfactorily settled now?"
+<P>
+"Well, hardly that. You see, Continental nations are extremely suspicious
+of Britain's good intentions, as indeed they are of the good intentions of
+each other. No government likes to have&#151; well, what we might call a 'frontier
+incident' happen, and even if a country is quite in the right, it nevertheless
+looks askance at any official of its own who, through his stupidity, brings
+about an international complication. As concerns myself, I am rather under
+a cloud, as I told you. The court-martial acquitted me, but it did so with
+reluctance and a warning. I shall have to walk very straight for the next
+year or two, and be careful not to stub my toe, for the eyes of the Admiralty
+are upon me. However, I think I can straighten this matter out. I have six
+months' leave coming on shortly, which I intend to spend in St. Petersburg.
+I shall make it my business to see privately some of the officials in the
+Admiralty there, and when they realize by personal inspection what a
+well-intentioned idiot I am, all distrust will vanish."
+<P>
+"I should do nothing of the kind," rejoined the girl earnestly, quite forgetting
+the shortness of their acquaintance, as she had forgotten the flight of time,
+while on his part he did not notice any incongruity in the situation. "I'd
+leave well enough alone," she added.
+<P>
+"Why do you think that?" he asked.
+<P>
+"Your own country has investigated the matter, and has deliberately run the
+risk of unpleasantness by refusing to give you up. How, then, can you go
+there voluntarily? You would be acting in your private capacity directly
+in opposition to the decision arrived at by your government."
+<P>
+"Technically, that is so; still, England would not hold the position she
+does in the world to-day if her men had not often taken a course in their
+private capacity which the government would never have sanctioned. As things
+stand now, Russia has not insisted on her demand, but has sullenly accepted
+England's decision, still quite convinced that my act was not only an invasion
+of Russia's domain, but a deliberate insult; therefore the worst results
+of an inconsiderate action on my part remain. If I could see the Minister
+for Foreign Affairs, or the head of the Admiralty in St. Petersburg face
+to face for ten minutes, I'd undertake to remove that impression."
+<P>
+"You have great faith in your persuasive powers," she said demurely.
+<P>
+The Lieutenant began to stammer again.
+<P>
+"No, no, it isn't so much that, but I have great faith in the Russian as
+a judge of character. I suppose I am imagined to be a venomous, brow-beating,
+truculent Russophobe, who has maliciously violated their territory, flinging
+a shell into their ground and an insult into their face. They are quite sincere
+in this belief. I want to remove that impression, and there's nothing like
+an ocular demonstration. I like the Russians. One of my best friends is a
+Russian."
+<P>
+The girl shook her head.
+<P>
+"I shouldn't attempt it," she persisted. "Suppose Russia arrested you, and
+said to England, 'We've got this man in spite of you'?"
+<P>
+The Lieutenant laughed heartily.
+<P>
+"That is unthinkable: Russia wouldn't do such a thing. In spite of all that
+is said about the Russian Government, its members are gentlemen. Of course,
+if such a thing happened, there would be trouble. That is a point where we're
+touchy. A very cheap Englishman, wrongfully detained, may cause a most expensive
+campaign. Our diplomatists may act correctly enough, and yet leave a feeling
+of resentment behind. Take this very case. Britain says coldly to Russia:
+<P>
+"'We disclaim the act, and apologize.'
+<P>
+"Now, it would be much more to the purpose if she said genially:
+<P>
+"'We have in our employment an impetuous young fool with a thirst for
+information. He wished to learn how a new piece of ordnance would act, so
+fired it off with no more intention of striking Russia than of hitting the
+moon. He knows much more about dancing than about foreign affairs. We've
+given him a month's leave, and he will slip across privately to St. Petersburg
+to apologize and explain. The moment you see him you will recognize he is
+no menace to the peace of nations. Meanwhile, if you can inculcate in him
+some cold, calm common-sense before he returns, we'll be ever so much obliged.'"
+<P>
+"So you are determined to do what you think the government should have done."
+<P>
+"Oh, quite. There will be nothing frigidly official about my unauthorized
+mission. I have a cousin in the embassy at St. Petersburg, but I shan't go
+near him; neither shall I go to an hotel, but will get quiet rooms somewhere
+that I may not run the risk of meeting any chance acquaintances."
+<P>
+"It seems to me you are about to afford the Russian Government an excellent
+opportunity of spiriting you off to Siberia, and nobody would be the wiser."
+<P>
+Drummond indulged in the free-hearted laugh of a youth to whom life is still
+rather a good joke.
+<P>
+"I shouldn't mind studying the Siberian system from the inside if they allowed
+me to return before my leave was up. I believe that sort of thing has been
+exaggerated by sensational writers. The Russian Government would not countenance
+anything of the kind, and if the minor officials tried to play tricks, there's
+always my cousin in the background, and it would be hard luck if I couldn't
+get a line to him. Oh, there's no danger in my project!"
+<P>
+Suddenly the girl came to a standstill, and gave expression to a little cry
+of dismay.
+<P>
+"What's wrong?" asked the Lieutenant.
+<P>
+"Why, we've walked clear out into the country!"
+<P>
+"Oh, is that all? I hadn't noticed."
+<P>
+"And there are people waiting for me. I must run."
+<P>
+"Nonsense, let them wait."
+<P>
+"I should have been back long since."
+<P>
+They had turned, and she was hurrying.
+<P>
+"Think of your new fortune, Miss Amhurst, safely lodged in our friend Morton's
+bank, and don't hurry for any one."
+<P>
+"I didn't say it was a fortune: there's only ten thousand dollars there."
+<P>
+"That sounds formidable, but unless the people who are waiting for you muster
+more than ten thousand apiece, I don't think you should make haste on their
+account."
+<P>
+"It's the other way about, Mr. Drummond. Individually they are poorer than
+I, therefore I should have returned long ago. Now, I fear, they will be in
+a temper."
+<P>
+"Well, if anybody left me two thousand pounds, I'd take an afternoon off
+to celebrate. Here we are in the suburbs again. Won't you change your mind
+and your direction; let us get back into the country, sit down on the hillside,
+look at the Bay, and gloat over your wealth?"
+<P>
+Dorothy Amhurst shook her head and held out her hand.
+<P>
+"I must bid you good-by here, Lieutenant Drummond. This is my shortest way
+home."
+<P>
+"May I not accompany you just a little farther?"
+<P>
+"Please, no, I wish to go the rest of the way alone."
+<P>
+He held her hand, which she tried to withdraw, and spoke with animation.
+<P>
+"There's so much I wanted to say, but perhaps the most important is this:
+I shall see you the night of the 14th, at the ball we are giving on the
+'Consternation'?"
+<P>
+"It is very likely," laughed the girl, "unless you overlook me in the throng.
+There will be a great mob. I hear you have issued many invitations."
+<P>
+"We hope all our friends will come. It's going to be a great function. Your
+Secretary of the Navy has promised to look in on us, and our Ambassador from
+Washington will be there. I assure you we are doing our best, with festooned
+electric lights, hanging draperies, and all that, for we want to make the
+occasion at least remotely worthy of the hospitality we have received. Of
+course you have your card, but I wish you hadn't, so that I might have the
+privilege of sending you one or more invitations."
+<P>
+"That would be quite unnecessary," said the girl, again with a slight laugh
+and heightened color.
+<P>
+"If any of your friends need cards of invitation, won't you let me know,
+so that I may send them to you?"
+<P>
+"I'm sure I shan't need any, but if I do, I promise to remember your kindness,
+and apply."
+<P>
+"It will be a pleasure for me to serve you. With whom shall you come? I should
+like to know the name, in case I should miss you in the crowd."
+<P>
+"I expect to be with Captain Kempt, of the United States Navy."
+<P>
+"Ah," said the Lieutenant, with a note of disappointment in his voice which
+he had not the diplomacy to conceal. His hold of her hand relaxed, and she
+took the opportunity to withdraw it.
+<P>
+"What sort of a man is Captain Kempt? I shall be on the lookout for him,
+you know."
+<P>
+"I think he is the handsomest man I have ever seen, and I know he is the
+kindest and most courteous."
+<P>
+"Really? A young man, I take it?"
+<P>
+"There speaks the conceit of youth," said Dorothy, smiling. "Captain Kempt,
+U.S.N., retired. His youngest daughter is just two years older than myself."
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, Captain Kempt. I&#151; I remember him now. He was at the dinner last
+night, and sat beside our captain. What a splendid story-teller he is!" cried
+the Lieutenant with honest enthusiasm.
+<P>
+"I shall tell him that, and ask him how he liked your song. Good-by," and
+before the young man could collect his thoughts to make any reply, she was
+gone.
+<P>
+Skimming lightly over the ground at first, she gradually slackened her pace,
+and slowed down to a very sober walk until she came to a three-storied so-called
+"cottage" overlooking the Bay, then with a sigh she opened the gate, and
+went into the house by the servant's entrance.
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+<h4>IN THE SEWING-ROOM</h4>
+<P>
+THREE women occupied the sewing-room with the splendid outlook: a mother
+and her two daughters. The mother sat in a low rocking-chair, a picture of
+mournful helplessness, her hands listlessly resting on her lap, while tears
+had left their traces on her time-worn face. The elder daughter paced up
+and down the room as striking an example of energy and impatience as was
+the mother of despondency. Her comely brow was marred by an angry frown.
+The younger daughter stood by the long window, her forehead resting against
+the pane, while her fingers drummed idly on the window sill. Her gaze was
+fixed on the blue Bay, where rested the huge British warship "Consternation,"
+surrounded by a section of the United States squadron seated like white swans
+in the water. Sails of snow glistened here and there on the bosom of the
+Bay, while motor-boats and what-not darted this way and that impudently among
+the stately ships of the fleet.
+<P>
+In one corner of the room stood a sewing-machine, and on the long table were
+piles of mimsy stuff out of which feminine creations are constructed. There
+was no carpet on the floor, and no ceiling overhead; merely the bare rafters
+and the boards that bore the pine shingles of the outer roof; yet this attic
+was notable for the glorious view to be seen from its window. It was an ideal
+workshop.
+<P>
+The elder girl, as she walked to and fro, spoke with nervous irritation in
+her voice.
+<P>
+"There is absolutely no excuse, mamma, and it's weakness in you to pretend
+that there may be. The woman has been gone for hours. There's her lunch on
+the table which has never been tasted, and the servant brought it up at twelve."
+<P>
+She pointed to a tray on which were dishes whose cold contents bore out the
+truth of her remark.
+<P>
+"Perhaps she's gone on strike," said the younger daughter, without removing
+her eyes from H.M.S. "Consternation." "I shouldn't wonder if we went downstairs
+again we'd find the house picketed to keep away blacklegs."
+<P>
+"Oh, you can always be depended on to talk frivolous nonsense," said her
+elder sister scornfully. "It's the silly sentimental fashion in which both
+you and father treat work-people that makes them so difficult to deal with.
+If the working classes were taught their place&#151;"
+<P>
+"Working classes! How you talk! Dorothy is as much a lady as we are, and
+sometimes I think rather more of a lady than either of us. She is the daughter
+of a clergyman."
+<P>
+"So she says," sniffed the elder girl.
+<P>
+"Well, she ought to know," replied the younger indifferently.
+<P>
+"It's people like you who spoil dependents in her position, with your Dorothy
+this and Dorothy that. Her name is Amhurst."
+<P>
+"Christened Dorothy, as witness godfather and godmother," murmured the younger
+without turning her head.
+<P>
+"I think," protested their mother meekly, as if to suggest a compromise,
+and throw oil on the troubled waters, "that she is entitled to be called
+<I>Miss</I> Amhurst, and treated with kindness but with reserve."
+<P>
+"Tush!" exclaimed the elder indignantly, indicating her rejection of the
+compromise.
+<P>
+"I don't see," murmured the younger, "why you should storm, Sabina. You nagged
+and nagged at her until she'd finished your ball-dress. It is mamma and I
+that have a right to complain. Our dresses are almost untouched, while you
+can sail grandly along the decks of the 'Consternation' like a fully rigged
+yacht. There, I'm mixing my similes again, as papa always says. A yacht doesn't
+sail along the deck of a battleship, does it?"
+<P>
+"It's a cruiser," weakly corrected the mother, who knew something of naval
+affairs.
+<P>
+"Well, cruiser, then. Sabina is afraid that papa won't go unless we all have
+grand new dresses, but mother can put on her old black silk, and I am going
+if I have to wear a cotton gown."
+<P>
+"To think of that person accepting our money, and absenting herself in this
+disgraceful way!"
+<P>
+"Accepting our money! That shows what it is to have an imagination. Why,
+I don't suppose Dorothy has had a penny for three months, and you know the
+dress material was bought on credit."
+<P>
+"You must remember," chided the mother mildly, "that your father is not rich."
+<P>
+"Oh, I am only pleading for a little humanity. The girl for some reason has
+gone out. She hasn't had a bite to eat since breakfast time, and I know there's
+not a silver piece in her pocket to buy a bun in a milk-shop."
+<P>
+"She has no business to be absent without leave," said Sabina.
+<P>
+"How you talk! As if she were a sailor on a battleship&#151; I mean a cruiser."
+<P>
+"Where can the girl have gone?" wailed the mother, almost wringing her hands,
+partially overcome by the crisis. "Did she say anything about going out to
+you, Katherine? She sometimes makes a confidant of you, doesn't she?"
+<P>
+"Confidant!" exclaimed Sabina wrathfully.
+<P>
+"I know where she has gone," said Katherine with an innocent sigh.
+<P>
+"Then why didn't you tell us before?" exclaimed mother and daughter in almost
+identical terms.
+<P>
+"She has eloped with the captain of the 'Consternation,'" explained Katherine
+calmly, little guessing that her words contained a color of truth. "Papa
+sat next him at the dinner last night, and says he is a jolly old salt and
+a bachelor. Papa was tremendously taken with him, and they discussed tactics
+together. Indeed, papa has quite a distinct English accent this morning,
+and I suspect a little bit of a headache which he tries to conceal with a
+wavering smile."
+<P>
+"You can't conceal a headache, because it's invisible," said the mother
+seriously. "I wish you wouldn't talk so carelessly, Katherine, and you mustn't
+speak like that of your father."
+<P>
+"Oh, papa and I understand one another," affirmed Katherine with great
+confidence, and now for the first time during this conversation the young
+girl turned her face away from the window, for the door had opened to let
+in the culprit.
+<P>
+"Now, Amhurst, what is the meaning of this?" cried Sabina before her foot
+was fairly across the threshold.
+<P>
+All three women looked at the newcomer. Her beautiful face was aglow, probably
+through the exertion of coming up the stairs, and her eyes shone like those
+of the Goddess of Freedom as she returned steadfastly the supercilious stare
+with which the tall Sabina regarded her.
+<P>
+"I was detained," she said quietly.
+<P>
+"Why did you go away without permission?"
+<P>
+"Because I had business to do which could not be transacted in this room."
+<P>
+"That doesn't answer my question. Why did you not ask permission?"
+<P>
+The girl slowly raised her two hands, and showed her shapely wrists close
+together, and a bit of the forearm not covered by the sleeve of her black
+dress.
+<P>
+"Because," she said slowly, "the shackles have fallen from these wrists."
+<P>
+"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," said Sabina, apparently impressed
+in spite of herself, but the younger daughter clapped her hands rapturously.
+<P>
+"Splendid, splendid, Dorothy," she cried. "I don't know what you mean either,
+but you look like Maxine Elliott in that play where she&#151;"
+<P>
+"<I>Will</I> you keep quiet!" interrupted the elder sister over her shoulder.
+<P>
+"I mean that I intend to sew here no longer," proclaimed Dorothy.
+<P>
+"Oh, Miss Amhurst, Miss Amhurst," bemoaned the matron. "You will heartlessly
+leave us in this crisis when we are helpless; when there is not a sewing
+woman to be had in the place for love or money. Every one is working night
+and day to be ready for the ball on the fourteenth, and you&#151; you whom we
+have nurtured&#151;"
+<P>
+"I suppose she gets more money," sneered the elder daughter bitterly.
+<P>
+"Oh, Dorothy," said Katherine, coming a step forward and clasping her hands,
+"do you mean to say I must attend the ball in a calico dress after all? But
+I'm going, nevertheless, if I dance in a morning wrapper."
+<P>
+"Katherine," chided her mother, "don't talk like that."
+<P>
+"Of course, where more money is in the question, kindness does not count,"
+snapped the elder daughter.
+<P>
+Dorothy Amhurst smiled when Sabina mentioned the word kindness.
+<P>
+"With me, of course, it's entirely a question of money," she admitted.
+<P>
+"Dorothy, I never thought it of you," said Katherine, with an exaggerated
+sigh. "I wish it were a fancy dress ball, then I'd borrow my brother Jack's
+uniform, and go in that."
+<P>
+"Katherine, I'm shocked at you," complained the mother.
+<P>
+"I don't care: I'd make a stunning little naval cadet. But, Dorothy, you
+must be starved to death; you've never touched your lunch."
+<P>
+"You seem to have forgotten everything to-day," said Sabina severely. "Duty
+and everything else."
+<P>
+"You are quite right," murmured Dorothy.
+<P>
+"And did you elope with the captain of the 'Consternation,' and were you
+married secretly, and was it before a justice of the peace? Do tell us all
+about it."
+<P>
+"What are you saying?" asked Dorothy, with a momentary alarm coming into
+her eyes.
+<P>
+"Oh, I was just telling mother and Sab that you had skipped by the light
+of the noon, with the captain of the 'Consternation,' who was a jolly old
+bachelor last night, but may be a married man to-day if my suspicions are
+correct. Oh, Dorothy, must I go to the ball in a dress of print?"
+<P>
+The sewing girl bent an affectionate look on the impulsive Katherine.
+<P>
+"Kate, dear," she said, "you shall wear the grandest ball dress that ever
+was seen in Bar Harbor."
+<P>
+"How dare you call my sister Kate, and talk such nonsense?" demanded Sabina.
+<P>
+"I shall always call you Miss Kempt, and now, if I have your permission,
+I will sit down. I am tired."
+<P>
+"Yes, and hungry, too," cried Katherine. "What shall I get you, Dorothy?
+This is all cold."
+<P>
+"Thank you, I am not in the least hungry."
+<P>
+"Wouldn't you like a cup of tea?"
+<P>
+Dorothy laughed a little wearily.
+<P>
+"Yes, I would," she said, "and some bread and butter."
+<P>
+"And cake, too," suggested Katherine.
+<P>
+"And cake, too, if you please."
+<P>
+Katherine skipped off downstairs.
+<P>
+"Well, I declare!" ejaculated Sabina with a gasp, drawing herself together,
+as if the bottom had fallen out of the social fabric.
+<P>
+Mrs. Captain Kempt folded her hands one over the other and put on a look
+of patient resignation, as one who finds all the old landmarks swept away
+from before her.
+<P>
+"Is there anything else we can get for you?" asked Sabina icily.
+<P>
+"Yes," replied Dorothy, with serene confidence, "I should be very much obliged
+if Captain Kempt would obtain for me a card of invitation to the ball on
+the 'Consternation.'"
+<P>
+"Really!" gasped Sabina, "and may not my mother supplement my father's efforts
+by providing you with a ball dress for the occasion?"
+<P>
+"I could not think of troubling her, Miss Kempt. Some of my customers have
+flattered me by saying that my taste in dress is artistic, and that my designs,
+if better known, might almost set a fashion in a small way, so I shall look
+after my costume myself; but if Mrs. Captain Kempt were kind enough to allow
+me to attend the ball under her care, I should be very grateful for it."
+<P>
+"How admirable! And is there nothing that I can do to forward your ambitions,
+Miss Amhurst?"
+<P>
+"I am going to the ball merely as a looker-on, and perhaps you might smile
+at me as you pass by with your different partners, so that people would say
+I was an acquaintance of yours."
+<P>
+After this there was silence in the sewing room until Katherine, followed
+by a maid, entered with tea and cakes. Some dress materials that rested on
+a gypsy table were swept aside by the impulsive Katherine, and the table,
+with the tray upon it, was placed at the right hand of Dorothy Amhurst. When
+the servant left the room, Katherine sidled to the long sewing table, sprang
+up lightly upon it, and sat there swinging a dainty little foot. Sabina had
+seated herself in the third chair of the room, the frown still adding severity
+to an otherwise beautiful countenance. It was the younger daughter who spoke.
+<P>
+"Now, Dorothy, tell us all about the elopement."
+<P>
+"What elopement?"
+<P>
+"I soothed my mother's fears by telling her that you had eloped with the
+captain of the 'Consternation.' I must have been wrong in that guess, because
+if the secret marriage I hoped had taken place, you would have said to Sabina
+that the shackles were on your wrists instead of off. But something important
+has happened, and I want to know all about it."
+<P>
+Dorothy made no response to this appeal, and after a minute's silence Sabina
+said practically:
+<P>
+"All that has happened is that Miss Amhurst wishes father to present her
+with a ticket to the ball on the 'Consternation,' and taking that for granted,
+she requests mother to chaperon her, and further expresses a desire that
+I shall be exceedingly polite to her while we are on board the cruiser."
+<P>
+"Oh," cried Katherine jauntily, "the last proviso is past praying for, but
+the other two are quite feasible. I'd be delighted to chaperon Dorothy myself,
+and as for politeness, good gracious, I'll be polite enough to make up for
+all the courteous deficiency of the rest of the family.
+<BLOCKQUOTE>
+'For I hold that on the seas,<BR>
+  &nbsp;The expression if you please<BR>
+  &nbsp;A particularly gentlemanly tone implants,<BR>
+  &nbsp;And so do his sisters and his cousins and his aunts.'
+</BLOCKQUOTE>
+<P>
+Now, Dorothy, don't be bashful. Here's your sister and your cousin and your
+aunt waiting for the horrifying revelation. What has happened?"
+<P>
+"I'll tell you what is going to happen, Kate," said the girl, smiling at
+the way the other ran on. "Mrs. Captain Kempt will perhaps consent to take
+you and me to New York or Boston, where we will put up at the best hotel,
+and trick ourselves out in ball costumes that will be the envy of Bar Harbor.
+I shall pay the expense of this trip as partial return for your father's
+kindness in getting me an invitation and your mother's kindness in allowing
+me to be one of your party."
+<P>
+"Oh, then it isn't an elopement, but a legacy. Has the wicked but wealthy
+relative died?"
+<P>
+"Yes," said Dorothy solemnly, her eyes on the floor.
+<P>
+"Oh, I am so sorry for what I have just said!"
+<P>
+"You always speak without thinking," chided her mother.
+<P>
+"Yes, don't I? But, you see, I thought somehow that Dorothy had no relatives;
+but if she had one who was wealthy, and who allowed her to slave at sewing,
+then I say he was wicked, dead or alive, so there!"
+<P>
+"When work is paid for it is not slavery," commented Sabina with severity
+and justice.
+<P>
+The sewing girl looked up at her.
+<P>
+"My grandfather, in Virginia, owned slaves before the war, and I have often
+thought that any curse which may have been attached to slavery has at least
+partly been expiated by me, as foreshadowed in the Bible, where it says that
+the sins of the fathers shall affect the third or fourth generations. I was
+thinking of that when I spoke of the shackles falling from my wrists, for
+sometimes, Miss Kempt, you have made me doubt whether wages and slavery are
+as incompatible as you appear to imagine. My father, who was a clergyman,
+often spoke to me of his father's slaves, and while he never defended the
+institution, I think the past in his mind was softened by a glamor that possibly
+obscured the defects of life on the plantation. But often in depression and
+loneliness I have thought I would rather have been one of my grandfather's
+slaves than endure the life I have been called upon to lead."
+<P>
+"Oh, Dorothy, don't talk like that, or you'll make me cry," pleaded Kate.
+"Let us be cheerful whatever happens. Tell us about the money. Begin 'Once
+upon a time,' and then everything will be all right. No matter how harrowing
+such a story begins, it always ends with lashin's and lashin's of money,
+or else with a prince in a gorgeous uniform and gold lace, and you get the
+half of his kingdom. <I>Do</I> go on."
+<P>
+Dorothy looked up at her impatient friend, and a radiant cheerfulness chased
+away the gathering shadows from her face.
+<P>
+"Well, once upon a time I lived very happily with my father in a little rectory
+in a little town near the Hudson River. His family had been ruined by the
+war, and when the plantation was sold, or allowed to go derelict, whatever
+money came from it went to his elder and only brother. My father was a dreamy
+scholar and not a business man as his brother seems to have been. <I>My</I>
+mother had died when I was a child; I do not remember her. My father was
+the kindest and most patient of men, and all I know he taught me. We were
+very poor, and I undertook the duties of housekeeper, which I performed as
+well as I was able, constantly learning by my failures. But my father was
+so indifferent to material comforts that there were never any reproaches.
+He taught me all that I know in the way of what you might call accomplishments,
+and they were of a strangely varied order&#151; a smattering of Latin and Greek,
+a good deal of French, history, literature, and even dancing, as well as
+music, for he was an excellent musician. Our meager income ceased with my
+father's life, and I had to choose what I should do to earn my board and
+keep, like Orphant Annie, in Whitcomb Riley's poem. There appeared to be
+three avenues open to me. I could be a governess, domestic servant, or
+dressmaker. I had already earned something at the latter occupation, and
+I thought if I could set up in business for myself, there was a greater chance
+of gaining an independence along that line than either as a governess or
+servant. But to do this I needed at least a little capital.
+<P>
+"Although there had been no communication between the two brothers for many
+years, I had my uncle's address, and I wrote acquainting him with the fact
+of my father's death, and asking for some assistance to set up in business
+for myself, promising to repay the amount advanced with interest as soon
+as I was able, for although my father had never said anything against his
+elder brother, I somehow had divined, rather than knew, that he was a hard
+man, and his answering letter gave proof of that, for it contained no expression
+of regret for his brother's death. My uncle declined to make the advance
+I asked for, saying that many years before he had given my father two hundred
+dollars which had never been repaid. I was thus compelled, for the time at
+least, to give up my plan for opening a dressmaking establishment, even on
+the smallest scale, and was obliged to take a situation similar to that which
+I hold here. In three years I was able to save the two hundred dollars, which
+I sent to my uncle, and promised to remit the interest if he would tell me
+the age of the debt. He replied giving the information, and enclosing a receipt
+for the principal, with a very correct mathematical statement of the amount
+of interest if compounded annually, as was his legal right, but expressing
+his readiness to accept simple interest, and give me a receipt in full."
+<P>
+"The brute!" ejaculated Katherine, which remark brought upon her a mild rebuke
+from her mother on intemperance of language.
+<P>
+"Well, go on," said Katherine, unabashed.
+<P>
+"I merely mention this detail," continued Dorothy, "as an object lesson in
+honesty. Never before since the world began was there such a case of casting
+bread upon the waters as was my sending the two hundred dollars. My uncle
+appears to have been a most methodical man. He filed away my letter which
+contained the money, also a typewritten copy of his reply, and when he died,
+it was these documents which turned the attention of the legal arm who acted
+for him to myself, for my uncle had left no will. The Californian firm
+communicated with lawyers in New York, and they began a series of very cautious
+inquiries, which at last resulted, after I had furnished certain proofs asked
+for, in my being declared heiress to my uncle's estate."
+<P>
+"And how much did you get? How much did you get?" demanded Katherine.
+<P>
+"I asked the lawyers from New York to deposit ten thousand dollars for me
+in the Sixth National Bank of this town, and they did so. It was to draw
+a little check against that deposit, and thus learn if it was real, that
+I went out to-day."
+<P>
+"Ten thousand dollars," murmured Katherine, in accents of deep disappointment.
+"Is that all?"
+<P>
+"Isn't that enough?" asked Dorothy, with a twinkle in her eyes.
+<P>
+"No, you deserve ten times as much, and I'm not going to New York or Boston
+at your expense to buy new dresses. Not likely! I will attend the ball in
+my calico."
+<P>
+Dorothy laughed quietly, and drew from the little satchel she wore at her
+side a letter, which she handed to Katherine.
+<P>
+"It's private and confidential," she warned her friend.
+<P>
+"Oh, I won't tell any one," said Katherine, unfolding it. She read eagerly
+half-way down the page, then sprang to her feet on the top of the table,
+screaming:
+<P>
+"Fifteen million dollars! Fifteen million dollars!" and, swinging her arms
+back and forth like an athlete about to leap, sprang to the floor, nearly
+upsetting the little table, tray and all, as she embraced Dorothy Amhurst.
+<P>
+"Fifteen millions! That's something like! Why, mother, do you realize that
+we have under our roof one of the richest young women in the world? Don't
+you see that the rest of this conference must take place in our drawing-room
+under the most solemn auspices? The idea of our keeping such an heiress in
+the attic!"
+<P>
+"I believe," said Sabina, slowly and coldly, "that Mr. Rockefeller's income
+is&#151;"
+<P>
+"Oh, blow Mr. Rockefeller and his income!" cried the indignant younger sister.
+<P>
+"Katherine!" pleaded the mother tearfully.
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+<h4>ON DECK</h4>
+<P>
+THROUGHOUT the long summer day a gentle excitement had fluttered the hearts
+of those ladies, young, or not so young, who had received invitations to
+the ball on board the "Consternation" that night. The last touches were given
+to creations on which had been spent skill, taste, and money. Our three young
+women, being most tastefully and fashionably attired, were in high spirits,
+which state of feeling was exhibited according to the nature of each; Sabina
+rather stately in her exaltation; Dorothy quiet and demure; while Katherine,
+despite her mother's supplications, would not be kept quiet, but swung her
+graceful gown this way and that, practising the slide of a waltz, and quoting
+W. R. Gilbert, as was her custom. She glided over the floor in rhythm with
+her chant.
+<BLOCKQUOTE>
+"When I first put this uniform on<BR>
+  &nbsp;I said, as I looked in the glass,<BR>
+  &nbsp;'It's one to a million<BR>
+  &nbsp; That any civilian<BR>
+  &nbsp; My figure and form will surpass.'"
+</BLOCKQUOTE>
+<P>
+Meanwhile, in a room downstairs that good-natured veteran Captain Kempt was
+telling the latest stories to his future son-in-law, a young officer of the
+American Navy, who awaited, with dutiful impatience, the advent of the serene
+Sabina. When at last the ladies came down the party set out through the gathering
+darkness of this heavenly summer night for the private pier from which they
+were privileged, because of Captain Kempt's official standing, to voyage
+to the cruiser on the little revenue cutter "Whip-poor-will," which was later
+on to convey the Secretary of the Navy and his entourage across the same
+intervening waters. Just before they reached the pier their steps were arrested
+by the boom of a cannon, followed instantly by the sudden apparition of the
+"Consternation" picked out in electric light; masts, funnel and hull all
+outlined by incandescent stars.
+<P>
+"How beautiful!" cried Sabina, whose young man stood beside her. "It is as
+if a gigantic racket, all of one color, had burst, and hung suspended there
+like the planets of heaven."
+<P>
+"It reminds me," whispered Katherine to Dorothy, "of an overgrown pop-corn
+ball," at which remark the two girls were frivolous enough to laugh.
+<P>
+"Crash!" sounded a cannon from an American ship, and then the white squadron
+became visible in a blaze of lightning. And now all the yachts and other
+craft on the waters flaunted their lines of fire, and the whole Bay was
+illuminated like a lake in Fairyland.
+<P>
+"Now," said Captain Kempt with a chuckle, "watch the Britisher. I think she's
+going to show us some color," and as he spoke there appeared, spreading from
+nest to mast, a huge sheet of blue, with four great stars which pointed the
+corners of a parallelogram, and between the stars shone a huge white anchor.
+Cheers rang out from the crew of the "Consternation," and the band on board
+played "The Star-Spangled Banner."
+<P>
+"That," said Captain Kempt in explanation, "is the flag of the United States
+Secretary of the Navy, who will be with us to-night. The visitors have kept
+very quiet about this bit of illumination, but our lads got on to the secret
+about a week ago, and I'll be very much disappointed if they don't give 'em
+tit for tat."
+<P>
+When the band on the "Consternation" ceased playing, all lights went out
+on the American squadron, and then on the flagship appeared from mast to
+mast a device with the Union Jack in the corner, a great red cross dividing
+the flag into three white squares. As this illumination flashed out the American
+band struck up the British national anthem, and the outline lights appeared
+again.
+<P>
+"That," said the captain, "is the British man-o'-war's flag."
+<P>
+The "Whip-poor-will" speedily whisked the party and others across the sparkling
+waters to the foot of the grand stairway which had been specially constructed
+to conduct the elect from the tide to the deck. It was more than double as
+broad as the ordinary gangway, was carpeted from top to bottom, and on every
+step stood a blue-jacket, each as steady as if cast in bronze, the line forming,
+as one might say, a living handrail rising toward the dark sky.
+<P>
+Captain Kempt and his wife went first, followed by Sabina and her young man
+with the two girls in their wake.
+<P>
+"Aren't those men splendid?" whispered Katherine to her friend. "I wish each
+held an old-fashioned torch. I do love a sailor."
+<P>
+"So do I," said Dorothy, then checked herself, and laughed a little.
+<P>
+"I guess we all do," sighed Katherine.
+<P>
+On deck the bluff captain of the "Consternation," in resplendent uniform,
+stood beside Lady Angela Burford of the British Embassy at Washington, to
+receive the guests of the cruiser. Behind these two were grouped an assemblage
+of officers and very fashionably dressed women, chatting vivaciously with
+each other. As Dorothy looked at the princess-like Lady Angela it seemed
+as if she knew her; as if here were one who had stepped out of an English
+romance. Her tall, proudly held figure made the stoutish captain seem shorter
+than he actually was. The natural haughtiness of those classic features was
+somewhat modified by a <I>pro tem</I> smile. Captain Kempt looked back over
+his shoulder and said in a low voice:
+<P>
+"Now, young ladies, best foot forward. The Du Maurier woman is to receive
+the Gibson girls."
+<P>
+"I know I shall laugh, and I fear I shall giggle," said Katherine, but she
+encountered a glance from her elder sister quite as haughty as any Lady Angela
+might have bestowed, and all thought of merriment fled for the moment; thus
+the ordeal passed conventionally without Katherine either laughing or giggling.
+<P>
+Sabina and her young man faded away into the crowd. Captain Kempt was nodding
+to this one and that of his numerous acquaintances, and Katherine felt Dorothy
+shrink a little closer to her as a tall, unknown young man deftly threaded
+his way among the people, making directly for the Captain, whom he seized
+by the hand in a grasp of the most cordial friendship.
+<P>
+"Captain Kempt, I am delighted to meet you again. My name is Drummond&#151; Lieutenant
+Drummond, and I had the pleasure of being introduced to you at that dinner
+a week or two ago."
+<P>
+"The pleasure was mine, sir, the pleasure was mine," exclaimed the Captain
+with a cordiality equal to that with which he had been greeted. He had not
+at first the least recollection of the young man, but the Captain was something
+of an amateur politician, and possessed all a politician's expertness in
+facing the unknown, and making the most of any situation in which he found
+himself.
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, Lieutenant, I remember very well that excellent song you&#151;"
+<P>
+"Isn't it a perfect night?" gasped the Lieutenant. "I think we are to be
+congratulated on our weather."
+<P>
+He still clung to the Captain's hand, and shook it again so warmly that the
+Captain said to himself:
+<P>
+"I must have made an impression on this young fellow," then aloud he replied
+jauntily:
+<P>
+"Oh, we always have good weather this time of year. You see, the United States
+Government runs the weather. Didn't you know that? Yes, our Weather Bureau
+is considered the best in the world."
+<P>
+The Lieutenant laughed heartily, although a hollow note intervened, for the
+young man had got to the end of his conversation, realized he could not shake
+hands for a third time, yet did not know what more to say. The suavity of
+the politician came to his rescue in just the form the Lieutenant had hoped.
+<P>
+"Lieutenant Drummond, allow me to introduce my wife to you."
+<P>
+The lady bowed.
+<P>
+"And my daughter, Katherine, and Miss Amhurst, a friend of ours&#151; Lieutenant
+Drummond, of the 'Consternation.'"
+<P>
+"I wonder," said the Lieutenant, as if the thought had just occurred to him,
+"if the young ladies would like to go to a point where they can have a
+comprehensive view of the decorations. I&#151; I may not be the best guide, but
+I am rather well acquainted with the ship, you know."
+<P>
+"Don't ask me," said Captain Kempt. "Ask the girls. Everything I've had in
+life has come to me because I asked, and if I didn't get it the first time,
+I asked again."
+<P>
+"Of course we want to see the decorations," cried Katherine with enthusiasm,
+and so bowing to the Captain and Mrs. Kempt, the Lieutenant led the young
+women down the deck, until he came to an elevated spot out of the way of
+all possible promenaders, on which had been placed in a somewhat secluded
+position, yet commanding a splendid view of the throng, a settee with just
+room for two, that had been taken from some one's cabin. A blue-jacket stood
+guard over it, but at a nod from the Lieutenant he disappeared.
+<P>
+"Hello!" cried Katherine, "reserved seats, eh? How different from a theatre
+chair, where you are entitled to your place by holding a colored bit of
+cardboard. Here a man with a cutlass stands guard. It gives one a notion
+of the horrors of war, doesn't it, Dorothy?"
+<P>
+The Lieutenant laughed quite as heartily as if he had not himself hoped to
+occupy the position now held by the sprightly Katherine. He was cudgelling
+his brain to solve the problem represented by the adage "Two is company,
+three is none." The girls sat together on the settee and gazed out over the
+brilliantly lighted, animated throng. People were still pouring up the gangways,
+and the decks were rapidly becoming crowded with a many-colored, ever-shifting
+galaxy of humanity. The hum of conversation almost drowned the popular selections
+being played by the cruiser's excellent band. Suddenly one popular selection
+was cut in two. The sound of the instruments ceased for a moment, then they
+struck up "The Stars and Stripes for Ever."
+<P>
+"Hello," cried Katherine, "can your band play Sousa?"
+<P>
+"I should say we could," boasted the Lieutenant, "and we can play his music,
+in a way to give some hints to Mr. Sousa's own musicians."
+<P>
+"To beat the band, eh?&#151; Sousa's band?" rejoined Katherine, dropping into
+slang.
+<P>
+"Exactly," smiled the Lieutenant, "and now, young ladies, will you excuse
+me for a few moments? This musical selection means that your Secretary of
+the Navy is on the waters, and I must be in my place with the rest of the
+officers to receive him and his staff with all ceremony. Please promise you
+will not leave this spot till I return: I implore you."
+<P>
+"Better put the blue-jacket on guard over us," laughed Katherine.
+<P>
+"By Jove! a very good idea."
+<P>
+Dorothy saw all levity depart from his face, giving way to a look of sternness
+and command. Although he was engaged in a joke, the subordinate must see
+no sign of fooling in his countenance. He said a sharp word to a blue-jacket,
+who nimbly sprang to the end of the settee, raised his hand in salute, and
+stiffened himself to an automaton. Then the girls saw the tall figure of
+the Lieutenant wending its way to the spot where the commander stood.
+<P>
+"I say, Dorothy, we're prisoners. I wonder what this Johnny would do if we
+attempted to <I>fly</I>. Isn't the Lieutenant sumptuous?"
+<P>
+"He seems a very agreeable person," murmured Dorothy.
+<P>
+"Agreeable! Why, he's splendid. I tell you, Dorothy, I'm going to have the
+first dance with him. I'm the eldest. He's big enough to divide between two
+small girls like us, you know."
+<P>
+"I don't intend to dance," said Dorothy.
+<P>
+"Nonsense, you're not going to sit here all night with nobody to speak to.
+I'll ask the Lieutenant to bring you a man. He'll take two or three blue-jackets
+and capture anybody you want."
+<P>
+"Katherine," said Dorothy, almost as severely as if it were the elder sister
+who spoke, "if you say anything like that, I'll go back to the house."
+<P>
+"You can't get back. I'll appeal to the guard. I'll have you locked up if
+you don't behave yourself."
+<P>
+"You should behave yourself. Really, Katherine, you must be careful what
+you say, or you'll make me feel very unhappy."
+<P>
+Katherine caught her by the elbow, and gave it an affectionate little squeeze.
+<P>
+"Don't be frightened, Miss Propriety, I wouldn't make you unhappy for the
+world. But surely you're going to dance?"
+<P>
+Dorothy shook her head.
+<P>
+"Some other time. Not to-night. There are too many people here. I shouldn't
+enjoy it, and&#151; there are other reasons. This is all so new and strange to
+me: these brilliant men and beautiful women&#151; the lights, the music,
+everything&#151; it is as if I had stepped into another world; something I had
+read about, or perhaps dreamed about, and never expected to see."
+<P>
+"Why, you dear girl, I'm not going to dance either, then."
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, you will, Katherine; you must."
+<P>
+"I couldn't be so selfish as to leave you here all alone."
+<P>
+"It isn't selfish at all, Katherine. I shall enjoy myself completely here.
+I don't really wish to talk to any one, but simply to enjoy my dream, with
+just a little fear at the bottom of my heart that I shall suddenly wake up,
+rubbing my eyes, in the sewing room."
+<P>
+Katherine pinched her.
+<P>
+"Now are you awake?"
+<P>
+Dorothy smiled, still dreaming.
+<P>
+"Hello!" cried Katherine, with renewed animation, "they've got the Secretary
+safe aboard the lugger, and they seem to be clearing the decks for action.
+Here is my dear Lieutenant returning; tall even among tall men. Look at him.
+He's in a great hurry, yet so polite, and doesn't want to bump against anybody.
+And now, Dorothy, don't you be afraid. I shall prove a perfect model of
+diffidence. You will be proud of me when you learn with what timidity I pronounce
+prunes and prism. I think I must languish a little at him. I don't know quite
+how it's done, but in old English novels the girls always languished, and
+perhaps an Englishman expects a little languishment in his. I wonder if he
+comes of a noble family. If he doesn't, I don't think I'll languish very
+much. Still, what matters the pomp of pageantry and pride of race&#151; isn't
+that the way the poem runs? I love our dear little Lieutenant for himself
+alone, and I think I will have just one dance with him, at least."
+<P>
+Drummond had captured a camp-stool somewhere, and this he placed at right
+angles to the settee, so that he might face the two girls, and yet not interrupt
+their view. The sailor on guard once more faded away, and the band now struck
+up the music of the dance.
+<P>
+"Well," cried Drummond cheerfully, "I've got everything settled. I've received
+the Secretary of the Navy: our captain is to dance with his wife, and the
+Secretary is Lady Angela's partner. There they go!"
+<P>
+For a few minutes the young people watched the dance, then the Lieutenant
+said:
+<P>
+"Ladies, I am disappointed that you have not complimented our electrical
+display."
+<P>
+"I am sure it's very nice, indeed, and most ingenious," declared Dorothy,
+speaking for the first time that evening to the officer, but Katherine, whose
+little foot was tapping the deck to the dance music, tossed her head, and
+declared nonchalantly that it was all very well as a British effort at
+illumination, but she begged the young man to remember that America was the
+home of electricity.
+<P>
+"Where would you have been if it were not for Edison?"
+<P>
+"I suppose," said the Lieutenant cheerfully, "that we should have been where
+Moses was when the candle went out&#151; in the dark."
+<P>
+"You might have had torches," said Dorothy. "My friend forgets she was wishing
+the sailors held torches on that suspended stairway up the ship's side."
+<P>
+"I meant electric torches&#151; Edison torches, of course."
+<P>
+Katherine was displeased at the outlook. She was extremely fond of dancing,
+and here this complacent young man had planted himself down on a camp stool
+to talk of electricity.
+<P>
+"Miss Kempt, I am sorry that you are disappointed at our display. Your slight
+upon British electrical engineering leaves us unscathed, because this has
+been done by a foreign mechanic, whom I wish to present to you."
+<P>
+"Oh, indeed," said Katherine, rather in the usual tone of her elder sister.
+"I don't dance with mechanics, thank you."
+<P>
+She emphasized the light fantastic word, but the Lieutenant did not take
+the hint; he merely laughed again in an exasperatingly good-natured way,
+and said:
+<P>
+"Lady Angela is going to be Jack Lamont's partner for the next waltz."
+<P>
+"Oh," said Katherine loftily, "Lady Angela may dance with any blacksmith
+that pleases her, but I don't. I'm taking it for granted that Jack Lamont
+is your electrical tinsmith."
+<P>
+"Yes, he is, and I think him by all odds the finest fellow aboard this ship.
+It's quite likely you have read about his sister. She is a year older than
+Jack, very beautiful, cultured, everything that a <I>grande dame</I> should
+be, yet she has given away her huge estate to the peasantry, and works with
+them in the fields, living as they do, and faring as they do. There was an
+article about her in one of the French reviews not long ago. She is called
+the Princess Natalia."
+<P>
+"The Princess Natalia!" echoed Katherine, turning her face toward the young
+man. "How can Princess Natalia be a sister of Jack Lamont? Did she marry
+some old prince, and take to the fields in disgust?"
+<P>
+"Oh, no; Jack Lamont is a Russian. He is called Prince Ivan Lermontoff when
+he's at home, but we call him Jack Lamont for short. He's going to help me
+on the Russian business I told you of."
+<P>
+"What Russian business?" asked Katherine. "I don't remember your speaking
+of it."
+<P>
+Dorothy went white, edged a little way from her friend, while her widening
+eyes flashed a warning at the Lieutenant, who, too late, remembered that
+this conversation on Russia had taken place during the walk from the bank.
+The young man coughed slightly behind his open hand, reddened, and stammered:
+<P>
+"Oh, I thought I had told you. Didn't I mention the prince to you as we were
+coming here?"
+<P>
+"Not that I recollect," said Katherine. "Is he a real, genuine prince? A
+right down regular, regular, regular royal prince?"
+<P>
+"I don't know about the royalty, but he's a prince in good standing in his
+own land, and he is also an excellent blacksmith." The Lieutenant chuckled
+a little. "He and his sister have both been touched a good deal by Tolstoian
+doctrine. Jack is the most wonderful inventor, I think, that is at present
+on the earth, Edison notwithstanding. Why, he is just now engaged on a scheme
+by which he can float houses from the mountains here down to New York. Float
+them&#151; pipe-line them would perhaps be a better term. You know they have
+pipe-lines to carry petroleum. Very well; Jack has a solution that dissolves
+stone as white sugar dissolves in tea, and he believes he can run the fluid
+from the quarries to where building is going on. It seems that he then puts
+this liquid into molds, and there you have the stone again. I don't understand
+the process myself, but Jack tells me it's marvelously cheap, and marvelously
+effective. He picked up the idea from nature one time when he and I were
+on our vacation at Detroit."
+<P>
+"Detroit, Michigan?"
+<P>
+"The Detroit River."
+<P>
+"Well, that runs between Michigan and Canada."
+<P>
+"No, no, this is in France. I believe the real name of the river is the Tarn.
+There's a gorge called Detroit&#151; the strait, you know. Wonderful place&#151; tremendous
+chasm. You go down in a boat, and all the tributary rivers pour into the
+main stream like jets from the nozzle of a hose. They tell me this is caused
+by the rain percolating through the dead leaves on the surface of the ground
+far above, and thus the water becomes saturated with carbonic acid gas, and
+so dissolves the limestone until the granite is reached, and the granite
+forms the bed of these underground rivers. It all seemed to me very wonderful,
+but it struck Jack on his scientific side, and he has been experimenting
+ever since. He says he'll be able to build a city with a hose next year."
+<P>
+"Where does he live?"
+<P>
+"On the cruiser just at present. I was instrumental in getting him signed
+on as John Lamont, and he passed without question. No wonder, for he has
+scientific degrees from all sorts of German universities, from Oxford, and
+one or two institutions in the States. When at home he lives in St. Petersburg."
+<P>
+"Has he a palace there?"
+<P>
+Drummond laughed.
+<P>
+"He's got a blacksmith shop, with two rooms above, and I'm going to stop
+with him for a few months as soon as I get my leave. When the cruiser reaches
+England we pay off, and I expect to have nothing to do for six months, so
+Jack and I will make for St. Petersburg."
+<P>
+"Why do you call him Lamont? Is it taken from his real name of
+what-d'ye-call-it-off?"
+<P>
+"Lermontoff? Yes. The Czar Demetrius, some time about the beginning of the
+seventeenth century, established a Scottish Guard, just as Louis XI did in
+France two hundred years before, and there came over from Scotland Lamonts,
+Carmichaels, Buchanans and others, on whom were bestowed titles and estates.
+Prince Ivan Lermontoff is a descendant of the original Lamont, who was an
+officer in the Scottish Guard of Russia.
+<P>
+"So he is really a Scotchman?"
+<P>
+"That's what I tell him when he annoys me, as I am by way of being a Scotchman
+myself. Ah, the waltz is ended. Will you excuse me a moment while I fetch
+his Highness?"
+<P>
+Dorothy inclined her head, and Katherine fairly beamed permission.
+<P>
+"Oh, Dorothy," she exclaimed, when the Lieutenant was out of hearing, "think
+of it! A real prince, and my ambition has never risen higher than a paltry
+count, or some plebeian of that sort. He's mine, Dorothy; I found him first."
+<P>
+"I thought you had appropriated the Lieutenant?"
+<P>
+"What are lieutenants to me? The proud daughter of a captain (retired) cannot
+stoop to a mere lieutenant."
+<P>
+"You wouldn't have to stoop far, Kate, with so tall a man as Mr. Drummond."
+<P>
+"You are beginning to take notice, aren't you, Dot? But I bestow the Lieutenant
+freely upon you, because I'm going to dance with the Prince, even if I have
+to ask him myself.
+<BLOCKQUOTE>
+She'll toddle away, as all aver,<BR>
+  With the Lord High Executioner.
+</BLOCKQUOTE>
+<P>
+Ah, here they come. Isn't he perfectly splendid? Look at his beard! Just
+the color of a brand-new twenty-dollar gold piece. See that broad ribbon
+diagonally across him. I wonder what it means. And gaze at those scintillating
+orders on his breast. Good gracious me, isn't he splendid?"
+<P>
+"Yes, for a blacksmith. I wonder if he beat those stars out on his anvil.
+He isn't nearly so tall as Lieutenant Drummond."
+<P>
+"Dorothy, I'll not allow you to disparage my Prince. How can you be so
+disagreeable? I thought from the very first that the Lieutenant was too tall.
+If the Prince expects me to call him 'your Highness,' he'll be disappointed."
+<P>
+"You are quite right, Kate. The term would suit the Lieutenant better."
+<P>
+"Dorothy, I believe you're jealous."
+<P>
+"Oh, no, I'm not," said Dorothy, shaking her head and laughing, and then
+"Hush!" she added, as Katherine was about to speak again.
+<P>
+The next moment the young men stood before them, and, introductions being
+soberly performed, the Prince lost no time in begging Katherine to favor
+him with a dance, to which request the young woman was graciously pleased
+to accede, without, however, exhibiting too much haste about her acceptance,
+and so they walked off together.
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+<h4>"AT LAST ALONE"</h4>
+<P>
+"SOME one has taken the camp stool," said Lieutenant Drummond. "May I sit
+here?" and the young woman was good enough to give the desired permission.
+<P>
+When he had seated himself he glanced around, then impulsively held out his
+hand.
+<P>
+"Miss Amhurst," he said, "how are you?"
+<P>
+"Very well, thank you," replied the girl with a smile, and after half a moment's
+hesitation she placed her hand in his.
+<P>
+"Of course you dance, Miss Amhurst?"
+<P>
+"Yes, but not to-night. I am here merely as a looker-on in Vienna. You must
+not allow politeness to keep you away from the floor, or, perhaps, I should
+say the deck. I don't mind being alone in the least."
+<P>
+"Now, Miss Amhurst, that is not a hint, is it? Tell me that I have not already
+tired you of my company."
+<P>
+"Oh, no, but I do not wish you to feel that simply because we met casually
+the other day you are compelled to waste your evening sitting out."
+<P>
+"Indeed, Miss Amhurst, although I should very much like to have the pleasure
+of dancing with you, there is no one else here that I should care to ask.
+I have quailed under the eagle eye of my Captain once or twice this evening,
+and I have been rather endeavoring to keep out of his sight. I fear he has
+found something new about me of which to disapprove, so I have quite determined
+not to dance, unless you would consent to dance with me, in which case I
+am quite ready to brave his reproachful glances."
+<P>
+"Have you done anything wrong lately?"
+<P>
+"Heaven only knows! I try not to be purposely wicked, and indeed have put
+forth extra efforts to be extra good, but it seems all of no avail. I endeavor
+to go about the ship with a subdued, humble, unobtrusive air, but this is
+rather difficult for a person of my size. I don't think a man can droop
+successfully unless he's under six feet in height."
+<P>
+Dorothy laughed with quiet content. She was surprised to find herself so
+much at her ease with him, and so mildly happy. They shared a secret together,
+and that of itself was an intangible bond linking him with her who had no
+ties with any one else. She liked him; had liked him from the first; and
+his unconcealed delight in her company was gratifying to a girl who heretofore
+had found none to offer her the gentle courtesies of life.
+<P>
+"Is it the Russian business again? You do not look very much troubled about
+it."
+<P>
+"Ah, that is&#151; that is&#151;" he stammered in apparent confusion, then blurted
+out, "because you&#151; because I am sitting here. Although I have met you but
+once before, it seems somehow as if I had known you always, and my slight
+anxiety that I told you of fades away in your presence. I hope you don't
+think I am forward in saying this, but really to-night, when I saw you at
+the head of the gangway, I could scarcely refrain from going directly to
+you and greeting you. I am afraid I made rather a hash of it with Captain
+Kempt. He is too much of a gentleman to have shown any surprise at my somewhat
+boisterous accosting of him, and you know I didn't remember him at all, but
+I saw that you were under his care, and chanced it. Luckily it seems to have
+been Captain Kempt after all, but I fear I surprised him, taking him by storm,
+as it were."
+<P>
+"I thought you did it very nicely," said Dorothy, "and, indeed, until this
+moment I hadn't the least suspicion that you didn't recognize him. He is
+a dear old gentleman, and I'm very fond of him."
+<P>
+"I say," said the Lieutenant, lowering his voice, "I nearly came a cropper
+when I spoke of that Russian affair before your friend. I was thinking
+of&#151; of&#151; well, I wasn't thinking of Miss Kempt&#151;"
+<P>
+"Oh, she never noticed anything," said Dorothy hurriedly. "You got out of
+that, too, very well. I thought of telling her I had met you before while
+she and I were in New York together, but the opportunity never seemed&#151; well,
+I couldn't quite explain, and, indeed, didn't wish to explain my own inexplicable
+conduct at the bank, and so trusted to chance. If you had greeted me first
+tonight, I suppose"&#151; she smiled and looked up at him&#151; "I suppose I should
+have brazened it out somehow."
+<P>
+"Have you been in New York?"
+<P>
+"Yes, we were there nearly a week."
+<P>
+"Ah, that accounts for it."
+<P>
+"Accounts for what?"
+<P>
+"I have walked up and down every street, lane and alley in Bar Harbor, hoping
+to catch a glimpse of you. I have haunted the town, and all the time you
+were away."
+<P>
+"No wonder the Captain frowns at you! Have you been neglecting your duty?"
+<P>
+"Well, I have been stretching my shore leave just a little bit. I wanted
+to apologize for talking so much about myself as we walked from the bank."
+<P>
+"It was very interesting, and, if you remember, we walked farther than I
+had intended."
+<P>
+"Were your friends waiting for you, or had they gone?"
+<P>
+"They were waiting for me."
+<P>
+"I hope they weren't cross?"
+<P>
+"Oh, no. I told them I had been detained. It happened not to be necessary
+to enter into details, so I was saved the task of explanation, and, besides,
+we had other interesting things to discuss. This function on the cruiser
+has loomed so large as a topic of conversation that there has been little
+need of any other subject to talk about for several days past."
+<P>
+"I suppose you must have attended many grander occasions than this. Although
+we have endeavored to make a display, and although we possess a reasonably
+efficient band, still, a cruiser is not exactly designed for the use to which
+it is being put to-night. We have many disadvantages to overcome which are
+not met with in the sumptuous dwellings of New York and Bar Harbor."
+<P>
+The girl's eyes were on the deck for some moments before she replied, then
+she looked across at the dancers, and finally said:
+<P>
+"I think the ball on the 'Consternation' quite equals anything I have ever
+attended."
+<P>
+"It is nice of you to say that. Praise from&#151; I won't name Sir Hubert Stanley&#151; but
+rather Lady Hubert Stanley&#151; is praise, indeed. And now, Miss Amhurst, since
+I have confessed my fruitless wanderings through Bar Harbor, may I not have
+the pleasure of calling upon you to-morrow or next day?"
+<P>
+Her eyes were dreamily watching the dancers.
+<P>
+"I suppose," she said slowly, with the flicker of a smile curving those enticing
+lips, "that since you were so very friendly with Captain Kempt to-night he
+may expect you to smoke a cigar with him, and it will possibly happen that
+Katherine and I, who are very fond of the Captain, may chance to come in
+while you are there."
+<P>
+"Katherine? Ah, Katherine is the name of the young lady who was with you
+here&#151; Miss Kempt?"
+<P>
+"Yes."
+<P>
+"You are stopping with the Kempts, then?"
+<P>
+"Yes."
+<P>
+"I wonder if they'd think I was taking a liberty if I brought Jack Lamont
+with me?"
+<P>
+"The Prince?" laughed Dorothy. "Is he a real prince?"
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, there's no doubt about that. I shouldn't have taken the liberty
+of introducing him to you as Prince Lermontoff if he were not, as we say
+in Scotland, a real Mackay&#151; the genuine article. Well, then, the Prince and
+I will pay our respects to Captain Kempt to-morrow afternoon."
+<P>
+"Did you say the Prince is going with you to Russia?"
+<P>
+"Oh, yes. As I told you, I intend to live very quietly in St. Petersburg,
+and the Prince has his shop and a pair of rooms above it in a working quarter
+of the city. I shall occupy one of the rooms and he the other. The Prince
+is an excellent cook, so we shan't starve, even if we engage no servant."
+<P>
+"Has the Prince given his estates away also?"
+<P>
+"He hasn't given them away exactly, but he is a very indulgent landlord,
+and he spends so much money on his experiments and travel that, although
+he has a formidable income, he is very frequently quite short of money. Did
+you like him?"
+<P>
+"Yes. Of course I saw him for a moment only. I wonder why they haven't returned.
+There's been several dances since they left."
+<P>
+"Perhaps," said the Lieutenant, with a slight return of his stammering, "your
+friend may be as fond of dancing as Jack is."
+<P>
+"You are still determined to go to Russia?"
+<P>
+"Quite. There is absolutely no danger. I may not accomplish anything, but
+I'll have a try at it. The Prince has a good deal of influence in St. Petersburg,
+which he will use quietly on my behalf, so that I may see the important people.
+I shall be glad when the Captain ceases frowning&#151;"
+<P>
+Drummond was interrupted by a fellow-officer, who raised his cap, and begged
+a word with him.
+<P>
+"I think, Drummond, the Captain wanted to see you."
+<P>
+"Oh, did he say that?"
+<P>
+"No, but I know he has left a note for you in your cabin. Shall I go and
+fetch it?"
+<P>
+"I wish you would, Chesham, if you don't mind, and it isn't too much trouble."
+<P>
+"No trouble at all. Delighted, I'm sure," said Chesham, again raising his
+cap and going off.
+<P>
+"Now, I wonder what I have forgotten to do."
+<P>
+Drummond heaved a sigh proportionate to himself.
+<P>
+"Under the present condition of things a bit of neglect that would go unnoticed
+with another man is a sign of unrepentant villainy in me. Any other Lieutenant
+may steal a horse while I may not look over a hedge. You see how necessary
+it is for me to go to Russia, and get this thing smoothed over."
+<P>
+"I think, perhaps, you are too sensitive, and notice slights where nothing
+of the kind is meant," said the girl.
+<P>
+Chesham returned and handed Drummond a letter.
+<P>
+"Will you excuse me a moment?" he said, and as she looked at him he flattered
+himself that he noticed a trace of anxiety in her eyes. He tore open the
+missive.
+<P>
+"By Jove!" he cried.
+<P>
+"What is it?" she could not prevent herself from saying, leaning forward.
+<P>
+"I am ordered home. The Admiralty commands me to take the first steamer for
+England."
+<P>
+"Is that serious?"
+<P>
+He laughed with well-feigned hilarity.
+<P>
+"Oh, no, not serious; it's just their way of doing things. They might easily
+have allowed me to come home in my own ship. My only fear is I shall have
+to take the train for New York early to-morrow morning. But," he said, holding
+out his hands, "it is not serious if you allow me to write to you, and if
+you will permit me to hope that I may receive an answer."
+<P>
+She placed her hand in his, this time without hesitation.
+<P>
+"You may write," she said, "and I will reply. I trust it is not serious."
+<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
+<h4>AFTER THE OPERA IS OVER</h4>
+<P>
+IN mid-afternoon of the day following the entertainment on board the
+"Consternation" our two girls were seated opposite one another under the
+rafters of the sewing room, in the listless, desultory manner of those who
+have not gone home till morning, till daylight did appear. The dominant note
+of a summer cottage is the rocking-chair, and there were two in the sewing
+room, where Katherine and Dorothy swayed gently back and forth as they talked.
+They sat close to the low, broad window which presented so beautiful a picture
+of the blue Bay and the white shipping. The huge "Consternation" lay moored
+with her broadside toward the town, all sign of festivity already removed
+from hull and rigging, and, to the scarcely slumber-satisfied eyes of the
+girls, something of the sadness of departure seemed to hang as a haze around
+the great ship. The girls were not discussing the past, but rather anticipating
+the future; forecasting it, with long, silent pauses intervening.
+<P>
+"So you will not stay with us? You are determined to turn your wealthy back
+on the poor Kempt family?" Katherine was saying.
+<P>
+"But I shall return to the Kempt family now and then, if they will let me.
+I must get away for a time and think. My life has suddenly become all
+topsy-turvy, and I need to get my bearings, as does a ship that has been
+through a storm and lost her reckoning."
+<P>
+"'She dunno where she are,' as the song says."
+<P>
+"Exactly: that is the state of things."
+<P>
+"I think it's too bad, Dorothy, that you did not allow us to make public
+announcement of your good fortune. Just imagine what an ovation you would
+have had on board the cruiser last night if it had been known that the richest
+woman in that assemblage was a pretty, shy little creature sitting all by
+herself, and never indulging in even one dance."
+<P>
+"I shouldn't in the least care for that sort of ovation, Kate, and if every
+one present were as well pleased with the festivities as I, they must all
+have enjoyed themselves immensely. I believe my friend Kate did my share
+of the dancing as well as her own."
+<P>
+"'She danced, and she danced, and she danced them a' din.' I think those
+are the words of the Scottish song that the Prince quoted. He seems up in
+Scottish poetry, and does not even resent being called a Scotchman. This
+energetic person of the song seems to have danced them all to a standstill,
+as I understood him, for he informs me 'a' means 'all' and 'din' means 'done,'
+but I told him I'd rather learn Russian than Scotch; it was so much easier,
+and his Highness was good enough to laugh at that. Didn't the Lieutenant
+ask you to dance at all?"
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, he did."
+<P>
+"And you refused?"
+<P>
+"I refused."
+<P>
+"I didn't think he had sense enough to ask a girl to dance."
+<P>
+"You are ungrateful, Katherine. Remember he introduced you to the Prince."
+<P>
+"Yes, that's so. I had forgotten. I shall never say anything against him
+again."
+<P>
+"You like the Prince, then?"
+<P>
+"Of all the crowned heads, emperors, kings, sultans, monarchs of every
+description, dukes, counts, earls, marquises, whom I have met, and who have
+pestered my life asking me to share their royal perquisites, I think I may
+say quite truthfully that I like this Jack Lamont better than any one of
+them."
+<P>
+"Surely Prince Jack has not offered you his principality already?"
+<P>
+"No, not yet, but with an eye to the future I have persuaded him to give
+up Tolstoi and read Mark Twain, who is not only equally humorous, but much
+more sensible than the Russian writer. Jack must not be allowed to give away
+his estates to the peasants as his silly sister has done. I may need them
+later on."
+<P>
+"Oh, you've got that far, have you?"
+<P>
+"I have got that far: he hasn't. He doesn't know anything about it, but I'll
+wake him up when the right time comes. There are many elements of sanity
+about him. He told me that he intended to give up his estates, but in the
+first place he had been too busy, and in the second he needed the money.
+His good sense, however, requires refining, so that he may get rid of the
+dross. I don't blame him; I blame Tolstoi. For instance, when I asked him
+if he had patented his liquid city invention, he said he did not wish to
+make a profit from his discovery, but intended it for the good of humanity
+at large. Imagine such an idiotic idea as that!"
+<P>
+"I think such views are entirely to his credit," alarmed Dorothy.
+<P>
+"Oh, of course, but the plan is not practicable. If he allows such an invention
+to slip through his fingers, the Standard Oil people will likely get hold
+of it, form a monopoly, and then where would humanity at large be? I tell
+him the right way is to patent it, make all the money he can, and use the
+cash for benefiting humanity under the direction of some charitable person
+like myself."
+<P>
+"Did you suggest that to him?"
+<P>
+"I did not intimate who the sensible person was, but I elucidated the principle
+of the thing."
+<P>
+"Yes, and what did he say?"
+<P>
+"Many things, Dorothy, many things. At one time he became confidential about
+his possessions in foreign lands. It seems he owns several castles, and when
+he visits any of them he cannot prevent the moujiks, if that is the proper
+term for the peasantry over there, from prostrating themselves on the ground
+as he passes by, beating their foreheads against the earth, and chanting,
+in choice Russian, the phrase: 'Defer, defer, here comes the Lord High
+Executioner,' or words to that effect. I told him I didn't see why he should
+interfere with so picturesque a custom, and he said if I visited one of his
+castles that these estimable people, at a word from him, would form a corduroy
+road in the mud with their bodies, so that I might step dry-shod from the
+carriage to the castle doors, and I stipulated that he should at least spread
+a bit of stair carpet over the poor wretches before I made my progress across
+his front yard."
+<P>
+"Well, you <I>did</I> become confidential if you discussed a visit to Russia."
+<P>
+"Yes, didn't we? I suppose you don't approve of my forward conduct?"
+<P>
+"I am sure you acted with the utmost prudence, Kate."
+<P>
+"I didn't lose any time, though, did I?"
+<P>
+"I don't know how much time is required to attain the point of friendship
+you reached. I am inexperienced. It is true I have read of love at first
+sight, and I am merely waiting to be told whether or not this is an instance
+of it."
+<P>
+"Oh, you are very diffident, aren't you, sitting there so bashfully!"
+<P>
+"I may seem timid or bashful, but it's merely sleepiness."
+<P>
+"You're a bit of a humbug, Dorothy."
+<P>
+"Why?"
+<P>
+"I don't know why, but you are. No, it was not a case of love at first sight.
+It was a case of feminine vengeance. Yes, you may look surprised, but I'm
+telling the truth. After I walked so proudly off with his high mightiness,
+we had a most agreeable dance together; then I proposed to return to you,
+but the young man would not have it so, and for the moment I felt flattered.
+By and by I became aware, however, that it was not because of my company
+he avoided your vicinity, but that he was sacrificing himself for his friend."
+<P>
+"What friend?"
+<P>
+"Lieutenant Drummond, of course."
+<P>
+"How was he sacrificing himself for Lieutenant Drummond?"
+<P>
+"I surmise that the tall Lieutenant did not fall a victim to my wiles as
+I had at first supposed, but, in some unaccountable manner, one can never
+tell how these things happen; he was most anxious to be left alone with the
+coy Miss Dorothy Amhurst, who does not understand how long a time it takes
+to fall in love at first sight, although she has read of these things, dear,
+innocent girl. The first villain of the piece has said to the second villain
+of the piece: 'There's a superfluous young woman over on our bench; I'll
+introduce you to her. You lure her off to the giddy dance, and keep her away
+as long as you can, and I'll do as much for you some day.'
+<P>
+"Whereupon Jack Lamont probably swore&#151; I understand that profanity is sometimes
+distressingly prevalent aboard ship&#151; but nevertheless he allowed the Lieutenant
+to lead him like a lamb to the slaughter. Well, not being powerful enough
+to throw him overboard when I realized the state of the case, I did the next
+best thing. I became cloyingly sweet to him. I smiled upon him: I listened
+to his farrago of nonsense about the chemical components of his various notable
+inventions, as if a girl attends a ball to study chemistry! Before half an
+hour had passed the infant had come to the conclusion that here was the first
+really sensible woman he had ever met. He soon got to making love to me,
+as the horrid phrase goes, as if love were a mixture to be compounded of
+this ingredient and that, and then shaken before taken. I am delighted to
+add, as a testimony to my own powers of pleasing, that Jack soon forgot he
+was a sacrifice, and really, with a little instruction, he would become a
+most admirable flirt. He is coming to call upon me this afternoon, and then
+he will get his eyes opened. I shall tread on him as if he were one of his
+own moujiks."
+<P>
+"What a wonderful imagination you have, Kate. All you have said is pure fancy.
+I saw he was taken with you from the very first. He never even glanced at
+me."
+<P>
+"Of course not: he wasn't allowed to."
+<P>
+"Nonsense, Kate. If I thought for a moment you were really in earnest, I
+should say you underestimate your own attractions."
+<P>
+"Oh, that's all very well, Miss Dorothy Dimple; you are trying to draw a
+red herring across the trail, because you know that what I want to hear is
+why Lieutenant Drummond was so anxious to get me somewhere else. What use
+did he make of the opportunity the good-natured Prince and my sweet complacency
+afforded him?"
+<P>
+"He said nothing which might not have been overheard by any one."
+<P>
+"Come down to particulars, Dorothy, and let me judge. You are so inexperienced,
+you know, that it is well to take counsel with a more sophisticated friend."
+<P>
+"I don't just remember&#151;"
+<P>
+"No, I thought you wouldn't. Did he talk of himself or of you?"
+<P>
+"Of himself, of course. He told me why he was going to Russia, and spoke
+of some checks he had met in his profession."
+<P>
+"Ah! Did he cash them?"
+<P>
+"Obstacles&#151; difficulties that were in his way, which he hoped to overcome."
+<P>
+"Oh, I see. And did you extend that sympathy which&#151;"
+<P>
+There was a knock at the door, and the maid came in, bearing a card.
+<P>
+"Good gracious me!" cried Katherine, jumping to her feet. "The Prince has
+come. What a stupid thing that we have no mirror in this room, and it's a
+sewing and sitting room, too. Do I look all right, Dorothy?"
+<P>
+"To me you seem perfection."
+<P>
+"Ah, well, I can glance at a glass on the next floor. Won't you come down
+and see him trampled on?"
+<P>
+"No, thank you. I shall most likely drop off to sleep, and enjoy forty winks
+in this very comfortable chair. Don't be too harsh with the young man, Kate.
+You are quite wrong in your surmises about him. The Lieutenant never made
+any such arrangement as you suggest, because he talked of nothing but the
+most commonplace subjects all the time I was with him, as I was just about
+to tell you, only you seem in such a hurry to get away."
+<P>
+"Oh, that doesn't deceive me in the least. I'll be back shortly, with the
+young man's scalp dangling at my belt. Now we shan't be long," and with that
+Katherine went skipping downstairs.
+<P>
+Dorothy picked up a magazine that lay on the table, and for a few moments
+turned its leaves from one story to another, trying to interest herself,
+but failing. Then she lifted the newspaper that lay at her feet, but it also
+was soon cast aside, and she leaned back in her chair with half-closed eyes,
+looking out at the cruiser in the Bay. A slight haze arose between her and
+the ship, thickening and thickening until at last it obscured the vessel.
+<P>
+Dorothy was oppressed by a sense of something forgotten, and she strove in
+vain to remember what it was. It was of the utmost importance, she was certain,
+and this knowledge made her mental anxiety the greater.
+<P>
+At last out of the gloom she saw Sabina approach, clothed in rags, and then
+a flash of intuition enabled her to grasp the difficulty. Through her remissness
+the ball dress was unfinished, and the girl, springing to her feet, turned
+intuitively to the sewing-machine, when the ringing laugh of Katherine dissolved
+the fog.
+<P>
+"Why, you poor girl, what's the matter with you? Are you sitting down to
+drudgery again? You've forgotten the fortune!"
+<P>
+"Are&#151; are you back already?" cried Dorothy, somewhat wildly.
+<P>
+"Already! Why, bless me, I've been away an hour and a quarter. You dear girl,
+you've been asleep and in slavery again!"
+<P>
+"I think I was," admitted Dorothy with a sigh.
+<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+<h4>FROM SEA TO MOUNTAIN</h4>
+<P>
+THREE days later the North Atlantic squadron of the British Navy sailed down
+the coast from Halifax, did not even pause at Bar Harbor, but sent a wireless
+telegram to the "Consternation," which pulled up anchor and joined the fleet
+outside, and so the war-ships departed for another port.
+<P>
+Katherine stood by the broad window in the sewing room in her favorite attitude,
+her head sideways against the pane, her eyes languidly gazing upon the Bay,
+fingers drumming this time a very slow march on the window sill. Dorothy
+sat in a rocking-chair, reading a letter for the second time. There had been
+silence in the room for some minutes, accentuated rather than broken by the
+quiet drumming of the girl's fingers on the window sill. Finally Katherine
+breathed a deep sigh and murmured to herself:
+<BLOCKQUOTE>
+"'Far called our Navy fades away,<BR>
+  &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; On dune and headland sinks the fire.<BR>
+  &nbsp; Lo, all our pomp of yesterday<BR>
+  &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.'
+</BLOCKQUOTE>
+<P>
+I wonder if I've got the lines right," she whispered to herself. She had
+forgotten there was anyone else in the room, and was quite startled when
+Dorothy spoke.
+<P>
+"Kate, that's a solemn change, from Gilbert to Kipling. I always judge your
+mood by your quotations. Has life suddenly become too serious for 'Pinafore'
+or the 'Mikado'?"
+<P>
+"Oh, I don't know," said Katherine, without turning round. "They are humorous
+all, and so each furnishes something suitable for the saddened mind. Wisdom
+comes through understanding your alphabet properly. For instance, first there
+was Gilbert, and that gave us G; then came Kipling, and he gave us K; thus
+we get an algebraic formula, G.K., which are the initials of Chesterton,
+a still later arrival, and as the mind increases in despondency it sinks
+lower and lower down the alphabet until it comes to S, and thus we have Barn-yard
+Shaw, an improvement on the Kail-yard school, who takes the O pshaw view
+of life. And relaxing hold of him I sink deeper until I come to W&#151; W. W.
+Jacobs&#151; how I wish he wrote poetry! He should be the humorist of all sailors,
+and perhaps some time he will desert barges for battleships. Then I shall
+read him with increased enjoyment."
+<P>
+"I wouldn't give Mark Twain for the lot," commented Dorothy with decision.
+<P>
+"Mark Twain isn't yours to give, my dear. He belongs to me also. You've forgotten
+that comparisons are odious. Our <I>metier</I> is not to compare, but to
+take what pleases us from each.
+<BLOCKQUOTE>
+'How doth the little busy bee<BR>
+  &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Improve each shining hour,<BR>
+  &nbsp;And gather honey all the day<BR>
+  &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; From every opening flower.
+</BLOCKQUOTE>
+<P>
+Watts. You see, I'm still down among the W's. Oh, Dorothy, how can you sit
+there so placidly when the 'Consternation' has just faded from sight? Selfish
+creature!
+<BLOCKQUOTE>
+'Oh, give me tears for others' woes<BR>
+  &nbsp;And patience for mine own.'
+</BLOCKQUOTE>
+<P>
+I don't know who wrote that, but you have no tears for others' woes, merely
+greeting them with ribald laughter," for Dorothy, with the well-read letter
+in her hand, was making the rafters ring with her merriment, something that
+had never before happened during her long tenancy of that room. Kate turned
+her head slowly round, and the expression on her face was half-indignant,
+half-humorous, while her eyes were uncertain weather prophets, and gave equal
+indication of sunshine or rain.
+<P>
+"Why, Katherine, you look like a tragedy queen, rather than the spirit of
+comedy! Is it really a case of 'Tit-willow, tit-willow, tit-willow'? You
+see, I'm a-rescuing you from the bottom of the alphabet, and bringing you
+up to the Gilbert plane, where I am more accustomed to you, and understand
+you better. Is this despondency due to the departure of the 'Consternation,'
+and the fact that she carries away with her Jack Lamont, blacksmith?"
+<P>
+The long sigh terminated in a woeful "yes."
+<P>
+"The ship that has gone out with him we call she. If he had eloped with a
+real she, then wearing the willow, or singing it, however futile, might be
+understandable. As it is I see nothing in the situation to call for a sigh."
+<P>
+"That is because you are a hardened sinner, Dorothy. You have no heart, or
+at least if you have, it is untouched, and therefore you cannot understand.
+If that note in your hand were a love missive, instead of a letter from your
+lawyers, you would be more human, Dorothy."
+<P>
+The hand which held the paper crumpled it up slightly as Katherine spoke.
+<P>
+"Business letters are quite necessary, and belong to the world we live in,"
+said Dorothy, a glow of brighter color suffusing her cheeks. "Surely your
+acquaintance with Mr. Lamont is of the shortest."
+<P>
+"He has called upon me every day since the night of the ball," maintained
+Katherine stoutly.
+<P>
+"Well, that's only three times."
+<P>
+"Only three! How you talk! One would think you had never been schooled in
+mathematics. Why, three is a magic figure. You can do plenty of amazing things
+with it. Don't you know that three is a numeral of love?"
+<P>
+"I thought two was the number," chimed Dorothy, with heartless mirth.
+<P>
+"Three," said Katherine taking one last look at the empty horizon, then seating
+herself in front of her friend, "three is a recurring decimal. It goes on
+and on and on forever, and if you write it for a thousand years you are still
+as far from the end as when you began. It will carry you round the world
+and back again, and never diminish. It is the mathematical emblem of the
+nature of true love."
+<P>
+"Is it so serious as all that, Kate, or are you just fooling again?" asked
+Dorothy, more soberly than heretofore. "Has he spoken to you?"
+<P>
+"Spoken? He has done nothing but speak, and I have listened&#151; oh, so intently,
+and with such deep understanding. He has never before met such a woman as
+I, and has frankly told me so."
+<P>
+"I am very glad he appreciates you, dear."
+<P>
+"Yes, you see, Dorothy, I am really much deeper than the ordinary woman.
+Who, for instance, could find such a beautiful love simile from a book of
+arithmetic costing twenty-five cents, as I have unearthed from decimal fractions?
+With that example in mind how can you doubt that other volumes of college
+learning reveal to me their inner meaning? John presented to me, as he said
+good-by, a beautifully bound copy of that celebrated text-book, 'Saunders'
+Analytical Chemistry,' with particularly tender passages marked in pencil,
+by his own dear hand."
+<P>
+Rather bewildered, for Kate's expression was one of pathos, unrelieved by
+any gleam of humor, Dorothy nevertheless laughed, although the laugh brought
+no echo from Katherine.
+<P>
+"And did you give him a volume of Browning in return?"
+<P>
+"No, I didn't. How can you be so unsympathetic? Is it impossible for you
+to comprehend the unseen link that binds John and me? I rummaged the book
+store until I found a charming little edition of 'Marshall's Geologist's
+Pocket Companion,' covered with beautiful brown limp Russia leather&#151; I thought
+the Russia binding was so inspirational&#151; with a sweet little clasp that keeps
+it closed&#151; typical of our hands at parting. On the fly-leaf I wrote: 'To
+J. L., in remembrance of many interesting conversations with his friend,
+K. K.' It only needed another K to be emblematic and political, a reminiscence
+of the olden times, when you people of the South, Dorothy, were making it
+hot for us deserving folks in the North. I hadn't time to go through the
+book very thoroughly, but I found many references to limestone, which I marked,
+and one particularly choice bit of English relating to the dissolution and
+re-consolidation of various minerals I drew a parallelogram around in red
+ink. A friend of mine in a motor launch was good enough to take the little
+parcel direct to the 'Consternation,' and I have no doubt that at this moment
+Jack is perusing it, and perhaps thinking of the giver. I hope it's up-to-date,
+and that he had not previously bought a copy."
+<P>
+"You don't mean to say, Kate, that your conversation was entirely about geology?"
+<P>
+"Certainly not. How could you have become imbued with an idea so absurd?
+We had many delightful dalliances down the romantic groves of chemistry,
+heart-to-heart talks on metallurgy, and once&#151; ah, shall I ever forget it&#151; while
+the dusk gently enfolded us, and I gazed into those bright, speaking, intelligent
+eyes of his as he bent nearer and nearer; while his low, sonorous voice in
+well-chosen words pictured to me the promise which fortified cement holds
+out to the world; that is, ignorant person, Portland cement strengthened
+by ribs of steel; and I sat listening breathless as his glowing phrases
+prophesied the future of this combination."
+<P>
+Katherine closed her eyes, rocked gently back and forth, and crooned, almost
+inaudibly:
+<BLOCKQUOTE>
+"'When you gang awa, Jimmie,<BR>
+  &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Faur across the sea, laddie,<BR>
+  &nbsp; When ye gang to Russian lands<BR>
+  &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; What will ye send to me, laddie?'
+</BLOCKQUOTE>
+<P>
+I know what I shall get. It will probably be a newly discovered recipe for
+the compounding of cement which will do away with the necessity of steel
+strengthening."
+<P>
+"Kate, dear, you are overdoing it. It is quite right that woman should be
+a mystery to man, but she should not aspire to become a mystery to her sister
+woman. Are you just making fun, or is there something in all this more serious
+than your words imply?"
+<P>
+"Like the steel strengthening in the cement, it may be there, but you can't
+see it, and you can't touch it, but it makes&#151; oh, such a difference to the
+slab. Heigho, Dorothy, let us forsake these hard-headed subjects, and turn
+to something human. What have your lawyers been bothering you about? No trouble
+over the money, is there?"
+<P>
+Dorothy shook her head.
+<P>
+"No. Of course, there are various matters they have to consult me about,
+and get my consent to this project or the other."
+<P>
+"Read the letter. Perhaps my mathematical mind can be of assistance to you."
+<P>
+Dorothy had concealed the letter, and did not now produce it.
+<P>
+"It is with reference to your assistance, and your continued assistance,
+that I wish to speak to you. Let us follow the example of the cement and
+the steel, and form a compact. In one respect I am going to imitate the
+'Consternation.' I leave Bar Harbor next week."
+<P>
+Katherine sat up in her chair, and her eyes opened wide.
+<P>
+"What's the matter with Bar Harbor?" she asked.
+<P>
+"You can answer that question better than I, Kate. The Kempt family are not
+visitors, but live here all the year round. What do you think is the matter
+with Bar Harbor?"
+<P>
+"I confess it's a little dull in the winter time, and in all seasons it is
+situated a considerable distance from New York. Where do you intend to go,
+Dorothy?"
+<P>
+"That will depend largely on where my friend Kate advises me to go, because
+I shall take her with me if she will come."
+<P>
+"Companion, lady's-maid, parlor maid, maid-of-all-work, cook, governess,
+typewriter-girl--which have I to be? Shall I get one afternoon a week off,
+and may my young man come and see me, if I happen to secure one, and, extremely
+important, what are the wages?"
+<P>
+"You shall fix your own salary, Kate, and my lawyer men will arrange that
+the chosen sum is settled upon you so that if we fall out we can quarrel
+on equal terms."
+<P>
+"Oh, I see, it's an adopted daughter I am to be, then?"
+<P>
+"An adopted sister, rather."
+<P>
+"Do you think I am going to take advantage of my friendship with an heiress,
+and so pension myself off?"
+<P>
+"It is I who am taking the advantage," said Dorothy, "and I beg you to take
+compassion, rather than advantage, upon a lone creature who has no kith or
+kin in the world."
+<P>
+"Do you really mean it, Dot?"
+<P>
+"Of course I do. Should I propose it if I didn't?"
+<P>
+"Well, this is the first proposal I've ever had, and I believe it is customary
+to say on those occasions that it is so sudden, or so unexpected, and time
+is required for consideration."
+<P>
+"How soon can you make up your mind, Kate?"
+<P>
+"Oh, my mind's already made up. I'm going to jump at your offer, but I think
+it more ladylike to pretend a mild reluctance. What are you going to do,
+Dorothy?"
+<P>
+"I don't know. I've settled on only one thing. I intend to build a little
+stone and tile church, very quaint and old-fashioned, if I get the right
+kind of architect to draw a plan for it, and this church is to be situated
+in Haverstock."
+<P>
+"Where's Haverstock?"
+<P>
+"It is a village near the Hudson River, on the plain that stretches toward
+the Catskills."
+<P>
+"It was there you lived with your father, was it not?"
+<P>
+"Yes, and my church is to be called the Dr. Amhurst Memorial Church."
+<P>
+"And do you propose to live at Haverstock?"
+<P>
+"I was thinking of that."
+<P>
+"Wouldn't it be just a little dull?"
+<P>
+"Yes, I suppose it is, but it seems to me a suitable place where two young
+women may meditate on what they are going to do with their lives."
+<P>
+"Yes, that's an important question for the two. I say, Dorothy, let's take
+the other side of the river, and enter Vassar College. Then we should at
+least have some fun, and there would be some reasonably well-educated people
+to speak to."
+<P>
+"Oh, you wish to use your lately acquired scientific knowledge in order to
+pass the examinations; but, you see, I have had no tutor to school me in
+the mysteries of lime-burning and the mixing of cement. Now, you have scorned
+my side of the river, and I have objected to your side of the river. That
+is the bad beginning which, let us hope, makes the good ending. Who is to
+arbitrate on our dispute?"
+<P>
+"Why, we'll split the difference, of course."
+<P>
+"How can we do that? Live in a house-boat on the river like Frank Stockton's
+'Budder Grange'?"
+<P>
+"No, settle in the city of New York, which is practically an island in the
+Hudson."
+<P>
+"Would you like to live in New York?"
+<P>
+"Wouldn't I! Imagine any one, having the chance, living anywhere else!"
+<P>
+"In a hotel, I suppose&#151; the Holldorf for choice."
+<P>
+"Yes, we could live in a hotel until we found the ideal flat, high up in
+a nice apartment house, with a view like that from the top of Mount Washington,
+or from the top of the Washington Monument."
+<P>
+"But you forget I made one proviso in the beginning, and that is that I am
+going to build a church, and the church is to be situated, not in the city
+of New York, but in the village of Haverstock."
+<P>
+"New York is just the place from which to construct such an edifice. Haverstock
+will be somewhere near the West Shore Railway. Very well. We can take a trip
+up there once a week or oftener, if you like, and see how the work is
+progressing, then the people of Haverstock will respect us. As we drive from
+the station they'll say:
+<P>
+"'There's the two young ladies from New York who are building the church.'
+But if we settle down amongst them they'll think we're only ordinary villagers
+instead of the distinguished persons we are. Or, while our flat is being
+made ready we could live at one of the big hotels in the Catskills, and come
+down as often as we like on the inclined railway. Indeed, until the weather
+gets colder, the Catskills is the place.
+<BLOCKQUOTE>
+'And lo, the Catskills print the distant sky,<BR>
+  &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;And o'er their airy tops the faint clouds driven,<BR>
+  &nbsp;So softly blending that the cheated eye<BR>
+  &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Forgets or which is earth, or which is heaven.'"
+</BLOCKQUOTE>
+<P>
+"That ought to carry the day for the Catskills, Kate. What sort of habitation
+shall we choose? A big hotel, or a select private boarding house?"
+<P>
+"Oh, a big hotel, of course&#151; the biggest there is, whatever its name may
+be. One of those whose rates are so high that the proprietor daren't advertise
+them, but says in his announcement, 'for terms apply to the manager.' It
+must have ample grounds, support an excellent band, and advertise a renowned
+cuisine. Your room, at least, should have a private balcony on which you
+can place a telescope and watch the building of your church down below. I,
+being a humble person in a subordinate position, should have a balcony also
+to make up for those deficiencies."
+<P>
+"Very well, Kate, that's settled. But although two lone women may set up
+housekeeping in a New York flat, they cannot very well go alone to a fashionable
+hotel."
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, we can. Best of references given and required."
+<P>
+"I was going to suggest," pursued Dorothy, not noticing the interruption,
+"that we invite your father and mother to accompany us. They might enjoy
+a change from sea air to mountain air."
+<P>
+Katherine frowned a little, and demurred.
+<P>
+"Are you going to be fearfully conventional, Dorothy?"
+<P>
+"We must pay some attention to the conventions, don't you think?"
+<P>
+"I had hoped not. I yearn to be a bachelor girl, and own a latch-key."
+<P>
+"We shall each possess a latch-key when we settle down in New York. Our flat
+will be our castle, and, although our latch-key will let us in, our Yale
+lock will keep other people out. A noted summer resort calls for different
+treatment, because there we lead a semi-public life. Besides, I am selfish
+enough to wish my coming-out to be under the auspices of so well-known a
+man as Captain Kempt."
+<P>
+"All right, I'll see what they say about it. You don't want Sabina, I take
+it?"
+<P>
+"Yes, if she will consent to come."
+<P>
+"I doubt if she will, but I'll see. Besides, now that I come to think about
+it, it's only fair I should allow my doting parents to know that I am about
+to desert them."
+<P>
+With that Katherine quitted the room, and went down the stairs hippety-hop.
+<P>
+Dorothy drew the letter from its place of concealment, and read it for the
+third time, although one not interested might have termed it a most commonplace
+document. It began:
+<P>
+"Dear Miss Amhurst," and ended "Yours most sincerely, Alan Drummond." It
+gave some account of his doings since he bade good-bye to her. A sailor,
+he informed her, needs little time for packing his belongings, and on the
+occasion in question the Prince had been of great assistance. They set out
+together for the early morning train, and said "au revoir" at the station.
+Drummond had intended to sail from New York, but a friendly person whom he
+met on the train informed him that the Liverpool liner "Enthusiana" set out
+from Boston next day, so he had abandoned the New York idea, and had taken
+passage on the liner named, on whose note-paper he wrote the letter, which
+epistle was once more concealed as Dorothy heard Katherine's light step on
+the stair.
+<P>
+That impulsive young woman burst into the sewing room.
+<P>
+"We're <I>all</I> going," she cried. "Father, mother and Sabina. It seems
+father has had an excellent offer to let the house furnished till the end
+of September, and he says that, as he likes high life, he will put in the
+time on the top of the Catskills. He abandons me, and says that if he can
+borrow a shilling he is going to cut me off with it in his will. He regrets
+the departure of the British Fleet, because he thinks he might have been
+able to raise a real English shilling aboard. Dad only insists on one condition,
+namely, that he is to pay for himself, mother and Sabina, so he does not
+want a room with a balcony. I said that in spite of his disinheritance I'd
+help the family out of my salary, and so he is going to reconsider the changing
+of his will."
+<P>
+"We will settle the conditions when we reach the Catskills," said Dorothy,
+smiling.
+<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+<h4>"A WAY THEY HAVE IN THE NAVY"</h4>
+<P>
+CAPTAIN and Mrs. Kempt with Sabina had resided a week in the Matterhorn Hotel
+before the two girls arrived there. They had gone direct to New York, and
+it required the seven days to find a flat that suited them, of which they
+were to take possession on the first of October. Then there were the lawyers
+to see; a great many business details to settle, and an architect to consult.
+After leaving New York the girls spent a day at Haverstock, where Dorothy
+Amhurst bought a piece of land as shrewdly as if she had been in the real
+estate business all her life. After this transaction the girls drove to the
+station on the line connecting with the inclined railway, and so, as Katherine
+remarked, were "wafted to the skies on flowery beds of ease," which she explained
+to her shocked companion was all right, because it was a quotation from a
+hymn. When at last they reached their hotel, Katherine was in ecstasies.
+<P>
+"Isn't this heavenly?" she cried, "and, indeed, it ought to be, for I understand
+we are three thousand feet higher than we were in New York, and even the
+sky-scrapers can't compete with such an altitude."
+<P>
+The broad valley of the Hudson lay spread beneath them, stretching as far
+as the eye could see, shimmering in the thin, bluish veil of a summer evening,
+and miles away the river itself could be traced like a silver ribbon.
+<P>
+The gallant Captain, who had been energetically browbeaten by his younger
+daughter, and threatened with divers pains and penalties should he fail to
+pay attention and take heed to instructions, had acquitted himself with
+<I>eclat</I> in the selection of rooms for Dorothy and his daughter. The
+suite was situated in one corner of the huge caravansary, a large parlor
+occupying the angle, with windows on one side looking into the forest, and
+on the other giving an extended view across the valley. The front room adjoining
+the parlor was to be Dorothy's very own, and the end room belonged to Katherine,
+he said, as long as she behaved herself. If Dorothy ever wished to evict
+her strenuous neighbor, all she had to do was to call upon the Captain, and
+he would lend his aid, at which proffer of assistance Katherine tossed her
+head, and said she would try the room for a week, and, if she didn't like
+it, out Dorothy would have to go.
+<P>
+There followed days and nights of revelry. Hops, concerts, entertainments
+of all sorts, with a more pretentious ball on Saturday night, when the week-tired
+man from New York arrived in the afternoon to find temperature twenty degrees
+lower, and the altitude very much higher than was the case in his busy office
+in the city. Katherine revelled in this round of excitement, and indeed,
+so, in a milder way, did Dorothy. After the functions were over the girls
+enjoyed a comforting chat with one another in their drawing room; all windows
+open, and the moon a-shining down over the luminous valley, which it seemed
+to fill with mother-o'-pearl dust.
+<P>
+Young Mr. J. K. Henderson of New York, having danced repeatedly with Katherine
+on Saturday night, unexpectedly turned up for the hop on the following Wednesday,
+when he again danced repeatedly with the same joyous girl. It being somewhat
+unusual for a keen business man to take a four hours' journey during an afternoon
+in the middle of the week, and, as a consequence, arrive late at his office
+next morning, Dorothy began to wonder if a concrete formation, associated
+with the name of Prince Ivan Lermontoff of Russia, was strong enough to stand
+an energetic assault of this nature, supposing it were to be constantly repeated.
+It was after midnight on Wednesday when the two reached the corner parlor.
+Dorothy sat in a cane armchair, while Katherine threw herself into a
+rocking-chair, laced her fingers behind her head, and gazed through the open
+window at the misty infinity beyond.
+<P>
+"Well," sighed Katherine, "this has been the most enjoyable evening I ever
+spent!"
+<P>
+"Are you quite sure?" inquired her friend.
+<P>
+"Certainly. Shouldn't I know?"
+<P>
+"He dances well, then?"
+<P>
+"Exquisitely!"
+<P>
+"Better than Jack Lamont?"
+<P>
+"Well, now you mention him I must confess Jack danced very creditably."
+<P>
+"I didn't know but you might have forgotten the Prince."
+<P>
+"No, I haven't exactly forgotten him, but&#151; I do think he might have written
+to me."
+<P>
+"Oh, that's it, is it? Did he ask your permission to write?"
+<P>
+"Good gracious, no. We never talked of writing. Old red sandstone, rather,
+was our topic of conversation. Still, he might have acknowledged receipt
+of the book."
+<P>
+"But the book was given to him in return for the one he presented to you."
+<P>
+"Yes, I suppose it was. I hadn't thought of that."
+<P>
+"Then again, Kate, Russian notions regarding writing to young ladies may
+differ from ours, or he may have fallen overboard, or touched a live wire."
+<P>
+"Yes, there are many possibilities," murmured Katherine dreamily.
+<P>
+"It seems rather strange that Mr. Henderson should have time to come up here
+in the middle of the week."
+<P>
+"Why is it strange?" asked Katherine. "Mr. Henderson is not a clerk bound
+down to office hours. He's an official high up in one of the big insurance
+companies, and gets a simply tremendous salary."
+<P>
+"Really? Does he talk as well as Jack Lamont did?"
+<P>
+"He talks less like the Troy Technical Institute, and more like the 'Home
+Journal' than poor Prince Jack did, and then he has a much greater sense
+of humor. When I told him that the oath of an insurance man should be 'bet
+your life!' he laughed. Now, Jack would never have seen the point of that.
+Anyhow, the hour is too late, and I am too sleepy, to worry about young men,
+or jokes either. Good-night!"
+<P>
+Next morning's mail brought Dorothy a bulky letter decorated with English
+stamps. She locked the door, tore open the envelope, and found many sheets
+of thin paper bearing the heading of the Bluewater Club, Pall Mall.
+<P>
+"I am reminded of an old adage," she read, "to the effect that one should
+never cross a bridge before arriving at it. Since I bade good-by to you,
+up to this very evening, I have been plodding over a bridge that didn't exist,
+much to my own discomfort. You were with me when I received the message ordering
+me home to England, and I don't know whether or not I succeeded in suppressing
+all signs of my own perturbation, but we have in the Navy now a man who does
+not hesitate to overturn a court martial, and so I feared a re-opening of
+the Rock in the Baltic question, which might have meant the wrecking of my
+career. I had quite made up my mind, if the worst came to the worst, to go
+out West and become a cow-boy, but a passenger with whom I became acquainted
+on the 'Enthusiana' informed me, to my regret, that the cow-boy is largely
+a being of the past, to be met with only in the writings of Stewart Edward
+White, Owen Wister, and several other famous men whom he named. So you see,
+I went across the ocean tolerably depressed, finding my present occupation
+threatened, and my future uncertain.
+<P>
+"When I arrived in London I took a room at this Club, of which I have been
+a member for some years, and reported immediately at the Admiralty. But there,
+in spite of all diligence on my part, I was quite unable to learn what was
+wanted of me. Of course, I could have gone to my Uncle, who is in the government,
+and perhaps he might have enlightened me, although he has nothing to do with
+the Navy, but I rather like to avoid Uncle Metgurne. He brought me up since
+I was a small boy, and seems unnecessarily ashamed of the result. It is his
+son who is the <I>attache'</I> in St. Petersburg that I spoke to you about."
+<P>
+Dorothy ceased reading for a moment.
+<P>
+"Metgurne, Metgurne," she said to herself. "Surely I know that name?"
+<P>
+She laid down the letter, pressed the electric button, and unlocked the door.
+When the servant came, she said:
+<P>
+"Will you ask at the office if they have any biographical book of reference
+relating to Great Britain, and if so, please bring it to me."
+<P>
+The servant appeared shortly after with a red book which proved to be an
+English "Who's Who" dated two years back. Turning the pages she came to Metgurne.
+<P>
+"Metgurne, twelfth Duke of, created 1681, Herbert George Alan." Here followed
+a number of other titles, the information that the son and heir was Marquis
+of Thaxted, and belonged to the Diplomatic Service, that Lord Metgurne was
+H. M. Secretary of State for Royal Dependencies; finally a list of residences
+and clubs. She put down the book and resumed the letter.
+<P>
+"I think I ought to have told you that when I reach St. Petersburg I shall
+be as anxious to avoid my cousin Thaxted as I am to steer clear of his father
+in London. So I sat in my club, and read the papers. Dear me, this is evidently
+going to be a very long letter. I hope you won't mind. I think perhaps you
+may be interested in learning how they do things over here.
+<P>
+"After two or three days of anxious waiting there came a crushing communication
+from the Admiralty which confirmed my worst fears and set me at crossing
+the bridge again. I was ordered to report next morning at eleven, at Committee
+Room 5, in the Admiralty, and bring with me full particulars pertaining to
+the firing of gun number so-and-so of the 'Consternation's' equipment on
+such a date. I wonder since that I did not take to drink. We have every facility
+for that sort of thing in this club. However, at eleven next day, I presented
+myself at the Committee Room and found in session the grimmest looking five
+men I have ever yet been called upon to face. Collectively they were about
+ten times worse in appearance than the court-martial I had previously
+encountered. Four of the men I did not know, but the fifth I recognized at
+once, having often seen his portrait. He is Admiral Sir John Pendergest,
+popularly known in the service as 'Old Grouch,' a blue terror who knows
+absolutely nothing of mercy. The lads in the service say he looks so disagreeable
+because he is sorry he wasn't born a hanging judge. Picture a face as cleanly
+cut as that of some severe old Roman Senator; a face as hard as marble, quite
+as cold, and nearly as white, rescued from the appearance of a death mask
+by a pair of piercing eyes that glitter like steel. When looking at him it
+is quite impossible to believe that such a personage has ever been a boy
+who played pranks on his masters. Indeed, Admiral Sir John Pendergest seems
+to have sprung, fully uniformed and forbidding, from the earth, like those
+soldiers of mythology. I was so taken aback at confronting such a man that
+I never noticed my old friend, Billy Richardson, seated at the table as one
+of the minor officials of the Committee. Billy tells me I looked rather white
+about the lips when I realized what was ahead of me, and I daresay he was
+right. My consolation is that I didn't get red, as is my disconcerting habit.
+I was accommodated with a chair, and then a ferrety-faced little man began
+asking me questions, consulting every now and then a foolscap sheet of paper
+which was before him. Others were ready to note down the answers.
+<P>
+"'When did you fire the new gun from the "Consternation" in the Baltic?'
+<P>
+"Dear Miss Amhurst, I have confessed to you that I am not brilliant, and,
+indeed, such confession was quite unnecessary, for you must speedily have
+recognized the fact, but here let me boast for a line or two of my one
+accomplishment, which is mathematical accuracy. When I make experiments I
+don't note the result by rule of thumb. My answer to the ferret-faced man
+was prompt and complete.
+<P>
+"'At twenty-three minutes, seventeen seconds past ten, A.M., on May the third
+of this year,' was my reply.
+<P>
+"The five high officials remained perfectly impassive, but the two stenographers
+seemed somewhat taken by surprise, and one of them whispered, 'Did you say
+fifteen seconds, sir?'
+<P>
+"'He said seventeen,' growled Sir John Pendergest, in a voice that seemed
+to come out of a sepulchre.
+<P>
+"'Who sighted the gun?'
+<P>
+"'I did, sir.'
+<P>
+"'Why did not the regular gunner do that?'
+<P>
+"'He did, sir, but I also took observations, and raised the muzzle .000327
+of an inch.'
+<P>
+"'Was your gunner inaccurate, then, to that extent?' 
+<P>
+"'No, sir, but I had
+weighed the ammunition, and found it short by two ounces and thirty-seven
+grains.'
+<P>
+"I must not bore you with all the questions and answers. I merely give these
+as samples. They questioned me about the recoil, the action of the gun, the
+state of this, that and the other after firing, and luckily I was able to
+answer to a dot every query put to me. At the finish one of the judges asked
+me to give in my own words my opinion of the gun. Admiral Sir John glared
+at him as he put this question, for of course to any expert the answers I
+had furnished, all taken together, gave an accurate verdict on the gun, assuming
+my statements to have been correct, which I maintain they were. However,
+as Sir John made no verbal comment, I offered my opinion as tersely as I
+could.
+<P>
+"'Thank you, Lieutenant Drummond,' rumbled Sir John in his deep voice, as
+if he were pronouncing sentence, and, my testimony completed, the Committee
+rose.
+<P>
+"I was out in the street before Billy Richardson overtook me, and then he
+called himself to my attention by a resounding slap on the shoulder.
+<P>
+"'Alan, my boy,' he cried, 'you have done yourself proud. Your fortune's
+made.'
+<P>
+"'As how?' I asked, shaking him by the hand.
+<P>
+"'Why, we've been for weeks holding an inquiry on this blessed gun, and the
+question is whether or not a lot more of them are to be made. You know what
+an opinionated beast Old Grouch is. Well, my boy, you have corroborated his
+opinion of the gun in every detail. He is such a brow-beating, tyrannical
+brute that the rest of the Committee would rather like to go against him
+if they dared, but you have put a spoke in their wheel. Why, Sir John never
+said "thank you" to a human being since he was born until twenty-seven minutes
+and fifteen seconds after eleven this morning, as you would have put it,'
+and at the time of writing this letter this surmise of Billy's appears to
+be justified, for the tape in the club just now announced that the Committee
+has unanimously decided in favor of the gun, and adds that this is regarded
+as a triumph for the chairman, Admiral Sir John Pendergest, with various
+letters after his name.
+<P>
+"Dear Miss Amhurst, this letter, as I feared, has turned out intolerably
+long, and like our first conversation, it is all about myself. But then,
+you see, you are the only one on the other side of the water to whom I have
+confided my selfish worries, and I believe you to be so kind-hearted that
+I am sure you will not censure me for this once exceeding the limits of friendly
+correspondence. Having been deeply depressed during all the previous long
+days, the sudden reaction urges me to go out into Pall Mall, fling my cap
+in the air, and whoop, which action is quite evidently a remnant of my former
+cow-boy aspirations. Truth to tell, the Russian business seems already forgotten,
+except by my stout old Captain on the 'Consternation,' or my Uncle. The strenuous
+Sir John has had me haled across the ocean merely to give testimony, lasting
+about thirty-five minutes, when with a little patience he might have waited
+till the 'Consternation' herself arrived, or else have cabled for us to try
+the gun at Bar Harbor. I suppose, however, that after my unfortunate
+<I>contretemps</I> with Russia our government was afraid I'd chip a corner
+off the United States, and that they'd have to pay for it. So perhaps after
+all it was greater economy to bring me across on the liner 'Enthusiana.'
+<P>
+"By the way, I learned yesterday that the 'Consternation' has been ordered
+home, and so I expect to see Jack Lamont before many days are past. The ship
+will be paid off at Portsmouth, and then I suppose he and I will have our
+freedom for six months. I am rather looking forward to Jack's cooking me
+some weird but tasteful Russian dishes when we reach his blacksmith's shop
+in St. Petersburg. If I get on in Russia as I hope and expect, I shall spend
+the rest of my leave over in the States. I saw very little indeed of that
+great country, and am extremely anxious to see more. When one is on duty
+aboard ship one can only take very short excursions ashore. I should like
+to visit Niagara. It seems ridiculous that one should have been all along
+the American coast from Canada to New York, and never have got far enough
+inland to view the great Falls.
+
+<p>"Russia is rather dilatory in her methods,
+but I surely should know within two or three weeks whether I am going to
+succeed or not. If not, then there is no use in waiting there. I shall try
+to persuade the Prince to accompany me to America. During the weeks I am
+waiting in St. Petersburg I shall continually impress upon him the utter
+futility of a life which has not investigated the great electrical power
+plant at Niagara Falls. And then he is interested in the educational system
+of the United States. While we were going to the station early that morning
+he told me that the United States educational system must be the most wonderful
+in the world, because he found that your friend, Miss Katherine Kempt, knew
+more about electricity, metallurgy, natural philosophy and a great number
+of other things he is interested in, than all the ladies he has met in Europe
+put together. He thinks that's the right sort of education for girls, and
+all this rather astonished me, because, although your friend was most charming,
+she said nothing during my very short acquaintance with her to lead me to
+suspect that she had received a scientific training.
+
+<p>"Dear Miss Amhurst,
+I am looking every day for a letter from you, but none has yet been received
+by the Admiralty, who, when they get one, will forward it to whatever part
+of the world I happen to be in."
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+<h4>"WHEN JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME"</h4>
+<P>
+A SUMMER hotel that boasts a thousand acres of forest, more or less, which
+serve the purposes of a back-yard, affords its guests, even if all its multitude
+of rooms are occupied, at least one spot for each visitor to regard as his
+or her favorite nook. So large an extent of woodland successfully defies
+landscape gardening. It insists on being left alone, and its very immensity
+raises a financial barrier against trimly-kept gravel walks. There were plenty
+of landscape garden walks in the immediate vicinity of the hotel, and some
+of them ambitiously penetrated into the woods, relapsing from the civilization
+of beaten gravel into a primitive thicket trail, which, however, always led
+to some celebrated bit of picturesqueness: a waterfall, or a pulpit rock
+upstanding like a tower, or the fancied resemblance of a human face carved
+by Nature from the cliff, or a view-point jutting out over the deep chasm
+of the valley, which usually supported a rustic summer house or pavilion
+where unknown names were carved on the woodwork&#151; the last resort of the
+undistinguished to achieve immortality by means of a jack-knife.
+<P>
+Dorothy discovered a little Eden of her own, to which no discernible covert-way
+led, for it was not conspicuous enough to obtain mention in the little gratis
+guide which the hotel furnished&#151; a pamphlet on coated paper filled with half-tone
+engravings, and half-extravagant eulogies of what it proclaimed to be, an
+earthly paradise, with the rates by the day or week given on the cover page
+to show on what terms this paradise might be enjoyed.
+<P>
+Dorothy's bower was green, and cool, and crystal, the ruggedness of the rocks
+softened by the wealth of foliage. A very limpid spring, high up and out
+of sight among the leaves, sent its waters tinkling down the face of the
+cliff, ever filling a crystal-clear lakelet at the foot, which yet was never
+full. Velvety and beautiful as was the moss surrounding this pond, it was
+nevertheless too damp to form an acceptable couch for a human being, unless
+that human being were brave enough to risk the rheumatic inconveniences which
+followed Rip Van Winkle's long sleep in these very regions, so Dorothy always
+carried with her from the hotel a feather-weight, spider's-web hammock, which
+she deftly slung between two saplings, their light suppleness giving an almost
+pneumatic effect to this fairy net spread in a fairy glen; and here the young
+woman swayed luxuriously in the relaxing delights of an indolence still too
+new to have become commonplace or wearisome.
+<P>
+She always expected to read a great deal in the hammock, but often the book
+slipped unnoticed to the moss, and she lay looking upward at the little discs
+of blue sky visible through the checkering maze of green leaves. One afternoon,
+deserted by the latest piece of fictional literature, marked in plain figures
+on the paper cover that protected the cloth binding, one dollar and a half,
+but sold at the department stores for one dollar and eight cents, Dorothy
+lay half-hypnotized by the twinkling of the green leaves above her, when
+she heard a sweet voice singing a rollicking song of the Civil War, and so
+knew that Katherine was thus heralding her approach.
+<BLOCKQUOTE>
+"'When Johnny comes marching home again,<BR>
+  &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; Hurrah!
+  Hurrah!<BR>
+  &nbsp; We'll give him a hearty welcome then,<BR>
+  &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Hurrah!
+  Hurrah!<BR>
+  &nbsp; The men will cheer, the boys will shout,<BR>
+  &nbsp; The ladies they will all turn out,<BR>
+  &nbsp; And we'll all feel gay<BR>
+  &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;When Johnny comes marching home.'"
+</BLOCKQUOTE>
+<P>
+Dorothy went still further back into the history of her country, and gave
+a faint imitation of an Indian war-whoop, to let the oncomer know she was
+welcome, and presently Katherine burst impetuously through the dense undergrowth.
+<P>
+"So here you are, Miss Laziness," she cried.
+<P>
+"Here I am, Miss Energy, or shall I call you Miss-applied Energy? Katherine,
+you have walked so fast that you are quite red in the face."
+<P>
+"It isn't exertion, it's vexation. Dorothy, I have had a perfectly terrible
+time. It is the anxiety regarding the proper discipline of parents that is
+spoiling the nervous system of American children. Train them up in the way
+they should go, and when they are old they <I>do</I> depart from it. There's
+nothing more awful than to own parents who think they possess a sense of
+humor. Thank goodness mother has none!"
+<P>
+"Then it is your father who has been misbehaving?"
+<P>
+"Of course it is. He treats the most serious problem of a woman's life as
+if it were the latest thing in 'Life.'"
+<P>
+Dorothy sat up in the hammock.
+<P>
+"The most important problem? That means a proposal. Goodness gracious, Kate,
+is that insurance man back here again?"
+<P>
+"<I>What</I> insurance man?"
+<P>
+"Oh, heartless and heart-breaking Katherine, is there another? Sit here in
+the hammock beside me, and tell me all about it."
+<P>
+"No, thank you," refused Katherine. "I weigh more than you, and I cannot
+risk my neck through the collapse of that bit of gossamer. I must take care
+of myself for his sake."
+<P>
+"Then it is the life insurance man whose interests you are consulting? Have
+you taken out a policy with him?"
+<P>
+"Dear me, you are nearly as bad as father, but not quite so funny. You are
+referring to Mr. Henderson, I presume. A most delightful companion for a
+dance, but, my dear Dorothy, life is not all glided out to the measures of
+a Strauss waltz."
+<P>
+"True; quite undisputable, Kate, and them sentiments do you credit. Who is
+the man?"
+<P>
+"The human soul," continued Katherine seriously, "aspires to higher things
+than the society columns of the New York Sunday papers, and the frivolous
+chatter of an overheated ball-room."
+<P>
+"Again you score, Kate, and are rising higher and higher in my estimation.
+I see it all now. Those solemn utterances of yours point directly toward
+Hugh Miller's 'Old Red Sandstone' and works of that sort, and now I remember
+your singing 'When Johnny comes marching home.' I therefore take it that
+Jack Lamont has arrived."
+<P>
+"He has not."
+<P>
+"Then he has written to you?"
+<P>
+"He has not."
+<P>
+"Oh, well, I give it up. Tell me the tragedy your own way."
+<P>
+For answer Katherine withdrew her hands from behind her, and offered to her
+friend a sheet of paper she had been holding. Dorothy saw blazoned on the
+top of it a coat-of-arms, and underneath it, written in words of the most
+formal nature, was the information that Prince Ivan Lermontoff presented
+his warmest regards to Captain Kempt, U.S.N., retired, and begged permission
+to pay his addresses to the Captain's daughter Katherine. Dorothy looked
+up from the document, and her friend said calmly:
+<P>
+"You see, they need another Katherine in Russia."
+<P>
+"I hope she won't be like a former one, if all I've read of her is true.
+This letter was sent to your father, then?"
+<P>
+"It was, and he seems to regard it as a huge joke. Said he was going to cable
+his consent, and as the 'Consternation' has sailed away, he would try to
+pick her up by wireless telegraphy, and secure the young man that way: suggests
+that I shall have a lot of new photographs taken, so that he can hand them
+out to the reporters when they call for particulars. Sees in his mind's eye,
+he says, a huge black-lettered heading in the evening papers: 'A Russian
+Prince captures one of our fairest daughters,' and then insultingly hinted
+that perhaps, after all, it was better not to use my picture, as it might
+not bear out the 'fair daughter' fiction of the heading."
+<P>
+"Yes, Kate, I can see that such treatment of a vital subject must have been
+very provoking."
+<P>
+"Provoking? I should say it was! He pretended he was going to tack this letter
+up on the notice-board in the hall of the hotel, so that every one might
+know what guests of distinction the Matterhorn House held. But the most
+exasperating feature of the situation is that this letter has been lying
+for days and days at our cottage in Bar Harbor. I am quite certain that I
+left instructions for letters to be forwarded, but, as nothing came, I
+telegraphed yesterday to the people who have taken our house, and now a whole
+heap of belated correspondence has arrived, with a note from our tenant saying
+he did not know our address. You will see at the bottom of the note that
+the Prince asks my father to communicate with him by sending a reply to the
+'Consternation' at New York, but now the 'Consternation' has sailed for England,
+and poor John must have waited and waited in vain."
+<P>
+"Write care of the 'Consternation' in England."
+<P>
+"But Jack told me that the 'Consternation' paid off as soon as she arrived,
+and probably he will have gone to Russia."
+<P>
+"If you address him at the Admiralty in London, the letter will be forwarded
+whereever he happens to be."
+<P>
+"How do you know?"
+<P>
+"I have heard that such is the case."
+<P>
+"But you're not sure, and I want to be certain."
+<P>
+"Are you really in love with him, Kate?"
+<P>
+"Of course I am. You know that very well, and I don't want any stupid
+misapprehension to arise at the beginning, such as allows a silly author
+to carry on his story to the four-hundredth page of such trash as this,"
+and she gently touched with her toe the unoffending volume which lay on the
+ground beneath the hammock.
+<P>
+"Then why not adopt your father's suggestion, and cable? It isn't you who
+are cabling, you know."
+<P>
+"I couldn't consent to that. It would look as if we were in a hurry, wouldn't
+it?"
+<P>
+"Then let me cable."
+<P>
+"You? To whom?"
+<P>
+"Hand me up that despised book, Kate, and I'll write my cablegram on the
+fly-leaf. If you approve of the message, I'll go to the hotel, and send it
+at once."
+<P>
+Katherine gave her the book, and lent the little silver pencil which hung
+jingling, with other trinkets, on the chain at her belt. Dorothy scribbled
+a note, tore out the fly-leaf, and presented it to Katherine, who read:
+<P>
+"Alan Drummond, Bluewater Club, Pall Mall, London. Tell Lamont that his letter
+to Captain Kempt was delayed, and did not reach the Captain until to-day.
+Captain Kempt's reply will be sent under cover to you at your club. Arrange
+for forwarding if you leave England.
+<P>
+Dorothy Amhurst."
+<P>
+When Katherine finished reading she looked up at her friend, and exclaimed:
+"Well!" giving that one word a meaning deep as the clear pool on whose borders
+she stood.
+<P>
+Dorothy's face reddened as if the sinking western sun was shining full upon
+it.
+<P>
+"You write to one another, then?"
+<P>
+"Yes."
+<P>
+"And is it a case of&#151;"
+<P>
+"No; friendship."
+<P>
+"Sure it is nothing more than that?"
+<P>
+Dorothy shook her head.
+<P>
+"Dorothy, you are a brick; that's what you are. You will do anything to help
+a friend in trouble."
+<P>
+Dorothy smiled.
+<P>
+"I have so few friends that whatever I can do for them will not greatly tax
+any capabilities I may possess."
+<P>
+"Nevertheless, Dorothy, I thoroughly appreciate what you have done. You did
+not wish any one to know you were corresponding with him, and yet you never
+hesitated a moment when you saw I was anxious."
+<P>
+"Indeed, Kate, there was nothing to conceal. Ours is a very ordinary exchange
+of letters. I have only had two: one at Bar Harbor a few days after he left,
+and another longer one since we came to the hotel, written from England."
+<P>
+"Did the last one go to Bar Harbor, too? How came you to receive it when
+we did not get ours?"
+<P>
+"It did not go to Bar Harbor. I gave him the address of my lawyers in New
+York, and they forwarded it to me here. Lieutenant Drummond was ordered home
+by some one who had authority to do so, and received the message while he
+was sitting with me on the night of the ball. He had got into trouble with
+Russia. There had been an investigation, and he was acquitted. I saw that
+he was rather worried over the order home and I expressed my sympathy as
+well as I could, hoping everything would turn out for the best. He asked
+if he might write and let me know the outcome, and, being interested, I quite
+willingly gave him permission, and my address. The letter I received was
+all about a committee meeting at the Admiralty in which he took part. He
+wrote to me from the club in Pall Mall to which I have addressed this cablegram."
+<P>
+There was a sly dimple in Katherine's cheeks as she listened to this
+straightforward explanation, and the faintest possible suspicion of a smile
+flickered at the corner of her mouth. She murmured, rather than sang:
+<P>
+"'A pair of lovesick maidens we.'"
+<P>
+"One, if you please," interrupted Dorothy.
+<P>
+"'Lovesick all against our will&#151; '"
+<P>
+"Only one."
+<P>
+"'Twenty years hence we shan't be
+<br>
+A pair of lovesick maidens still.'"
+<P>
+"I am pleased to note," said Dorothy demurely, "that the letter written by
+the Prince to your father has brought you back to the Gilbert and Sullivan
+plane again, although in this fairy glen you should quote from Iolanthe rather
+than from Patience."
+<P>
+"Yes, Dot, this spot might do for a cove in the 'Pirates of Penzance,' only
+we're too far from the sea. But, to return to the matter in hand, I don't
+think there will be any need to send that cablegram. I don't like the idea
+of a cablegram, anyhow. I will return to the hotel, and dictate to my frivolous
+father a serious composition quite as stately and formal as that received
+from the Prince. He will address it and seal it, and then if you are kind
+enough to enclose it in the next letter you send to Lieutenant Drummond,
+it will be sure to reach Jack Lamont ultimately."
+<P>
+Dorothy sprang from the hammock to the ground.
+<P>
+"Oh," she cried eagerly, "I'll go into the hotel with you and write my letter
+at once."
+<P>
+Katherine smiled, took her by the arm, and said:
+<P>
+"You're a dear girl, Dorothy. I'll race you to the hotel, as soon as we are
+through this thicket."
+<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+<h4>IN RUSSIA</h4>
+<P>
+THE next letter Dorothy received bore Russian stamps, and was dated at the
+black-smith's shop, Bolshoi Prospect, St. Petersburg. After a few preliminaries,
+which need not be set down here, Drummond continued:
+<P>
+"The day after Jack arrived in London, there being nothing whatever to detain
+him in England, we set off together for St. Petersburg, and are now domiciled
+above his blacksmith shop. We are not on the fashionable side of the river,
+but our street is wide, and a very short walk brings us to a bridge which,
+being crossed, allows us to wander among palaces if we are so disposed. We
+have been here only four days, yet a good deal has already been accomplished.
+The influence of the Prince has smoothed my path for me. Yesterday I had
+an audience with a very important personage in the Foreign Office, and to-day
+I have seen an officer of high rank in the navy. The Prince warns me to mention
+no names, because letters, even to a young lady, are sometimes opened before
+they reach the person to whom they are addressed. These officials who have
+been kind enough to receive me are gentlemen so polished that I feel quite
+uncouth in their presence. I am a little shaky in my French, and feared that
+my knowledge of that language might not carry me through, but both of these
+officials speak English much better than I do, and they seemed rather pleased
+I had voluntarily visited St. Petersburg to explain that no discourtesy was
+meant in the action I had so unfortunately taken on the Baltic, and they
+gave me their warmest assurances they would do what they could to ease the
+tension between our respective countries. It seems that my business here
+will be finished much sooner than I expected, and then I am off on the quickest
+steamer for New York, in the hope of seeing Niagara Falls. I have met with
+one disappointment, however. Jack says he cannot possibly accompany me to
+the United States. I have failed to arouse in him the faintest interest about
+the electric works at Niagara. He insists that he is on the verge of a most
+important discovery, the nature of which he does not confide in me. I think
+he is working too hard, for he is looking quite haggard and overdone, but
+that is always the way with him. He throws himself heart and soul into any
+difficulty that confronts him, and works practically night and day until
+he has solved it.
+<P>
+"Yesterday he gave the whole street a fright. I had just returned from the
+Foreign Office, and had gone upstairs to my room, when there occurred an
+explosion that shook the building from cellar to roof, and sent the windows
+of our blacksmith's shop rattling into the street. Jack had a most narrow
+escape, but is unhurt, although that fine beard of his was badly singed.
+He has had it shaved off, and now sports merely a mustache, looking quite
+like a man from New York. You wouldn't recognize him if you met him on Broadway.
+The carpenters and glaziers are at work to-day repairing the damage. I told
+Jack that if this sort of thing kept on I'd be compelled to patronize another
+hotel, but he says it won't happen again. It seems he was trying to combine
+two substances by adding a third, and, as I understood him, the mixing took
+place with unexpected suddenness. He has endeavored to explain to me the
+reaction, as he calls it, which occurred, but I seem to have no head for
+chemistry, and besides, if I am to be blown through the roof some of these
+days it will be no consolation to me when I come down upon the pavement outside
+to know accurately the different elements which contributed to my elevation.
+Jack is very patient in trying to instruct me, but he could not resist the
+temptation of making me ashamed by saying that your friend, Miss Katherine
+Kempt, would have known at once the full particulars of the reaction. Indeed,
+he says, she warned him of the disaster, by marking a passage in a book she
+gave him which foreshadowed this very thing. She must be a most remarkable
+young woman, and it shows how stupid I am that I did not in the least appreciate
+this fact when in her company."
+<P>
+The next letter was received a week later. He was getting on swimmingly,
+both at the Foreign Office and at the Russian Admiralty. All the officials
+he had met were most courteous and anxious to advance his interests. He wrote
+about the misapprehensions held in England regarding Russia, and expressed
+his resolve to do what he could when he returned to remove these false
+impressions.
+<P>
+"Of course," he went on, "no American or Englishman can support or justify
+the repressive measures so often carried out ruthlessly by the Russian police.
+Still, even these may be exaggerated, for the police have to deal with a
+people very much different from our own. It is rather curious that at this
+moment I am in vague trouble concerning the police. I am sure this place
+is watched, and I am also almost certain that my friend Jack is being shadowed.
+He dresses like a workman; his grimy blouse would delight the heart of his
+friend Tolstoi, but he is known to be a Prince, and I think the authorities
+imagine he is playing up to the laboring class, whom they despise. I lay
+it all to that unfortunate explosion, which gathered the police about us
+as if they had sprung from the ground. There was an official examination,
+of course, and Jack explained, apparently to everybody's satisfaction, exactly
+how he came to make the mistake that resulted in the loss of his beard and
+his windows. I don't know exactly how to describe the feeling of uneasiness
+which has come over me. At first sight this city did not strike me as so
+very much different from New York or London, and meeting, as I did, so many
+refined gentlemen in high places, I had come to think St. Petersburg was
+after all very much like Paris, or Berlin, or Rome. But it is different,
+and the difference makes itself subtly felt, just as the air in some coast
+towns of Britain is relaxing, and in others bracing. In these towns a man
+doesn't notice the effect at first, but later on he begins to feel it, and
+so it is here in St. Petersburg. Great numbers of workmen pass down our street.
+They all seem to know who the Prince is, and the first days we were here,
+they saluted him with a deference which I supposed was due to his rank, in
+spite of the greasy clothes he wore. Since the explosion an indefinable change
+has come over these workmen. They salute the Prince still when we meet them
+on the street, but there is in their attitude a certain sly sympathy, if
+I may so term it; a bond of camaraderie which is implied in their manner
+rather than expressed. Jack says this is all fancy on my part, but I don't
+think it is. These men imagine that Prince Ivan Lermontoff, who lives among
+them and dresses like them, is concocting some explosive which may yet rid
+them of the tyrants who make their lives so unsafe. All this would not matter,
+but what does matter is the chemical reaction, as I believe Jack would term
+it, which has taken place among the authorities. The authorities undoubtedly
+have their spies among the working-men, and know well what they are thinking
+about and talking about. I do not believe they were satisfied with the
+explanations Jack gave regarding the disaster. I have tried to impress upon
+Jack that he must be more careful in walking about the town, and I have tried
+to persuade him, after work, to dress like the gentleman he is, but he laughs
+at my fears, and assures me that I have gone from one extreme to the other
+in my opinion of St. Petersburg. First I thought it was like all other capitals;
+now I have swung too far in the other direction. He says the police of St.
+Petersburg would not dare arrest him, but I'm not so sure of that. A number
+of things occur to me, as usual, too late. Russia, with her perfect secret
+service system, must know that Prince Lermontoff has been serving in the
+British Navy. They know he returned to St. Petersburg, avoids all his old
+friends, and is brought to their notice by an inexplicable explosion, and
+they must be well aware, also, that he is in the company of the man who fired
+the shell at the rock in the Baltic, and that he himself served on the offending
+cruiser.
+<P>
+"As to my own affairs, I must say they are progressing slowly but satisfactorily;
+nevertheless, if Jack would leave St. Petersburg, and come with me to London
+or New York, where he could carry on his experiments quite as well, or even
+better than here, I should depart at once, even if I jeopardized my own
+prospects."
+<P>
+The next letter, some time later, began:
+<P>
+"Your two charming notes to me arrived here together. It is very kind of
+you to write to a poor exile and cheer him in his banishment. I should like
+to see that dell where you have swung your hammock. Beware of Hendrick Hudson's
+men, so delightfully written of by Washington Irving. If they offer you anything
+to drink, don't you take it. Think how disastrous it would be to all your
+friends if you went to sleep in that hammock for twenty years. It's the Catskills
+I want to see now rather than Niagara Falls. Your second letter containing
+the note from Captain Kempt to Jack was at once delivered to him. What on
+earth has the genial Captain written to effect such a transformation in my
+friend? He came to me that evening clothed in his right mind; in evening
+rig-out, with his decorations upon it, commanded me to get into my dinner
+togs, took me in a carriage across the river to the best restaurant St.
+Petersburg affords, and there we had a champagne dinner in which he drank
+to America and all things American. Whether it was the enthusiasm produced
+by Captain Kempt's communication, or the effect of the champagne, I do not
+know, but he has reconsidered his determination not to return to the United
+States, and very soon we set out together for the west.
+<P>
+"I shall be glad to get out of this place. We were followed to the restaurant,
+I am certain, and I am equally certain that at the next table two police
+spies were seated, and these two shadowed us in a cab until we reached our
+blacksmith's shop. It is a humiliating confession to make, but somehow the
+atmosphere of this place has got on my nerves, and I shall be glad to turn
+my back on it. Jack pooh-poohs the idea that he is in any danger. Even the
+Governor of St. Petersburg, he says, dare not lay a finger on him, and as
+for the Chief of Police, he pours scorn on that powerful official. He scouts
+the idea that he is being watched, and all-in-all is quite humorous at my
+expense, saying that my state of mind is more fitting for a schoolgirl than
+for a stalwart man over six feet in height. One consolation is that Jack
+now has become as keen for America as I am. I expect that the interview arranged
+for me to-morrow with a great government official will settle my own business
+finally one way or another. A while ago I was confident of success, but the
+repeated delays have made me less optimistic now, although the gentle courtesy
+of those in high places remains undiminished.
+<P>
+"Dear Miss Amhurst, I cannot afford to fall lower in your estimation than
+perhaps I deserve, so I must say that this fear which has overcome me is
+all on account of my friend, and not on my own behalf at all. I am perfectly
+safe in Russia, being a British subject. My cold and formal Cousin Thaxted
+is a member of the British Embassy here, and my cold and formal uncle is
+a Cabinet Minister in England, facts which must be well known to these
+spy-informed people of St. Petersburg; so I am immune. The worst they could
+do would be to order me out of the country, but even that is unthinkable.
+If any one attempted to interfere with me, I have only to act the hero of
+the penny novelette, draw myself up to my full height, which, as you know,
+is not that of a pigmy, fold my arms across my manly chest, cry, 'Ha, ha!'
+and sing 'Rule Britannia,' whereupon the villains would wilt and withdraw.
+But Jack has no such security. He is a Russian subject, and, prince or commoner,
+the authorities here could do what they liked with him. I always think of
+things when it is too late to act. I wish I had urged Jack ashore at Bar
+Harbor, and induced him to take the oath of allegiance to the United States.
+I spoke to him about that coming home in the carriage, and to my amazement
+he said he wished he had thought of it himself at the time we were over there.
+<P>
+"But enough of this. I daresay he is in no real danger after all. Nevertheless,
+I shall induce him to pack to-morrow, and we will make for London together,
+so my next letter will bear a British stamp, and I assure you the air of
+England will taste good to one benighted Britisher whose name is Alan Drummond."
+<h3>CHAPTER X</h3>
+<h4>CALAMITY UNSEEN</h4>
+<P>
+THE habit of industry practised from childhood to maturity is not obliterated
+by an unexpected shower of gold. Dorothy was an early riser, and one morning,
+entering the parlor from her room she saw, lying upon the table, a letter
+with a Russian stamp, but addressed in an unknown hand to her friend Katherine
+Kempt. She surmised that here was the first communication from the Prince,
+and expected to learn all about it during the luncheon hour at the latest.
+But the morning and afternoon passed, and Katherine made no sign, which Dorothy
+thought was most unusual. All that day and the next Katherine went about
+silent, sedate and serious, never once quoting the humorous Mr. Gilbert.
+On the third morning Dorothy was surprised, emerging from her room, to see
+Katherine standing by the table, a black book in her hand. On the table lay
+a large package from New York, recently opened, displaying a number of volumes
+in what might be termed serious binding, leather or cloth, but none showing
+that high coloring which distinguishes the output of American fiction.
+<P>
+"Good-morning, Dorothy. The early bird is after the worm of science." She
+held forth the volume in her hand. "Steele's 'Fourteen-Weeks' Course in
+Chemistry,' an old book, but fascinatingly written. Dorothy," she continued
+with a sigh, "I want to talk seriously with you."
+<P>
+"About chemistry?" asked Dorothy.
+<P>
+"About men," said Katherine firmly, "and, incidentally, about women."
+<P>
+"An interesting subject, Kate, but you've got the wrong text-books. You should
+have had a parcel of novels instead."
+<P>
+Dorothy seated herself, and Katherine followed her example, Steele's
+"Fourteen-Weeks' Course" resting in her lap.
+<P>
+"Every man," began Katherine, "should have a guardian to protect him."
+<P>
+"From women?"
+<P>
+"From all things that are deceptive, and not what they seem."
+<P>
+"That sounds very sententious, Kate. What does it mean?"
+<P>
+"It means that man is a simpleton, easily taken in. He is too honest for
+crafty women, who delude him shamelessly."
+<P>
+"Whom have you been deluding, Kate?"
+<P>
+"Dorothy, I am a sneak."
+<P>
+Dorothy laughed.
+<P>
+"Indeed, Katherine, you are anything but that. You couldn't do a mean or
+ungenerous action if you tried your best."
+<P>
+"You think, Dorothy, I could reform?" she asked, breathlessly, leaning forward.
+<P>
+"Reform? You don't need to reform. You are perfectly delightful as you are,
+and I know no man who is worthy of you. That's a woman's opinion; one who
+knows you well, and there is nothing dishonest about the opinion, either,
+in spite of your tirade against our sex."
+<P>
+"Dorothy, three days ago, be the same more or less, I received a letter from
+John Lamont."
+<P>
+"Yes, I saw it on the table, and surmised it was from him."
+<P>
+"Did you? You were quite right. The reading of that letter has revolutionized
+my character. I am a changed woman, Dorothy, and thoroughly ashamed of myself.
+When I remember how I have deluded that poor, credulous young man, in making
+him believe I understood even the fringe of what he spoke about, it fills
+me with grief at my perfidy, but I am determined to amend my ways if hard
+study will do it, and when next I see him I shall talk to him worthily like
+a female Thomas A. Edison."
+<P>
+Again Dorothy laughed.
+<P>
+"Now, that's heartless of you, Dorothy. Don't you see I'm in deadly earnest?
+Must my former frivolity dog my steps through life? When I call to mind that
+I made fun to you of his serious purpose in life, the thought makes me cringe
+and despise myself."
+<P>
+"Nonsense, Kate, don't go to the other extreme. I remember nothing you have
+said that needs withdrawal. You have never made a malicious remark in your
+life, Kate. Don't make me defend you against yourself. You have determined,
+I take it, to plunge into the subjects which interest the man you are going
+to marry. That is a perfectly laudable ambition, and I am quite sure you
+will succeed."
+<P>
+"I know I don't deserve all that, Dorothy, but I like it just the same. I
+like people to believe in me, even if I sometimes lose faith in myself. May
+I read you an extract from his letter?"
+<P>
+"Don't if you'd rather not."
+<P>
+"I'd rather, Dorothy, if it doesn't weary you, but you will understand when
+you have heard it, in what a new light I regard myself."
+<P>
+The letter proved to be within the leaves of the late Mr. Steele's book on
+Chemistry, and from this volume she extracted it, pressed it for a moment
+against her breast with her open hand, gazing across at her friend.
+<P>
+"Dorothy, my first love-letter!"
+<P>
+She turned the crisp, thin pages, and began:
+<P>
+"'You may recollect that foot-note which you marked with red ink in the book
+you so kindly gave me on the subject of Catalysis, which did not pertain
+to the subject of the volume in question, and yet was so illuminative to
+any student of chemistry. They have done a great deal with Catalysis in Germany
+with amazing commercial results, but the subject is one so recent that I
+had not previously gone thoroughly into it.'"
+<P>
+Katherine paused in the reading, and looked across at her auditor, an expression
+almost of despair in her eloquent eyes.
+<P>
+"Dorothy, what under heaven is Catalysis?"
+<P>
+"Don't ask me," replied Dorothy, suppressing a laugh, struck by the ludicrousness
+of any young and beautiful woman pressing any such sentiments as these to
+her bosom.
+<P>
+"Have you ever heard of a Catalytic process, Dorothy?" beseeched Katherine.
+"It is one of the phrases he uses."
+<P>
+"Never; go on with the letter, Kate."
+<P>
+"'I saw at once that if I could use Catalytic process which would be
+instantaneous in its solidifying effect on my liquid limestone, instead of
+waiting upon slow evaporation, I could turn out building stone faster than
+one can make brick. You, I am sure, with your more alert mind, saw this when
+you marked that passage in red.'"
+<P>
+"Oh, Dorothy," almost whimpered Katherine,
+leaning back, "how can I go on? Don't you see what a sneak I am? It was bad
+enough to cozen with my heedless, random markings of the book, but to think
+that line of red ink might have been marked in his blood, for I nearly sent
+the poor boy to his death."
+<P>
+"Go on, Katherine, go on, go on!"
+<P>
+"'In my search for a Catalytic whose substance would remain unchanged after
+the reaction, I quite overlooked the chemical ingredients of one of the materials
+I was dealing with, and the result was an explosion which nearly blew the
+roof off the shop, and quite startled poor Drummond out of a year's growth.
+However, no real harm has been done, while I have been taught a valuable
+lesson; to take into account all the elements I am using. I must not become
+so intent on the subject I am pursuing as to ignore everything else.' And
+now, Dorothy, I want to ask you a most intimate question, which I beg of
+you to answer as frankly as I have confided in you."
+<P>
+"I know what your question is, Kate. A girl who is engaged wishes to see
+her friend in the same position. You would ask me if I am in love with Alan
+Drummond, and I answer perfectly frankly that I am not."
+<P>
+"You are quite sure of that, Dorothy?"
+<P>
+"Quite. He is the only man friend I have had, except my own father, and I
+willingly confess to a sisterly interest in him."
+<P>
+"Well, if that is all&#151;"
+<P>
+"It is all, Kate. Why?"
+<P>
+"Because there is something about him in this letter, which I would read
+to you if I thought you didn't care."
+<P>
+"Oh, he is in love with Jack's sister, very likely. I should think that would
+be a most appropriate arrangement. Jack is his best friend, and perhaps a
+lover would weaken the influence which Tolstoi exerts over an emotional person's
+mind. Lieutenant Drummond, with his sanity, would probably rescue a remnant
+of her estates."
+<P>
+"Oh, well, if you can talk as indifferently as that, you are all right, Dorothy.
+No, there is no other woman in the case. Here's what Jack says:
+<P>
+"'It is amazing how little an Englishman understands people of other nations.
+Here is my tall friend Drummond marching nonchalantly among dangers of which
+he has not the least conception. The authorities whom he thinks so courteous
+are fooling him to the top of his bent. There is, of course, no danger of
+his arrest, but nevertheless the eyes of the police are upon him, and he
+will not believe it, any more than be will believe he is being hoodwinked
+by the Foreign Minister. What I fear is that he will be bludgeoned on the
+street some dark night, or involved in a one-sided duel. Twice I have rescued
+him from an imminent danger which he has not even seen. Once in a restaurant
+a group of officers, apparently drunk, picked a quarrel and drew swords upon
+him. I had the less difficulty in getting him away because he fears a broil,
+or anything that will call down upon him the attention of his wooden-headed
+cousin in the Embassy. On another occasion as we were coming home toward
+midnight, a perfectly bogus brawl broke out suddenly all around us. Drummond
+was unarmed, but his huge fists sent sprawling two or three of his assailants.
+I had a revolver, and held the rest off, and so we escaped. I wish he was
+safely back in London again.' What do you think of that, Dorothy?"
+<P>
+"I think exactly what Mr. Lamont thinks. Lieutenant Drummond's mission to
+Russia seems to me a journey of folly."
+<P>
+"After all, I am glad you don't care, Dorothy. He should pay attention to
+what Jack says, for Jack knows Russia, and he doesn't. Still, let us hope
+he will come safely out of St. Petersburg. And now, Dot, for breakfast, because
+I must get to work."
+<P>
+Next morning Dorothy saw a letter for herself on the table in the now familiar
+hand-writing, and was more relieved than perhaps she would have confessed
+even to her closest friend, when she saw the twopence-halfpenny English stamp
+on the envelope. Yet its contents were startling enough, and this letter
+she did not read to Katherine Kempt, but bore its anxiety alone.
+<P>
+D<FONT size=-1>EAR</FONT> M<FONT size=-1>ISS</FONT>
+A<FONT size=-1>MHURST:</FONT>
+<P>
+I write you in great trouble of mind, not trusting this letter to the Russian
+post-office, but sending it by an English captain to be posted in London.
+Two days ago Jack Lamont disappeared; a disappearance as complete as if he
+had never existed. The night before last, about ten o'clock, I thought I
+heard him come into his shop below my room. Sometimes he works there till
+daylight, and as, when absorbed in his experiments, he does not relish
+interruptions, even from me, I go on with my reading until he comes upstairs.
+Toward eleven o'clock I thought I heard slight sounds of a scuffle, and a
+smothered cry. I called out to him, but received no answer. Taking a candle,
+I went downstairs, but everything was exactly as usual, the doors locked,
+and not even a bench overturned. I called aloud, but only the echo of this
+barn of a room replied. I lit the gas and made a more intelligent search,
+but with no result. I unlocked the door, and stood out in the street, which
+was quite silent and deserted. I began to doubt that I had heard anything
+at all, for, as I have told you, my nerves lately have been rather prone
+to the jumps. I sat up all night waiting for him, but he did not come. Next
+day I went, as had been previously arranged, to the Foreign Office, but was
+kept waiting in an anteroom for two hours, and then told that the Minister
+could not see me. I met a similar repulse at the Admiralty. I dined alone
+at the restaurant Jack and I frequent, but saw nothing of him. This morning
+he has not returned, and I am at my wit's end, not in the least knowing what
+to do. It is useless for me to appeal to the embassy of my country, for,
+Jack being a Russian, it has no jurisdiction. The last letter I received
+from you was tampered with. The newspaper extract you spoke of was not there,
+and one of the sheets of the letter was missing. Piffling business, I call
+it, this interfering with private correspondence.
+<P>
+Such was the last letter that Alan Drummond was ever to send to Dorothy Amhurst.
+<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3>
+<h4>THE SNOW</h4>
+<P>
+SUMMER waned; the evenings became chill, although the sun pretended at noon
+that its power was undiminished. Back to town from mountain and sea shore
+filtered the warm-weather idlers, but no more letters came from St. Petersburg
+to the hill by the Hudson. So far as our girls were concerned, a curtain
+of silence had fallen between Europe and America.
+<P>
+The flat was now furnished, and the beginning of autumn saw it occupied by
+the two friends. Realization in this instance lacked the delight of anticipation.
+At last Katherine was the bachelor girl she had longed to be, but the pleasures
+of freedom were as Dead Sea fruit to the lips. At last Dorothy was effectually
+cut off from all thoughts of slavery, with unlimited money to do what she
+pleased with, yet after all, of what advantage was it in solving the problem
+that haunted her by day and filled her dreams by night. She faced the world
+with seeming unconcern, for she had not the right to mourn, even if she knew
+he were dead. He had made no claim; had asked for no affection; had written
+no word to her but what all the world might read. Once a week she made a
+little journey up the Hudson to see how her church was coming on, and at
+first Katherine accompanied her, but now she went alone. Katherine was too
+honest a girl to pretend an interest where she felt none. She could not talk
+of architecture when she was thinking of a man and his fate. At first she
+had been querulously impatient when no second communication came. Her own
+letters, she said, must have reached him, otherwise they would have been
+returned. Later, dumb fear took possession of her, and she grew silent, plunged
+with renewed energy into her books, joined a technical school, took lessons,
+and grew paler and paler until her teachers warned her she was overdoing
+it. Inwardly she resented the serene impassiveness of her friend, who consulted
+calmly with the architect upon occasion about the decoration of the church,
+when men's liberty was gone, and perhaps their lives. She built up within
+her mind a romance of devotion, by which her lover, warning in vain the stolid
+Englishman, had at last been involved in the ruin that Drummond's stubbornness
+had brought upon them both, and unjustly implicated the quiet woman by her
+side in the responsibility of this sacrifice. Once or twice she spoke with
+angry impatience of Drummond and his stupidity, but Dorothy neither defended
+nor excused, and so no open rupture occurred between the two friends, for
+a quarrel cannot be one-sided.
+<P>
+But with a woman of Katherine's temperament the final outburst had to come,
+and it came on the day that the first flurry of snow fell through the still
+air, capering in large flakes past the windows of the flat down to the muddy
+street far below. Katherine was standing by the window, with her forehead
+leaning against the plate glass, in exactly the attitude that had been her
+habit in the sewing-room at Bar Harbor, but now the staccato of her fingers
+on the sill seemed to drum a Dead March of despair. The falling snow had
+darkened the room, and one electric light was aglow over the dainty Chippendale
+desk at which Dorothy sat writing a letter. The smooth, regular flow of the
+pen over the paper roused Katherine to a frenzy of exasperation. Suddenly
+she brought her clenched fist down on the sill where her fingers had been
+drumming.
+<P>
+"My God," she cried, "how can you sit there like an automaton with the snow
+falling?"
+<P>
+Dorothy put down her pen.
+<P>
+"The snow falling?" she echoed. "I don't understand!"
+<P>
+"Of course you don't. You don't think of the drifts in Siberia, and the two
+men you have known, whose hands you have clasped, manacled, driven through
+it with the lash of a Cossack's whip."
+<P>
+Dorothy rose quietly, and put her hands on the shoulders of the girl, feeling
+her frame tremble underneath her touch.
+<P>
+"Katherine," she said, quietly, but Katherine, with a nervous twitch of her
+shoulders flung off the friendly grasp.
+<P>
+"Don't touch me," she cried. "Go back to your letter-writing. You and the
+Englishman are exactly alike; unfeeling, heartless. He with his selfish
+stubbornness has involved an innocent man in the calamity his own stupidity
+has brought about."
+<P>
+"Katherine, sit down. I want to talk calmly with you."
+<P>
+"Calmly! Calmly! Yes, that is the word. It is easy for you to be calm when
+you don't care. But I care, and I cannot be calm."
+<P>
+"What do you wish to do, Katherine?"
+<P>
+"What can I do? I am a pauper and a dependent, but one thing I am determined
+to do, and that is to go and live in my father's house."
+<P>
+"If you were in my place, what would you do Katherine?"
+<P>
+"I would go to Russia."
+<P>
+"What would you do when you arrived there?"
+<P>
+"If I had wealth I would use it in such a campaign of bribery and corruption
+in that country of tyrants that I should release two innocent men. I'd first
+find out where they were, then I'd use all the influence I possessed with
+the American Ambassador to get them set free."
+<P>
+"The American Ambassador, Kate, cannot move to release either an Englishman
+or a Russian."
+<P>
+"I'd do it somehow. I wouldn't sit here like a stick or a stone, writing
+letters to my architect."
+<P>
+"Would you go to Russia alone?"
+<P>
+"No, I should take my father with me."
+<P>
+"That is an excellent idea, Kate. I advise you to go north by to-night's
+train, if you like, and see him, or telegraph to him to come and see us."
+<P>
+Kate sat down, and Dorothy drew the curtains across the window pane and snapped
+on the central cluster of electric lamps.
+<P>
+"Will you come with me if I go north?" asked Kate, in a milder tone than
+she had hitherto used.
+<P>
+"I cannot. I am making an appointment with a man in this room to-morrow."
+<P>
+"The architect, I suppose," cried Kate with scorn.
+<P>
+"No, with a man who may or may not give me information of Lamont or Drummond."
+<P>
+Katherine stared at her open-eyed.
+<P>
+"Then you have been doing something?"
+<P>
+"I have been trying, but it is difficult to know what to do. I have received
+information that the house in which Mr. Lamont and Mr. Drummond lived is
+now deserted, and no one knows anything of its former occupants. That information
+comes to me semi-officially, but it does not lead far. I have started inquiry
+through more questionable channels; in other words, I have invoked the aid
+of a Nihilist society, and although I am quite determined to go to Russia
+with you, do not be surprised if I am arrested the moment I set foot in St.
+Petersburg."
+<P>
+"Dorothy, why did you not let me know?"
+<P>
+"I was anxious to get some good news to give you, but it has not come yet."
+<P>
+"Oh, Dorothy," moaned Katherine, struggling to keep back the tears that would
+flow in spite of her. Dorothy patted her on the shoulder.
+<P>
+"You have been a little unjust," she said, "and I am going to prove that
+to you, so that in trying to make amends you may perhaps stop brooding over
+this crisis that faces two poor lone women. You wrong the Englishman, as
+you call him. Jack was arrested at least two days before he was. Nihilist
+spies say that both of them were arrested, the Prince first, and the Englishman
+several days later. I had a letter from Mr. Drummond a short time after you
+received yours from Mr. Lamont. I never showed it to you, but now things
+are so bad that they cannot be worse, and you are at liberty to read the
+letter if you wish to do so. It tells of Jack's disappearance, and of Drummond's
+agony of mind and helplessness in St. Petersburg. Since he has never written
+again, I am sure he was arrested later. I don't know which of the two was
+most at fault for what you call stubbornness, but I believe the explosion
+had more to do with the arrests than any action of theirs."
+<P>
+"And I was the cause of that," wailed Katherine.
+<P>
+"No, no, my dear girl. No one is to blame but the tyrant of Russia. Now the
+Nihilists insist that neither of these men has been sent to Siberia. They
+think they are in the prison of 'St. Peter and St. Paul.' That information
+came to me to-day in the letter I was just now answering. So, Katherine,
+I think you have been unjust to the Englishman. If he had been arrested first,
+there might be some grounds for what you charge, but they evidently gave
+him a chance to escape. He had his warning in the disappearance of his friend,
+and he had several days in which to get out of St. Petersburg, but he stood
+his ground."
+<P>
+"I'm sorry, Dorothy. I'm a silly fool, and to-day, when I saw the snow&#151; well,
+I got all wrought up."
+<P>
+"I think neither of the men are in the snow, and now I am going to say something
+else, and then never speak of the subject again. You say I didn't care, and
+of course you are quite right, for I confessed to you that I didn't. But
+just imagine&#151; imagine&#151; that I cared. The Russian Government can let the Prince
+go at any moment, and there's nothing more to be said. He has no redress,
+and must take the consequences of his nationality. But if the Russian Government
+have arrested the Englishman; if they have put him in the prison of 'St.
+Peter and St. Paul,' they dare not release him, unless they are willing to
+face war. The Russian Government can do nothing in his case but deny, demand
+proof, and obliterate all chance of the truth ever being known. Alan Drummond
+is doomed: they dare not release him. Now think for a moment how much worse
+my case would be than yours, if&#151; if&#151;" her voice quivered and broke for the
+moment, then with tightly clenched fists she recovered control of herself,
+and finished: "if I cared."
+<P>
+"Oh, Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy!" gasped Katherine, springing to her feet.
+<P>
+"No, no, don't jump at any false conclusion. We are both nervous wrecks this
+afternoon. Don't misunderstand me. I don't care&#151; I don't care, except that
+I hate tyranny, and am sorry for the victims of it."
+<P>
+"Dorothy, Dorothy!"
+<P>
+"We need a sane man in the house, Kate. Telegraph for your father to come
+down and talk to us both. I must finish my letter to the Nihilist."
+<P>
+"Dorothy!" said Katherine, kissing her.
+<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3>
+<h4>THE DREADED TROGZMONDOFF</h4>
+<P>
+THE Nihilist was shown into the dainty drawing room of the flat, and found
+Dorothy Amhurst alone, as he had stipulated, waiting for him. He was dressed
+in a sort of naval uniform and held a peaked cap in his hand, standing awkwardly
+there as one unused to luxurious surroundings. His face was bronzed with
+exposure to sun and storm, and although he appeared to be little more than
+thirty years of age his closely cropped hair was white. His eyes were light
+blue, and if ever the expression of a man's countenance betokened stalwart
+honesty, it was the face of this sailor. He was not in the least Dorothy's
+idea of a dangerous plotter.
+<P>
+"Sit down," she said, and he did so like a man ill at ease.
+<P>
+"I suppose Johnson is not your real name," she began.
+<P>
+"It is the name I bear in America, Madam."
+<P>
+"Do you mind my asking you some questions?"
+<P>
+"No, Madam, but if you ask me anything I am not allowed to answer I shall
+not reply."
+<P>
+"How long have you been in the United States?"
+<P>
+"Only a few months, Madam."
+<P>
+"How come you to speak English so well?"
+<P>
+"In my young days I shipped aboard a bark plying between Helsingfors and
+New York."
+<P>
+"You are a Russian?"
+<P>
+"I am a Finlander, Madam."
+<P>
+"Have you been a sailor all your life?"
+<P>
+"Yes, Madam. For a time I was an unimportant officer on board a battleship
+in the Russian Navy, until I was discovered to be a Nihilist, when I was
+cast into prison. I escaped last May, and came to New York."
+<P>
+"What have you been doing since you arrived here?"
+<P>
+"I was so fortunate as to become mate on the turbine yacht 'The Walrus,'
+owned by Mr. Stockwell."
+<P>
+"Oh, that's the multi-millionaire whose bank failed a month ago?"
+<P>
+"Yes, Madam."
+<P>
+"But does he still keep a yacht?"
+<P>
+"No, Madam. I think he has never been aboard this one, although it is probably
+the most expensive boat in these waters. I am told it cost anywhere from
+half a million to a million. She was built by Thornycroft, like a cruiser,
+with Parson's turbine engines in her. After the failure, Captain and crew
+were discharged, and I am on board as a sort of watchman until she is sold,
+but there is not a large market for a boat like 'The Walrus,' and I am told
+they will take the fittings out of her, and sell her as a cruiser to one
+of the South American republics."
+<P>
+"Well, Mr. Johnson, you ought to be a reliable man, if the Court has put
+you in charge of so valuable a property."
+<P>
+"I believe I am considered honest, Madam."
+<P>
+"Then why do you come to me asking ten thousand dollars for a letter which
+you say was written to me, and which naturally belongs to me?"
+<P>
+The man's face deepened into a mahogany brown, and he shifted his cap uneasily
+in his hands.
+<P>
+"Madam, I am not acting for myself. I am Secretary of the Russian Liberation
+Society. They, through their branch at St. Petersburg, have conducted some
+investigations on your behalf."
+<P>
+"Yes, for which I paid them very well."
+<P>
+Johnson bowed.
+<P>
+"Our object, Madam, is the repression of tyranny. For that we are in continual
+need of money. It is the poor, and not the millionaires, who subscribe to
+our fund. It has been discovered that you are a rich woman, who will never
+miss the money asked, and so the demand was made. Believe me, Madam, I am
+acting by the command of my comrades. I tried to persuade them to leave
+compensation to your own generosity, but they refused. If you consider their
+demand unreasonable, you have but to say so, and I will return and tell them
+your decision."
+<P>
+"Have you brought the letter with you?"
+<P>
+"Yes, Madam."
+<P>
+"Must I agree to your terms before seeing it?"
+<P>
+"Yes, Madam."
+<P>
+"Have you read it?"
+<P>
+"Yes, Madam."
+<P>
+"Do you think it worth ten thousand dollars?"
+<P>
+The sailor looked up at the decorated ceiling for several moments before
+he replied.
+<P>
+"That is a question I cannot answer," he said at last. "It all depends on
+what you think of the writer."
+<P>
+"Answer one more question. By whom is the letter signed?"
+<P>
+"There is no signature, Madam. It was found in the house where the two young
+men lived. Our people searched the house from top to bottom surreptitiously,
+and they think the writer was arrested before he had finished the letter.
+There is no address, and nothing to show for whom it is intended, except
+the phrase beginning, 'My dearest Dorothy.'"
+<P>
+The girl leaned back in her chair, and drew a long breath. "It is not for
+me," she said, hastily; then bending forward, she cried suddenly:
+<P>
+"I agree to your terms: give it to me."
+<P>
+The man hesitated, fumbling in his inside pocket.
+<P>
+"I was to get your promise in writing," he demurred.
+<P>
+"Give it to me, give it to me," she demanded. "I do not break my word."
+<P>
+He handed her the letter.
+<P>
+"My dearest Dorothy," she read, in writing well known to her. "You may judge
+my exalted state of mind when you see that I dare venture on such a beginning.
+I have been worrying myself and other people all to no purpose. I have received
+a letter from Jack this morning, and so suspicious had I grown that for a
+few moments I suspected the writing was but an imitation of his. He is a
+very impulsive fellow, and can think of only one thing at a time, which accounts
+for his success in the line of invention. He was telegraphed to that his
+sister was ill, and left at once to see her. I had allowed my mind to become
+so twisted by my fears for his safety that, as I tell you, I suspected the
+letter to be counterfeit at first. I telegraphed to his estate, and received
+a prompt reply saying that his sister was much better, and that he was already
+on his way back, and would reach me at eleven to-night. So that's what happens
+when a grown man gets a fit of nerves. I drew the most gloomy conclusions
+from the fact that I had been refused admission to the Foreign Office and
+the Admiralty. Yesterday that was all explained away. The business is at
+last concluded, and I was shown copies of the letters which have been forwarded
+to my own chiefs at home. Nothing could be more satisfactory. To-morrow Jack
+and I will be off to England together.
+
+<p>"My dearest Dorothy (second time of
+asking), I am not a rich man, but then, in spite of your little fortune of
+Bar Harbor, you are not a rich woman, so we stand on an equality in that,
+even though you are so much my superior in everything else. I have five hundred
+pounds a year, which is something less than two thousand five hundred dollars,
+left me by my father. This is independent of my profession. I am very certain
+I will succeed in the Navy now that the Russian Government has sent those
+letters, so, the moment I was assured of that, I determined to write and
+ask you to be my wife. Will you forgive my impatience, and pander to it by
+cabling to me at the Bluewater Club, Pall Mall, the word 'Yes' or the word
+'Undecided'? I shall not allow you the privilege of cabling 'No.' And please
+give me a chance of pleading my case in person, if you use the longer word.
+Ah, I hear Jack's step on the stair. Very stealthily he is coming, to surprise
+me, but I'll surprise&#151;"
+<P>
+Here the writing ended. She folded the letter, and placed it in her desk,
+sitting down before it.
+<P>
+"Shall I make the check payable to you, or to the Society?"
+<P>
+"To the Society, if you please, Madam."
+<P>
+"I shall write it for double the amount asked. I also am a believer in liberty."
+<P>
+"Oh, Madam, that is a generosity I feel we do not deserve. I should like
+to have given you the letter after all you have done for us with no conditions
+attached."
+<P>
+"I am quite sure of that," said Dorothy, bending over her writing. She handed
+him the check, and he rose to go.
+<P>
+"Sit down again, if you please. I wish to talk further with you. Your people
+in St. Petersburg think my friends have not been sent to Siberia? Are they
+sure of that?"
+<P>
+"Well, Madam, they have means of knowing those who are transported, and they
+are certain the two young men were not among the recent gangs sent. They
+suppose them to be in the fortress of 'St. Peter and St. Paul', at least
+that's what they say."
+<P>
+"You speak as if you doubted it."
+<P>
+"I do doubt it."
+<P>
+"They have been sent to Siberia after all?"
+<P>
+"Ah, Madam, there are worse places than Siberia. In Siberia there is a chance:
+in the dreadful Trogzmondoff there is none."
+<P>
+"What is the Trogzmondoff?"
+<P>
+"A bleak 'Rock in the Baltic,' Madam, the prison in which death is the only
+goal that releases the victim."
+<P>
+Dorothy rose trembling, staring at him, her lips white.
+<P>
+"'A Rock in the Baltic!' Is that a prison, and not a fortress, then?"
+<P>
+"It is both prison and fortress, Madam. If Russia ever takes the risk of
+arresting a foreigner, it is to the Trogzmondoff he is sent. They drown the
+victims there; drown them in their cells. There is a spring in the rock,
+and through the line of cells it runs like a beautiful rivulet, but the pulling
+of a lever outside stops the exit of the water, and drowns every prisoner
+within. The bodies are placed one by one on a smooth, inclined shute of polished
+sandstone, down which this rivulet runs so they glide out into space, and
+drop two hundred feet into the Baltic Sea. No matter in what condition such
+a body is found, or how recent may have been the execution, it is but a drowned
+man in the Baltic. There are no marks of bullet or strangulation, and the
+currents bear them swiftly away from the rock."
+<P>
+"How come you to know all this which seems to have been concealed from the
+rest of the world?"
+<P>
+"I know it, Madam, for the best of reasons. I was sentenced this very year
+to Trogzmondoff. In my youth trading between Helsingfors and New York, I
+took out naturalization papers in New York, because I was one of the crew
+on an American ship. When they illegally impressed me at Helsingfors and
+forced me to join the Russian Navy, I made the best of a bad bargain, and
+being an expert seaman, was reasonably well treated, and promoted, but at
+last they discovered I was in correspondence with a Nihilist circle in London,
+and when I was arrested, I demanded the rights of an American citizen. That
+doomed me. I was sent, without trial, to the Trogzmondoff in April of this
+year. Arriving there I was foolish enough to threaten, and say my comrades
+had means of letting the United States Government know, and that a battleship
+would teach the gaolers of the rock better manners.
+<P>
+"The cells hewn in the rock are completely dark, so I lost all count of time.
+You might think we would know night from day by the bringing in of our meals,
+but such was not the case. The gaoler brought in a large loaf of black bread,
+and said it was to serve me for four days. He placed the loaf on a ledge
+of rock about three feet from the floor, which served as both table and bed.
+In excavating the cell this ledge had been left intact, with a bench of stone
+rising from the floor opposite. Indeed, so ingenious had been the workmen
+who hewed out this room that they carved a rounded stone pillow at one end
+of the shelf.
+
+<p>"I do not know how many days I had been in prison when the
+explosion occurred. It made the whole rock quiver, and I wondered what had
+happened. Almost immediately afterward there seemed to be another explosion,
+not nearly so harsh, which I thought was perhaps an echo of the first. About
+an hour later my cell door was unlocked, and the gaoler, with another man
+holding a lantern, came in. My third loaf of black bread was partly consumed,
+so I must have been in prison nine or ten days. The gaoler took the loaf
+outside, and when he returned. I asked him what had happened. He answered
+in a surly fashion that my American warship had fired at the rock, and that
+the rock had struck back, whereupon she sailed away, crippled."
+<P>
+Dorothy, who had been listening intently to this discourse, here interrupted
+with:
+<P>
+"It was an English war-ship that fired the shell, and the Russian shot did
+not come within half a mile of her."
+<P>
+The sailor stared at her in wide-eyed surprise.
+<P>
+"You see, I have been making inquiries," she explained. "Please go on."
+<P>
+"I never heard that it was an English ship. The gaoler sneered at me, and
+said he was going to send me after the American vessel, as I suppose he thought
+it was. I feared by his taking away of the bread that it was intended to
+starve me to death, and was sorry I had not eaten more at my last meal. I
+lay down on the shelf of rock, and soon fell asleep. I was awakened by the
+water lapping around me. The cell was intensely still. Up to this I had always
+enjoyed the company of a little brook that ran along the side of the cell
+farthest from the door. Its music had now ceased, and when I sprang up I
+found myself to the waist in very cold water. I guessed at once the use of
+the levers outside the cell in the passage which I had noticed in the light
+of the lantern on the day I entered the place, and I knew now why it was
+that the prison door was not pierced by one of those gratings which enable
+the gaoler in the passage to look into the cell any time of night or day.
+Prisoners have told me that the uncertainty of an inmate who never knew when
+he might be spied upon added to the horror of the situation, but the water-tight
+doors of the Trogzmondoff are free from this feature, and for a very sinister
+reason.
+<P>
+"The channel in the floor through which the water runs when the cell is empty,
+and the tunnel at the ceiling through which the water flows when the cell
+is full, give plenty of ventilation, no matter how tightly the door may he
+closed. The water rose very gradually until it reached the top outlet, then
+its level remained stationary. I floated on the top quite easily, with as
+little exertion as was necessary to keep me in that position. If I raised
+my head, my brow struck the ceiling. The next cell to mine, lower down, was
+possibly empty. I heard the water pour into it like a little cataract. The
+next cell above, and indeed all the cells in that direction were flooded
+like my own. Of course it was no trouble for me to keep afloat; my only danger
+was that the intense coldness of the water would numb my body beyond recovery.
+Still, I had been accustomed to hardships of that kind before now, in the
+frozen North. At last the gentle roar of the waterfall ceased, and I realized
+my cell was emptying itself. When I reached my shelf again, I stretched my
+limbs back and forth as strenuously as I could, and as silently, for I wished
+no sound to give any hint that I was still alive, if, indeed, sound could
+penetrate to the passage, which is unlikely. Even before the last of the
+water had run away from the cell, I lay stretched out at full length on the
+floor, hoping I might have steadiness enough to remain death-quiet when the
+men came in with the lantern. I need have had no fear. The door was opened,
+one of the men picked me up by the heels, and, using my legs as if they were
+the shafts of a wheelbarrow, dragged me down the passage to the place where
+the stream emerged from the last cell, and into this torrent he flung me.
+There was one swift, brief moment of darkness, then I shot, feet first, into
+space, and dropped down, down, down through the air like a plummet, into
+the arms of my mother."
+<P>
+"Into what?" cried Dorothy, white and breathless, thinking the recital of
+these agonies had turned the man's brain.
+<P>
+"The Baltic, Madam, is the Finlander's mother. It feeds him in life, carries
+him whither he wishes to go, and every true Finlander hopes to die in her
+arms. The Baltic seemed almost warm after what I had been through, and the
+taste of the salt on my lips was good. It was a beautiful starlight night
+in May, and I floated around the rock, for I knew that in a cove on the eastern
+side, concealed from all view of the sea, lay a Finland fishing-boat, a craft
+that will weather any storm, and here in the water was a man who knew how
+to handle it. Prisoners are landed on the eastern side, and such advantage
+is taken of the natural conformation of this precipitous rock, that a man
+climbing the steep zigzag stairway which leads to the inhabited portion is
+hidden from sight of any craft upon the water even four or five hundred yards
+away. Nothing seen from the outside gives any token of habitation. The
+fishing-boat, I suppose, is kept for cases of emergency, that the Governor
+may communicate with the shore if necessary. I feared it might be moored
+so securely that I could not unfasten it. Security had made them careless,
+and the boat was tied merely by lines to rings in the rock, the object being
+to keep her from bruising her sides against the stone, rather than to prevent
+any one taking her away. I pushed her out into the open, got quietly inside,
+and floated with the swift tide, not caring to raise a sail until I was well
+out of gunshot distance. Once clear of the rock I spread canvas, and by daybreak
+was long out of sight of land. I made for Stockholm, and there being no mark
+or name on the boat to denote that it belonged to the Russian Government,
+I had little difficulty in selling it. I told the authorities what was perfectly
+true: that I was a Finland sailor escaping from the tyrant of my country,
+and anxious to get to America. As such events are happening practically every
+week along the Swedish coast I was not interfered with, and got enough money
+from the sale of the boat to enable me to dress myself well, and take passage
+to England, and from there first-class to New York on a regular liner.
+<P>
+"Of course I could have shipped as a sailor from Stockholm easy enough, but
+I was tired of being a common sailor, and expected, if I was respectably
+clothed, to get a better position than would otherwise be the case. This
+proved true, for crossing the ocean I became acquainted with Mr. Stockwell,
+and he engaged me as mate of his yacht. That's how I escaped from the
+Trogzmondoff, Madam, and I think no one but a Finlander could have done it."
+<P>
+"I quite agree with you," said Dorothy. "You think these two men I have been
+making inquiry about have been sent to the Trogzmondoff?"
+<P>
+"The Russian may not be there, Madam, but the Englishman is sure to be there."
+<P>
+"Is the cannon on the western side of the rock?"
+<P>
+"I don't know, Madam. I never saw the western side by daylight. I noticed
+nothing on the eastern side as I was climbing the steps, to show that any
+cannon was on the Trogzmondoff at all."
+<P>
+"I suppose you had no opportunity of finding out how many men garrison the
+rock?"
+<P>
+"No, Madam. I don't think the garrison is large. The place is so secure that
+it doesn't need many men to guard it. Prisoners are never taken out for exercise,
+and, as I told you, they are fed but once in four days."
+<P>
+"How large a crew can 'The Walrus' carry?"
+<P>
+"Oh, as many as you like, Madam. The yacht is practically an ocean liner."
+<P>
+"Is there any landing stage on the eastern side of the rock?"
+<P>
+"Practically none, Madam. The steamer stood out, and I was landed in the
+cove I spoke of at the foot of the stairway."
+<P>
+"It wouldn't be possible to bring a steamer like 'The Walrus' alongside the
+rock, then?"
+<P>
+"It would be possible in calm weather, but very dangerous even then."
+<P>
+"Could you find that rock if you were in command of a ship sailing the Baltic?"
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, Madam."
+<P>
+"If twenty or thirty determined men were landed on the stairway, do you think
+they could capture the garrison?"
+<P>
+"Yes, if they were landed secretly, but one or two soldiers at the top with
+repeating rifles might hold the stairway against an army, while their ammunition
+lasted."
+<P>
+"But if a shell were fired from the steamer, might not the attacking company
+get inside during the confusion among the defenders?"
+<P>
+"That is possible, Madam, but a private steamer firing shells, or, indeed,
+landing a hostile company, runs danger of meeting the fate of a pirate."
+<P>
+"You would not care to try it, then?"
+<P>
+"I? Oh, I should be delighted to try it, if you allow me to select the crew.
+I can easily get aboard the small arms and ammunition necessary, but I am
+not so sure about the cannon."
+<P>
+"Very good. I need not warn you to be extremely cautious regarding those
+you take into your confidence. Meanwhile, I wish you to communicate with
+the official who is authorized to sell the yacht. I am expecting a gentleman
+to-morrow in whose name the vessel will probably be bought, and I am hoping
+he will accept the captaincy of it."
+<P>
+"Is he capable of filling that position, Madam? Is he a sailor?"
+<P>
+"He was for many years captain in the United States Navy. I offer you the
+position of mate, but I will give you captain's pay, and a large bonus in
+addition if you faithfully carry out my plans, whether they prove successful
+or not. I wish you to come here at this hour to-morrow, with whoever is
+authorized to sell or charter the steamer. You may say I am undecided whether
+to buy or charter. I must consult Captain Kempt on that point."
+<P>
+"Thank you, Madam, I shall be here this time to-morrow."
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3>
+<h4>ENTRAPPED</h4>
+<P>
+PRINCE IVAN LERMONTOFF came to consider the explosion one of the luckiest
+things that had ever occurred in his workshop. Its happening so soon after
+he reached St. Petersburg he looked upon as particularly fortunate, because
+this gave him time to follow the new trend of thought along which his mind
+had been deflected by such knowledge as the unexpected outcome of his experiment
+had disclosed to him. The material he had used as a catalytic agent was a
+new substance which he had read of in a scientific review, and he had purchased
+a small quantity of it in London. If such a minute portion produced results
+so tremendous, he began to see that a man with an apparently innocent material
+in his waistcoat pocket might probably be able to destroy a naval harbor,
+so long as water and stone were in conjunction. There was also a possibility
+that a small quantity of ozak, as the stuff was called, mixed with pure water,
+would form a reducing agent for limestone, and perhaps for other minerals,
+which would work much quicker than if the liquid was merely impregnated with
+carbonic acid gas. He endeavored to purchase some ozak from Mr. Kruger, the
+chemist on the English quay, but that good man had never heard of it, and
+a day's search persuaded him that it could not be got in St. Petersburg,
+so the Prince induced Kruger to order half a pound of it from London or Paris,
+in which latter city it had been discovered. For the arrival of this order
+the Prince waited with such patience as he could call to his command, and
+visited poor Mr. Kruger every day in the hope of receiving it.
+<P>
+One afternoon he was delighted to hear that the box had come, although it
+had not yet been unpacked.
+<P>
+"I will send it to your house this evening," said the chemist. "There are
+a number of drugs in the box for your old friend Professor Potkin of the
+University, and he is even more impatient for his consignment than you are
+for yours. Ah, here he is," and as he spoke the venerable Potkin himself
+entered the shop.
+<P>
+He shook hands warmly with Lermontoff, who had always been a favorite pupil
+of his, and learned with interest that he had lately been to England and
+America.
+<P>
+"Cannot you dine with me this evening at half-past five?" asked the old man.
+"There are three or four friends coming, to whom I shall be glad to introduce
+you."
+<P>
+"Truth to tell, Professor," demurred the Prince, "I have a friend staying
+with me, and I don't just like to leave him alone."
+<P>
+"Bring him with you, bring him with you," said the Professor, "but in any
+case be sure you come yourself. I shall be expecting you. Make your excuses
+to your friend if he does not wish to endure what he might think dry discussion,
+because we shall talk nothing but chemistry and politics."
+<P>
+The Prince promised to be there whether his friend came or no. The chemist
+here interrupted them, and told the Professor he might expect his materials
+within two hours.
+<P>
+"And your package," he said to the Prince, "I shall send about the same time.
+I have been very busy, and can trust no one to unpack this box but myself."
+<P>
+"You need not trouble to send it, and in any case I don't wish to run the
+risk of having it delivered at a wrong address by your messenger. I cannot
+afford to wait so long as would be necessary to duplicate the order. I am
+dining with the Professor to-night, so will drive this way, and take the
+parcel myself."
+<P>
+"Perhaps," said the chemist, "it would be more convenient if I sent your
+parcel to Professor Potkin's house?"
+<P>
+"No," said the Prince decisively, "I shall call for it about five o'clock."
+<P>
+The Professor laughed.
+<P>
+"We experimenters," he said, "never trust each other," so they shook hands
+and parted.
+<P>
+On returning to his workshop, Lermontoff bounded up the stairs, and hailed
+his friend the Lieutenant.
+<P>
+"I say, Drummond, I'm going to dine to-night with Professor Potkin of the
+University, my old teacher in chemistry. His hour is half-past five, and
+I've got an invitation for you. There will be several scientists present,
+and no women. Will you come?"
+<P>
+"I'd a good deal rather not," said the Englishman, "I'm wiring into these
+books, and studying strategy; making plans for an attack upon Kronstadt."
+<P>
+"Well, you take my advice, Alan, and don't leave any of those plans round
+where the St. Petersburg police will find them. Such a line of study is carried
+on much safer in London than here. You'd be very welcome, Drummond, and the
+old boy would be glad to see you. You don't need to bother about evening
+togs&#151; plain living and high thinking, you know. I'm merely going to put on
+a clean collar and a new tie, as sufficient for the occasion."
+<P>
+"I'd rather not go, Jack, if you don't mind. If I'm there you'll all be trying
+to talk English or French, and so I'd feel myself rather a damper on the
+company. Besides, I don't know anything about science, and I'm trying to
+learn something about strategy. What time do you expect to be back?"
+<P>
+"Rather early; ten or half-past."
+<P>
+"Good, I'll wait up for you."
+<P>
+At five o'clock Jack was at the chemist's and received his package. On opening
+it he found the ozak in two four-ounce, glass-stoppered bottles, and these
+be put in his pocket.
+<P>
+"Will you give me three spray syringes, as large a size as you have, rubber,
+glass, and metal. I'm not sure but this stuff will attack one or other of
+them, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life running down to your
+shop."
+<P>
+Getting the syringes, he jumped into his cab, and was driven to the Professor's.
+<P>
+"You may call for me at ten," he said to the cabman.
+<P>
+There were three others besides the Professor and himself, and they were
+all interested in learning the latest scientific news from New York and London.
+<P>
+It was a quarter past ten when the company separated. Lermontoff stepped
+into his cab, and the driver went rattling up the street. In all the talk
+the Prince had said nothing of his own discovery, and now when he found himself
+alone his mind reverted to the material in his pocket, and he was glad the
+cabman was galloping his horse, that he might be the sooner in his workshop.
+Suddenly he noticed that they were dashing down a street which ended at the
+river.
+<P>
+"I say," he cried to the driver, "you've taken the wrong turning. This is
+a blind street. There's neither quay nor bridge down here. Turn back."
+<P>
+"I see that now," said the driver over his shoulder. "I'll turn round at
+the end where it is wider."
+<P>
+He did turn, but instead of coming up the street again, dashed through an
+open archway which led into the courtyard of a large building fronting the
+Neva. The moment the carriage was inside, the gates clanged shut.
+<P>
+"Now, what in the name of Saint Peter do you mean by this?" demanded the
+Prince angrily.
+<P>
+The cabman made no reply, but from a door to the right stepped a tall, uniformed
+officer, who said:
+<P>
+"Orders, your Highness, orders. The isvoshtchik is not to blame. May I beg
+of your Highness to accompany me inside?"
+<P>
+"Who the devil are you?" demanded the annoyed nobleman.
+<P>
+"I am one who is called upon to perform a disagreeable duty, which your Highness
+will make much easier by paying attention to my requests."
+<P>
+"Am I under arrest?"
+<P>
+"I have not said so, Prince Ivan."
+<P>
+"Then I demand that the gates be opened that I may return home, where more
+important business awaits me than talking to a stranger who refuses to reveal
+his identity."
+<P>
+"I hope you will pardon me, Prince Lermontoff. I act, as the isvoshtchik
+has acted, under compulsion. My identity is not in question. I ask you for
+the second time to accompany me."
+<P>
+"Then, for the second time I inquire, am I under arrest? If so, show me your
+warrant, and then I will go with you, merely protesting that whoever issued
+such a warrant has exceeded his authority."
+<P>
+"I have seen nothing of a warrant, your Highness, and I think you are confusing
+your rights with those pertaining to individuals residing in certain countries
+you have recently visited."
+<P>
+"You have no warrant, then?"
+<P>
+"I have none. I act on my superior's word, and do not presume to question
+it. May I hope that you will follow me without a further parley, which is
+embarrassing to me, and quite unhelpful to yourself. I have been instructed
+to treat you with every courtesy, but nevertheless force has been placed
+at my disposal. I am even to take your word of honor that you are unarmed,
+and your Highness is well aware that such leniency is seldom shown in St.
+Petersburg."
+<P>
+"Well, sir, even if my word of honor failed to disarm me, your politeness
+would. I carry a revolver. Do you wish it?"
+<P>
+"If your Highness will condescend to give it to me."
+<P>
+The Prince held the weapon, butt forward, to the officer, who received it
+with a gracious salutation.
+<P>
+"You know nothing of the reason for this action?"
+<P>
+"Nothing whatever, your Highness."
+<P>
+"Where are you going to take me?"
+<P>
+"A walk of less than three minutes will acquaint your Highness with the spot."
+<P>
+The Prince laughed.
+<P>
+"Oh, very well," he said. "May I write a note to a friend who is waiting
+up for me?"
+<P>
+"I regret, Highness, that no communications whatever can be allowed."
+<P>
+The Prince stepped down from the vehicle, walked diagonally across a very
+dimly lighted courtyard with his guide, entered that section of the rectangular
+building which faced the Neva, passed along a hall with one gas jet burning,
+then outside again, and immediately over a gang-plank that brought him aboard
+a steamer. On the lower deck a passage ran down the center of the ship, and
+along this the conductor guided his prisoner, opened the door of a stateroom
+in which candles were burning, and a comfortable bed turned down for occupancy.
+<P>
+"I think your Highness will find everything here that you need. If anything
+further is required, the electric bell will summon an attendant, who will
+get it for you."
+<P>
+"Am I not to be confronted with whoever is responsible for my arrest?"
+<P>
+"I know nothing of that, your Highness. My duty ends by escorting you here.
+I must ask if you have any other weapon upon you?"
+<P>
+"No, I have not."
+<P>
+"Will you give me your parole that you will not attempt to escape?"
+<P>
+"I shall escape if I can, of course."
+<P>
+"Thank you, Excellency," replied the officer, as suavely as if Lermontoff
+had given his parole. Out of the darkness he called a tall, rough-looking
+soldier, who carried a musket with a bayonet at the end of it. The soldier
+took his stand beside the door of the cabin.
+<P>
+"Anything else?" asked the Prince.
+<P>
+"Nothing else, your Highness, except good-night."
+<P>
+"Oh, by the way, I forgot to pay my cabman. Of course it isn't his fault
+that he brought me here."
+<P>
+"I shall have pleasure in sending him to you, and again, good-night."
+<P>
+"Good-night," said the Prince.
+<P>
+He closed the door of his cabin, pulled out his note-book, and rapidly wrote
+two letters, one of which he addressed to Drummond and the other to the Czar.
+When the cabman came he took him within the cabin and closed the door.
+<P>
+"Here," he said in a loud voice that the sentry could overhear if he liked,
+"how much do I owe you?"
+<P>
+The driver told him.
+<P>
+"That's too much, you scoundrel," he cried aloud, but as he did so he placed
+three gold pieces in the palm of the driver's hand together with the two
+letters, and whispered:
+<P>
+"Get these delivered safely, and I'll give you ten times this money if you
+call on Prince Lermontoff at the address on that note."
+<P>
+The man saluted, thanked him, and retired; a moment later he heard the jingle
+of a bell, and then the steady throb of an engine. There was no window to
+the stateroom, and he could not tell whether the steamer was going up or
+down the river. Up, he surmised, and he suspected his destination was
+Schlusselburg, the fortress-prison on an island at the source of the Neva.
+He determined to go on deck and solve the question of direction, but the
+soldier at the door brought down his gun and barred the passage.
+<P>
+"I am surely allowed to go on deck?"
+<P>
+"You cannot pass without an order from the captain."
+<P>
+"Well, send the captain to me, then."
+<P>
+"I dare not leave the door," said the soldier.
+<P>
+Lermontoff pressed the button, and presently an attendant came to learn what
+was wanted.
+<P>
+"Will you ask the captain to come here?"
+<P>
+The steward departed, and shortly after returned with a big, bronzed, bearded
+man, whose bulk made the stateroom seem small.
+<P>
+"You sent for the captain, and I am here."
+<P>
+"So am I," said the Prince jauntily. "My name is Lermontoff. Perhaps you
+have heard of me?"
+<P>
+The captain shook his shaggy head.
+<P>
+"I am a Prince of Russia, and by some mistake find myself your passenger
+instead of spending the night in my own house. Where are you taking me, Captain?"
+<P>
+"It is forbidden that I should answer questions."
+<P>
+"Is it also forbidden that I should go on deck?"
+<P>
+"The General said you were not to be allowed to leave this stateroom, as
+you did not give your parole."
+<P>
+"How can I escape from a steamer in motion, Captain?"
+<P>
+"It is easy to jump into the river, and perhaps swim ashore."
+<P>
+"So he is a general, is he? Well, Captain, I'll give you my parole that I
+shall not attempt to swim the Neva on so cold a night as this."
+<P>
+"I cannot allow you on deck now," said the Captain, "but when we are in the
+Gulf of Finland you may walk the deck with the sentry beside you."
+<P>
+"The Gulf of Finland!" cried Lermontoff. "Then you are going down the river?"
+<P>
+The big Captain looked at him with deep displeasure clouding his brow, feeling
+that he had been led to give away information which he should have kept to
+himself.
+<P>
+"You are not going up to Schlusselburg, then?"
+<P>
+"I told your Highness that I am not allowed to answer questions. The General,
+however, has given me a letter for you, and perhaps it may contain all you
+may want to know."
+<P>
+"The General has given you a letter, eh? Then why don't you let me have it?"
+<P>
+"He told me not to disturb you to-night, but place it before you at breakfast
+to-morrow."
+<P>
+"Oh, we're going to travel all night, are we?"
+<P>
+"Yes, Excellency."
+<P>
+"Did the General say you should not allow me to see the letter to-night?"
+<P>
+"No, your Excellency; he just said, 'Do not trouble his Highness to-night,
+but give him this in the morning.'"
+<P>
+"In that case let me have it now."
+<P>
+The Captain pulled a letter from his pocket and presented it to the Prince.
+It contained merely the two notes which Lermontoff had written to Drummond
+and to the Czar.
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV</h3>
+<h4>A VOYAGE INTO THE UNKNOWN</h4>
+<P>
+AFTER the Captain left him, Lermontoff closed and bolted the door, then sat
+down upon the edge of his bed to meditate upon the situation. He heard distant
+bells ringing on shore somewhere, and looking at his watch saw it was just
+eleven o'clock. It seemed incredible that three-quarters of an hour previously
+he had left the hospitable doors of a friend, and now was churning his way
+in an unknown steamer to an unknown destination. It appeared impossible that
+so much could have happened in forty-five minutes. He wondered what Drummond
+was doing, and what action he would take when he found his friend missing.
+<P>
+However, pondering over the matter brought no solution of the mystery, so,
+being a practical young man, he cast the subject from his mind, picked up
+his heavy overcoat, which he had flung on the bed, and hung it up on the
+hook attached to the door. As he did this his hand came in contact with a
+tube in one of the pockets, and for a moment he imagined it was his revolver,
+but he found it was the metal syringe he had purchased that evening from
+the chemist. This set his thoughts whirling in another direction. He took
+from an inside pocket one of the bottles of ozak, examining it under the
+candle light, wishing he had a piece of rock with which to experiment. Then
+with a yawn he replaced the materials in his overcoat pocket, took off his
+boots, and threw himself on the bed, thankful it was not an ordinary shelf
+bunk, but a generous and comfortable resting-place. Now Katherine appeared
+before his closed eyes, and hand in hand they wandered into dreamland together.
+<P>
+When he awoke it was pitch dark in his cabin. The candles, which he had neglected
+to extinguish, had burned themselves out. The short, jerky motion of the
+steamer indicated that he was aboard a small vessel, and that this small
+vessel was out in the open sea. He believed that a noise of some kind had
+awakened him, and this was confirmed by a knock at his door which caused
+him to spring up and throw back the bolt. The steward was there, but in the
+dim light of the passage he saw nothing of the sentinel. He knew it was daylight
+outside.
+<P>
+"The Captain, Excellency, wishes to know if you will breakfast with him or
+take your meal in your room?"
+<P>
+"Present my compliments to the Captain, and say I shall have great pleasure
+in breakfasting with him."
+<P>
+"It will be ready in a quarter of an hour, Excellency."
+<P>
+"Very good. Come for me at that time, as I don't know my way about the boat."
+<P>
+The Prince washed himself, smoothed out his rumpled clothes as well as he
+could, and put on his boots. While engaged in the latter operation the door
+opened, and the big Captain himself entered, inclosed in glistening oilskins.
+<P>
+"Hyvaa pyvaa, Highness," said the Captain. "Will you walk the deck before
+breakfast?"
+<P>
+"Good-day to <I>you</I>," returned the Prince, "and by your salutation I
+take you to be a Finn."
+<P>
+"I am a native of Abo," replied the Captain, "and as you say, a Finn, but
+I differ from many of my countrymen, as I am a good Russian also."
+<P>
+"Well, there are not too many good Russians, and here is one who would rather
+have heard that you were a good Finn solely."
+<P>
+"It is to prevent any mistake," replied the Captain, almost roughly, "that
+I mention I am a good Russian."
+<P>
+"Right you are, Captain, and as I am a good Russian also, perhaps good Russian
+Number One can tell me to what part of the world he is conveying good Russian
+Number Two, a man guiltless of any crime, and unwilling, at this moment,
+to take an enforced journey."
+<P>
+"We may both be good, but the day is not, Highness. It has been raining during
+the night, and is still drizzling. I advise you to put on your overcoat."
+<P>
+"Thanks, Captain, I will."
+<P>
+The Captain in most friendly manner took the overcoat from its hook, shook
+it out, and held it ready to embrace its owner. Lermontoff shoved right arm,
+then left, into the sleeves, hunched the coat up into place, and buttoned
+it at the throat.
+<P>
+"Again, Captain, my thanks. Lead the way and I will follow."
+<P>
+They emerged on deck into a dismal gray morning. No land or craft of any
+kind was in sight. The horizon formed a small, close circle round the ship.
+Clouds hung low, running before the wind, and bringing intermittently little
+dashes of rain that seemed still further to compress the walls of horizon.
+The sea was not what could be called rough, but merely choppy and fretful,
+with short waves that would not have troubled a larger craft. The steamer
+proved to be a small, undistinguished dingy-looking boat, more like a commercial
+tramp than a government vessel. An officer, apparently the mate, stood on
+the bridge, sinewy hands grasping the rail, peering ahead into the white
+mist that was almost a fog. The promenade deck afforded no great scope for
+pedestrianism, but Captain and prisoner walked back and forth over the restricted
+space, talking genially together as if they were old friends. Nevertheless
+there was a certain cautious guardedness in the Captain's speech; the wary
+craft of an unready man who is in the presence of a person more subtle than
+himself. The bluff Captain remembered he had been caught napping the night
+before, when, after refusing to tell the Prince the direction of the steamer,
+he had given himself away by mentioning the Gulf of Finland. Lermontoff noticed
+this reluctance to plunge into the abyss of free conversation, and so, instead
+of reassuring him he would ask no more questions, he merely took upon his
+own shoulders the burden of the talk, and related to the Captain certain
+wonders of London and New York.
+<P>
+The steward advanced respectfully to the Captain, and announced breakfast
+ready, whereupon the two men followed him into a saloon not much larger than
+the stateroom Lermontoff had occupied the night before, and not nearly so
+comfortably furnished. A plenteous breakfast was supplied, consisting principally
+of fish, steaming potatoes, black bread, and very strong tea. The Captain
+swallowed cup after cup of this scalding beverage, and it seemed to make
+him more and more genial as if it had been wine. Indeed, as time went on
+he forgot that it was a prisoner who sat before him, for quite innocently
+he said to the steward who waited on them:
+<P>
+"Have the poor devils below had anything to eat?"
+<P>
+"No orders, sir," replied the steward.
+<P>
+"Oh, well, give them something&#151; something hot. It may be their last meal,"
+then turning, he met the gaze of the Prince, demanded roughly another cup
+of tea, and explained:
+<P>
+"Three of the crew took too much vodka in St. Petersburg yesterday."
+<P>
+The Prince nodded carelessly, as if he believed, and offered his open cigarette
+case to the Captain, who shook his head.
+<P>
+"I smoke a pipe," he growled.
+<P>
+The Captain rose with his lighted pipe, and together they went up on deck
+again. The Prince saw nothing more of the tall sentinel who had been his
+guard the night before, so without asking permission he took it for granted
+that his movements, now they were in the open sea, were unrestricted, therefore
+he walked up and down the deck smoking cigarettes. At the stroke of a bell
+the Captain mounted the bridge and the mate came down.
+<P>
+Suddenly out of the thickness ahead loomed up a great black British freighter
+making for St. Petersburg, as the Prince supposed. The two steamers, big
+and little, were so close that each was compelled to sheer off a bit; then
+the Captain turned on the bridge and seemed for a moment uncertain what to
+do with his prisoner. A number of men were leaning over the bulwarks of the
+British ship, and it would have been quite possible for the person on one
+boat to give a message to those on the other. The Prince, understanding the
+Captain's quandary, looked up at him and smiled, but made no attempt to take
+advantage of his predicament. Some one on board the English ship shouted
+and fluttered a handkerchief, whereupon the Prince waved his cigarette in
+the air, and the big boat disappeared in the thickness of the east.
+<P>
+Lermontoff walked the deck, thinking very seriously about his situation,
+and wondering where they intended to take him. If he were to be put in prison,
+it must be in some place of detention on the coast of Finland, which seemed
+strange, because he understood that the fortresses there were already filled
+with dissatisfied inhabitants of that disaffected land. His first impression
+had been that banishment was intended, and he had expected to be landed at
+some Swedish or German port, but a chance remark made by the Captain at breakfast
+inclined him to believe that there were other prisoners on board not quite
+so favorably treated as himself. But why should he be sent out of Russia
+proper, or even removed from St. Petersburg, which, he was well aware, suffered
+from no lack of gaols. The continued voyage of the steamer through an open
+sea again aroused the hope that Stockholm was the objective point. If they
+landed him there it merely meant a little temporary inconvenience, and, once
+ashore, he hoped to concoct a telegram so apparently innocent that it would
+win through to his friend, and give Drummond at least the knowledge of his
+abiding-place. The thought of Drummond aroused all his old fear that the
+Englishman was to be the real victim, and this enforced voyage was merely
+a convenient method of getting himself out of the way.
+<P>
+After lunch a dismal drizzle set in that presently increased to a steady
+downpour, which drove Lermontoff to his cabin, and that room being unprovided
+with either window or electric light, the Prince struck a match to one of
+the candles newly placed on the washstand. He pushed the electric button
+summoning the steward, and, giving him some money, asked if there was such
+a thing as a piece of stone on board, carried as ballast, or for any other
+reason. The steward said he would inquire, and finally returned with a sharpening
+stone used for the knives in the galley. Bolting his door, Lermontoff began
+an experiment, and at once forgot he was a prisoner. He filled the wash-basin
+with water, and opening one of the glass-stoppered bottles, took out with
+the point of his knife a most minute portion of the substance within, which
+he dissolved in the water with no apparent effect. Standing the whetstone
+up on end, he filled the glass syringe, and directed a fine, vaporous spray
+against the stone. It dissolved before his eyes as a sand castle on the shore
+dissolves at the touch of an incoming tide.
+<P>
+"By St. Peter of Russia!" he cried, "I've got it at last! I must write to
+Katherine about this."
+<P>
+Summoning the steward again to take away this fluid, and bring him another
+pailful of fresh water, Lermontoff endeavored to extract some information
+from the deferential young man.
+<P>
+"Have you ever been in Stockholm?"
+<P>
+"No, Excellency."
+<P>
+"Or in any of the German ports?"
+<P>
+"No, Excellency."
+<P>
+"Do you know where we are making for now?"
+<P>
+"No, Excellency."
+<P>
+"Nor when we shall reach our destination?"
+<P>
+"No, Excellency."
+<P>
+"You have some prisoners aboard?"
+<P>
+"Three drunken sailors, Excellency."
+<P>
+"Yes, that's what the Captain said. But if it meant death for a sailor to
+be drunk, the commerce of the world would speedily stop."
+<P>
+"This is a government steamer, Excellency, and if a sailor here disobeys
+orders he is guilty of mutiny. On a merchant vessel they would merely put
+him in irons."
+<P>
+"I see. Now do you want to earn a few gold pieces?"
+<P>
+"Excellency has been very generous to me already," was the non-committal
+reply of the steward, whose eyes nevertheless twinkled at the mention of
+gold.
+<P>
+"Well, here's enough to make a jingle in your pocket, and here are two letters
+which you are to try to get delivered when you return to St. Petersburg."
+<P>
+"Yes, Excellency."
+<P>
+"You will do your best?"
+<P>
+"Yes, Excellency."
+<P>
+"Well, if you succeed, I'll make your fortune when I'm released."
+<P>
+"Thank you, Excellency."
+<P>
+That night at dinner the Captain opened a bottle of vodka, and conversed
+genially on many topics, without touching upon the particular subject of
+liberty. He partook sparingly of the stimulant, and, to Lermontoff's
+disappointment, it did not in the least loosen his tongue, and thus, still
+ignorant of his fate, the Prince turned in for the second night aboard the
+steamer.
+<P>
+When he awoke next morning he found the engines had stopped, and, as the
+vessel was motionless, surmised it had reached harbor. He heard the intermittent
+chuck-chuck of a pony engine, and the screech of an imperfectly-oiled crane,
+and guessed that cargo was being put ashore.
+<P>
+"Now," he said to himself, "if my former sentinel is at the door they are
+going to take me to prison. If he is absent, I am to be set free."
+<P>
+He jumped up, threw back the bolt, opened the door. There was no one there.
+In a very few minutes he was on deck, and found that the steamer was lying
+in the lee of a huge rock, which reminded him of Mont St. Michel in Normandy,
+except that it was about half again as high, and three times as long, and
+that there were no buildings of any kind upon it, nor, indeed, the least
+sign of human habitation.
+<P>
+The morning was fine; in the east the sun had just risen, and was flooding
+the grim rock with a rosy light. Except this rock, no trace of land was visible
+as far as the eye could see. Alongside the steamer was moored a sailing-boat
+with two masts, but provided also with thole-pins, and sweeps for rowing.
+The sails were furled, and she had evidently been brought to the steamer's
+side by means of the oars. Into this craft the crane was lowering boxes,
+bags, and what-not, which three or four men were stowing away. The mate was
+superintending this transshipment, and the Captain, standing with his back
+against the deck-house, was handing one by one certain papers, which Lermontoff
+took to be bills of lading, to a young man who signed in a book for each
+he received. When this transaction was completed, the young man saluted the
+Captain, and descended over the ship's side to the sail-boat.
+<P>
+"Good morning, Captain. At anchor, I see," said Lermontoff.
+<P>
+"No, not at anchor. Merely lying here. The sea is too deep, and affords no
+anchorage at this point."
+<P>
+"Where are all these goods going?"
+<P>
+The Captain nodded his head at the rock, and Lermontoff gazed at it again,
+running his eyes from top to bottom without seeing any vestige of civilization.
+<P>
+"Then you lie to the lee of this rock, and the small boat takes the supplies
+ashore?"
+<P>
+"Exactly," said the Captain.
+<P>
+"The settlement, I take it, is on the other side. What is it&#151; a lighthouse?"
+<P>
+"There's no lighthouse," said the Captain.
+<P>
+"Sort of coastguard, then?"
+<P>
+"Yes, in a way. They keep a lookout. And now, Highness, I see your overcoat
+is on your back. Have you left anything in your room?"
+<P>
+The Prince laughed.
+<P>
+"No, Captain, I forgot to bring a portmanteau with me."
+<P>
+"Then I must say farewell to you here."
+<P>
+"What, you are not going to maroon me on this pebble in the ocean?"
+<P>
+"You will be well taken care of, Highness."
+<P>
+"What place is this?"
+<P>
+"It is called the Trogzmondoff, Highness, and the water surrounding you is
+the Baltic."
+<P>
+"Is it Russian territory?"
+<P>
+"Very, <I>very</I> Russian," returned the Captain drawing a deep breath.
+"This way, if your Highness pleases. There is a rope ladder, which is sometimes
+a little unsteady for a landsman, so be careful."
+<P>
+"Oh, I'm accustomed to rope ladders. Hyvasti, Captain."
+<P>
+"Hyvasti, your Highness."
+<P>
+And with this mutual good-by in Finnish, the Prince went down the swaying
+ladder.
+<h3>CHAPTER XV</h3>
+<h4>"A HOME ON THE ROLLING DEEP"</h4>
+<P>
+FOR once the humorous expression had vanished from Captain Kempt's face,
+and that good-natured man sat in the dainty drawing-room of the flat a picture
+of perplexity. Dorothy had told him the story of the Nihilist, saying she
+intended to purchase the yacht, and outlining what she proposed to do with
+it when it was her own. Now she sat silent opposite the genial Captain, while
+Katherine stood by the window, and talked enough for two, sometimes waxing
+indignant, and occasionally giving, in terse language, an opinion of her
+father, as is the blessed privilege of every girl born in the land of the
+free, while the father took the censure with the unprotesting mildness of
+his nature.
+<P>
+"My dear girls, you really must listen to reason. What you propose to do
+is so absurd that it doesn't even admit of argument. Why, it's a filibustering
+expedition, that's what it is. You girls are as crazy as Walker of Nicaragua.
+Do you imagine that a retired Captain of the United States Navy is going
+to take command of a pirate craft of far less legal standing than the 'Alabama,'
+for then we were at war, but now we are at peace. Do you actually propose
+to attack the domain of a friendly country! Oh!" cried the Captain, with
+a mighty explosion of breath, for at this point his supply of language entirely
+gave out.
+<P>
+"No one would know anything about it," persisted Katherine.
+<P>
+"Not know about it? With a crew of men picked up here in New York, and coming
+back to New York? Not know about it? Bless my soul, the papers would be full
+of it before your men were an hour on shore. In the first place, you'd never
+find the rock."
+<P>
+"Then what's the harm of going in search of it?" demanded his daughter. "Besides
+that, Johnson knows exactly where it is."
+<P>
+"Johnson, Johnson! You're surely not silly enough to believe Johnson's
+cock-and-bull story?"
+<P>
+"I believe every syllable he uttered. The man's face showed that he was speaking
+the truth."
+<P>
+"But, my dear Kate, you didn't see him at all, as I understand the yarn.
+He was here alone with you, was he not, Dorothy?"
+<P>
+Dorothy smiled sadly.
+<P>
+"I told Kate all about it, and gave my own impression of the man's appearance."
+<P>
+"You are too sensible a girl to place any credit in what he said, surely?"
+<P>
+"I did believe him, nevertheless," replied Dorothy.
+<P>
+"Why, look you here. False in one thing, false in all. I'll just take a single
+point. He speaks of a spring sending water through the cells up there in
+the rock. Now, that is an impossibility. Wherever a spring exists, it comes
+from a source higher than itself."
+<P>
+"There are lots of springs up in the mountains," interrupted Katherine. "I
+know one on Mount Washington that is ten times as high as the rock in the
+Baltic."
+<P>
+"Quite so, Katherine, quite so, but nevertheless there is a lake, subterraneous
+or above ground, which feeds your White Mountain spring, and such a lake
+must be situated higher than the spring is. Why, girl, you ought to study
+hydrometeorology as well as chemistry. Here is a rock jutting up in midocean&#151;"
+<P>
+"It's in the Baltic, near the Russian coast," snapped Kate, "and I've no
+doubt there are mountains in Finland that contain the lake which feeds the
+spring."
+<P>
+"How far is that rock from the Finnish coast, then?"
+<P>
+"Two miles and a half," said Kate, quick as an arrow speeding from a bow.
+<P>
+"Captain, we don't know how far it is from the coast," amended Dorothy.
+<P>
+"I'll never believe the thing exists at all."
+<P>
+"Why, yes it does, father. How can you speak like that? Don't you know Lieutenant
+Drummond fired at it?"
+<P>
+"How do you know it was the same rock?"
+<P>
+"Because the rock fired back at him. There can't be two like that in the
+Baltic."
+<P>
+"No, nor one either," said the Captain, nearing the end of his patience.
+<P>
+"Captain Kempt," said Dorothy very soothingly, as if she desired to quell
+the rising storm, "you take the allegation about the spring of water to prove
+that Johnson was telling untruths. I expect him here within an hour, and
+I will arrange that you have an opportunity, privately, of cross-examining
+him. I think when you see the man, and listen to him, you will believe. What
+makes me so sure that he is telling the truth is the fact that he mentioned
+the foreign vessel firing at this rock, which I knew to be true, and which
+he could not possibly have learned anything about."
+<P>
+"He might very well have learned all particulars from the papers, Dorothy.
+They were full enough of the subject at the time, and, remembering this,
+he thought to strengthen his story by&#151;"
+<P>
+Katherine interrupted with great scorn.
+<P>
+"By adding verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative."
+<P>
+"Quite so, Kate; exactly what I was going to say myself. But to come back
+to the project itself. Granting the existence of the rock, granting the truth
+of Johnson's story, granting everything, granting even that the young men
+are imprisoned there, of which we have not the slightest proof, we could
+no more succeed in capturing that place from a frail pleasure yacht&#151;"
+<P>
+"It's built like a cruiser," said Katherine.
+<P>
+"Even if it were built like a battleship we would have no chance whatever.
+Why, that rock might defy a regular fleet. Our venture would simply be a
+marine Jameson Raid which would set the whole world laughing when people
+came to hear of it."
+<P>
+"Johnson said he could take it with half a dozen men."
+<P>
+"No, Kate," corrected Dorothy, "he said the very reverse; that two or three
+determined men on the rock with repeating rifles could defeat a host. It
+was I who suggested that we should throw a shell, and then rush the entrance
+in the confusion."
+<P>
+Captain Kempt threw up his hands in a gesture of despair.
+<P>
+"Great heavens, Dorothy Amhurst, whom I have always regarded as the mildest,
+sweetest and most charming of girls; to hear you calmly propose to throw
+a shell among a lot of innocent men defending their own territory against
+a perfectly unauthorized invasion! Throw a shell, say you, as if you were
+talking of tossing a copper to a beggar! Oh, Lord, I'm growing old. What
+will become of this younger generation? Well, I give it up. Dorothy, my dear,
+whatever will happen to those unfortunate Russians, I shall never recover
+from the shock of your shell. The thing is absolutely impossible. Can't you
+see that the moment you get down to details? How are you going to procure
+your shells, or your shell-firing gun? They are not to be bought at the first
+hardware store you come to on Sixth Avenue."
+<P>
+"Johnson says he can get them," proclaimed Kate with finality.
+<P>
+"Oh, damn Johnson! Dorothy, I beg your pardon, but really, this daughter
+of mine, combined with that Johnson of yours, is just a little more than
+I can bear."
+<P>
+"Then what are we to do?" demanded his daughter. "Sit here with folded hands?"
+<P>
+"That would be a great deal better than what you propose. You should do something
+sane. You mustn't involve a pair of friendly countries in war. Of course
+the United States would utterly disclaim your act, and discredit me if I
+were lunatic enough to undertake such a wild goose chase, which I'm not;
+but, on the other hand, if two of our girls undertook such an expedition,
+no man can predict the public clamor that might arise. Why, when the newspapers
+get hold of a question, you never know where they will end it. Undoubtedly
+you two girls should be sent to prison, and, with equal undoubtedness, the
+American people wouldn't permit it."
+<P>
+"You bet they wouldn't," said Katherine, dropping into slang.
+<P>
+"Well, then, if they wouldn't, there's war."
+<P>
+"One moment, Captain Kempt," said Dorothy, again in her mildest tones, for
+voices had again begun to run high, "you spoke of doing something sane. You
+understand the situation. What should you counsel us to do?"
+<P>
+The Captain drew a long breath, and leaned back in his chair.
+<P>
+"There, Dad, it's up to you," said Katherine. "Let us hear your proposal,
+and then you'll learn how easy it is to criticise."
+<P>
+"Well," said the Captain hesitatingly, "there's our diplomatic service&#151;"
+<P>
+"Utterly useless: one man is a Russian, and the other an Englishman. Diplomacy
+not only can do nothing, but won't even try," cried Kate triumphantly.
+<P>
+"Yet," said the Captain, with little confidence, "although the two men are
+foreigners, the two girls are Americans."
+<P>
+"We don't count: we've no votes," said Kate. "Besides, Dorothy tried the
+diplomatic service, and could not even get accurate information from it.
+Now, father, third time and out."
+<P>
+"Four balls are out, Kate, and I've only fanned the air twice. Now, girls,
+I'll tell you what I'd do. You two come with me to Washington. We will seek
+a private interview with the President. He will get into communication with
+the Czar, also privately, and outside of all regular channels. The Czar will
+put machinery in motion that is sure to produce those two young men much
+more effectually and speedily than any cutthroat expedition on a yacht."
+<P>
+"I think," said Dorothy, "that is an excellent plan."
+<P>
+"Of course it is," cried the Captain enthusiastically. "Don't you see the
+pull the President will have? Why, they've put an Englishman into 'the jug,'
+and when the President communicates this fact to the Czar he will be afraid
+to refuse, knowing that the next appeal may be from America to England, and
+when you add a couple of American girls to that political mix-up, why, what
+chance has the Czar?"
+<P>
+"The point you raise, Captain," said Dorothy, "is one I wish to say a few
+words about. The President cannot get Mr. Drummond released, because the
+Czar and all his government will be compelled to deny that they know anything
+of him. Even the President couldn't guarantee that the Englishman would keep
+silence if he were set at liberty. The Czar would know that, but your plan
+would undoubtedly produce Prince Ivan Lermontoff. All the president has to
+do is to tell the Czar that the Prince is engaged to an American girl, and
+Lermontoff will be allowed to go."
+<P>
+"But," objected the Captain, "as the Prince knows the Englishman is in prison,
+how could they be sure of John keeping quiet when Drummond is his best friend?"
+<P>
+"He cannot know that, because the Prince was arrested several days before
+Drummond was.
+<P>
+"They have probably chucked them both into the same cell," said the Captain,
+but Dorothy shook her head.
+<P>
+"If they had intended to do that, they would doubtless have arrested them
+together. I am sure that one does not know the fate of the other, therefore
+the Czar can quite readily let Lermontoff go, and he is certain to do that
+at a word from the President. Besides this, I am as confident that Jack is
+not in the Trogzmondoff, as I am sure that Drummond is. Johnson said it was
+a prison for foreigners."
+<P>
+"Oh, Dorothy," cried the Captain, with a deep sigh, "if we've got back again
+to Johnson&#151;" He waved his hand and shook his head.
+<P>
+The maid opened the door and said, looking at Dorothy:
+<P>
+"Mr. Paterson and Mr. Johnson."
+<P>
+"Just show them into the morning room," said Dorothy, rising. "Captain Kempt,
+it is awfully good of you to have listened so patiently to a scheme of which
+you couldn't possibly approve."
+<P>
+"Patiently!" sniffed the daughter.
+<P>
+"Now I want you to do me another kindness."
+<P>
+She went to the desk and picked up a piece of paper.
+<P>
+"Here is a check I have signed&#151; a blank check. I wish you to buy the yacht
+'Walrus' just as she stands, and make the best bargain you can for me. A
+man is so much better at this kind of negotiation than a woman."
+<P>
+"But surely, my dear Dorothy, you won't persist in buying this yacht?"
+<P>
+"It's her own money, father," put in Katherine.
+<P>
+"Keep quiet," said the Captain, rising, for the first time speaking with
+real severity, whereupon Katherine, in spite of the fact that she was older
+than twenty-one, was wise enough to obey.
+<P>
+"Yes, I am quite determined, Captain," said Dorothy sweetly.
+<P>
+"But, my dear woman, don't you see how you've been hoodwinked by this man
+Johnson? He is shy of a job. He has already swindled you out of twenty thousand
+dollars."
+<P>
+"No, he asked for ten only, Captain Kempt, and I voluntarily doubled the
+amount."
+<P>
+"Nevertheless, he has worked you up to believe that these young men are in
+that rock. He has done this for a very crafty purpose, and his purpose seems
+likely to succeed. He knows he will be well paid, and you have promised him
+a bonus besides. If he, with his Captain Kidd crew, gets you on that yacht,
+you will only step ashore by giving him every penny you possess. That's his
+object. He knows you are starting out to commit a crime&#151; that's the word,
+Dorothy, there's no use in our mincing matters&#151; you will be perfectly helpless
+in his hands. Of course, I could not allow my daughter Kate to go on such
+an expedition."
+<P>
+"I am over twenty-one years old," cried Kate, the light of rebellion in her
+eyes.
+<P>
+"I do not intend that either of you shall go, Katherine."
+<P>
+"Dorothy, I'll not submit to that," cried Katherine, with a rising tremor
+of anger in her voice, "I shall not be set aside like a child. Who has more
+at stake than I? And as for capturing the rock, I'll dynamite it myself,
+and bring home as large a specimen of it as the yacht will carry, and set
+it up on Bedloe's Island beside the Goddess and say, 'There's your statue
+of Liberty, and there's your statue of Tyranny!'"
+<P>
+"Katherine," chided her father, "I never before believed that a child of
+mine could talk such driveling nonsense."
+<P>
+"Paternal heredity, father," retorted Kate.
+<P>
+"Your Presidential plan, Captain Kempt," interposed Dorothy, "is excellent
+so far as Prince Lermontoff is concerned, but it cannot rescue Lieutenant
+Drummond. Now, there are two things you can do for me that will make me always
+your debtor, as, indeed, I am already, and the first is to purchase for me
+the yacht. The second is to form your own judgment of the man Johnson, and
+if you distrust him, then engage for me one-half the crew, and see that they
+are picked Americans."
+<P>
+"First sane idea I have heard since I came into this flat," growled the Captain.
+<P>
+"The Americans won't let the Finlander hold me for ransom, you may depend
+upon that."
+<P>
+It was a woe-begone look the gallant Captain cast on the demure and determined
+maiden, then, feeling his daughter's eye upon him, he turned toward her.
+<P>
+"I'm going, father," she said, with a firmness quite equal to his own, and
+he on his part recognized when his daughter had toed the danger line. He
+indulged in a laugh that had little of mirth in it.
+<P>
+"All I can say is that I am thankful you haven't made up your minds to kidnap
+the Czar. Of course you are going, Kate, So am I."
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI</h3>
+<h4>CELL NUMBER NINE</h4>
+<P>
+AS the sailing-boat cast off, and was shoved away from the side of the steamer,
+there were eight men aboard. Six grasped the oars, and the young clerk who
+had signed for the documents given to him by the Captain took the rudder,
+motioning Lermontoff to a seat beside him. All the forward part of the boat,
+and, indeed, the space well back toward the stern, was piled with boxes and
+bags.
+<P>
+"What is this place called?" asked the Prince, but the young steersman did
+not reply.
+<P>
+Tying the boat to iron rings at the small landing where the steps began,
+three of the men shipped their oars. Each threw a bag over his shoulder,
+walked up half a dozen steps and waited. The clerk motioned Lermontoff to
+follow, so he stepped on the shelf of rock and looked upward at the rugged
+stairway cut between the main island and an outstanding perpendicular ledge
+of rock. The steps were so narrow that the procession had to move up in Indian
+file; three men with bags, then the Prince and the clerk, followed by three
+more men with boxes. Lermontoff counted two hundred and thirty-seven steps,
+which brought him to an elevated platform, projecting from a doorway cut
+in the living rock, but shielded from all sight of the sea. The eastern sun
+shone through this doorway, but did not illumine sufficiently the large room
+whose walls, ceiling and floor were of solid stone. At the farther end a
+man in uniform sat behind a long table on which burned an oil lamp with a
+green shade. At his right hand stood a broad, round brazier containing glowing
+coals, after the Oriental fashion, and the officer was holding his two hands
+over it, and rubbing them together. The room, nevertheless, struck chill
+as a cellar, and Lermontoff heard a constant smothered roar of water.
+<P>
+The clerk, stepping forward and saluting, presented to the Governor seated
+there the papers and envelopes given him by the Captain. The officer selected
+a blue sheet of paper, and scrutinized it for a moment under the lamp.
+<P>
+"Where are the others?"
+<P>
+"We have landed first the supplies, Governor; then the boat will return for
+the others."
+<P>
+The Governor nodded, and struck a bell with his open palm. There entered
+a big man with a bunch of keys at his belt, followed by another who carried
+a lighted lantern.
+<P>
+"Number Nine," said the Governor to the gaolers.
+<P>
+"I beg your pardon, sir, am I a prisoner?" asked Lermontoff.
+<P>
+The Governor gave utterance to a sound that was more like the grunt of a
+pig than the ejaculation of a man. He did not answer, but looked up at the
+questioner, and the latter saw that his face, gaunt almost as that of a living
+skeleton, was pallid as putty.
+<P>
+"Number Nine," he repeated, whereupon the gaoler and the man with the lantern
+put a hand each on Lermontoff's shoulders, and marched him away. They walked
+together down a long passage, the swaying lantern casting its yellow rays
+on the iron bolts of door after door, until at last the gaoler stopped, threw
+back six bolts, inserted a key, unlocked the door, and pushed it ponderously
+open. The lantern showed it to be built like the door of a safe, but unlike
+that of a safe it opened inwards. As soon as the door came ajar Lermontoff
+heard the sound of flowing water, and when the three entered, he noticed
+a rapid little stream sparkling in the rays of the lantern at the further
+end of the cell. He saw a shelf of rock and a stone bench before it. The
+gaoler placed his hands on a black loaf, while the other held up the lantern.
+<P>
+"That will last you four days," said the gaoler.
+<P>
+"Well, my son, judging from the unappetizing look of it, I think it will
+last me much longer."
+<P>
+The gaoler made no reply, but he and the man with the lantern retired, drawing
+the door heavily after them. Lermontoff heard the bolts thrust into place,
+and the turn of the key; then silence fell, all but the babbling of the water.
+He stood still in the center of the cell, his hands thrust deep in the pockets
+of his overcoat, and, in spite of this heavy garment, he shivered a little.
+<P>
+"Jack, my boy," he muttered, "this is a new deal, as they say in the West.
+I can imagine a man going crazy here, if it wasn't for that stream. I never
+knew what darkness meant before. Well, let's find out the size of our kingdom."
+<P>
+He groped for the wall, and stumbling against the stone bench, whose existence
+he had forgotten, pitched head forward to the table, and sent the four-day
+loaf rolling on the floor. He made an ineffectual grasp after the loaf, fearing
+it might fall into the stream and be lost to him, but he could not find it,
+and now his designs for measuring the cell gave place to the desire of finding
+that loaf. He got down on his hands and knees, and felt the stone floor inch
+by inch for half an hour, as he estimated the time, but never once did he
+touch the bread.
+<P>
+"How helpless a man is in the dark, after all," he muttered to himself. "I
+must do this systematically, beginning at the edge of the stream."
+<P>
+On all fours he reached the margin of the rivulet, and felt his way along
+the brink till his head struck the opposite wall. He turned round, took up
+a position that he guessed was three feet nearer the door, and again traversed
+the room, becoming so eager in the search that he forgot for the moment the
+horror of his situation, just as, when engaged in a chemical experiment,
+everything else vanished from his mind, and thus after several journeys back
+and forth he was again reminded of the existence of the stone bench by butting
+against it when he knew he was still several feet from the wall. Rubbing
+his head, he muttered some unfavorable phrases regarding the immovable bench,
+then crawled round it twice, and resumed his transverse excursions. At last
+he reached the wall that held the door, and now with breathless eagerness
+rubbed his shoulder against it till he came to the opposite corner. He knew
+he had touched with knees and hands practically every square inch of space
+in the floor, and yet no bread.
+<P>
+"Now, that's a disaster," cried he, getting up on his feet, and stretching
+himself. "Still, a man doesn't starve in four days. I've cast my bread on
+the waters. It has evidently gone down the stream. Now, what's to hinder
+a man escaping by means of that watercourse? Still, if he did, what would
+be the use? He'd float out into the Baltic Sea, and if able to swim round
+the rock, would merely be compelled to knock at the front door and beg admission
+again. No, by Jove, there's the boat, but they probably guard it night and
+day, and a man in the water would have no chance against one in the boat.
+Perhaps there's gratings between the cells. Of course, there's bound to be.
+No one would leave the bed of a stream clear for any one to navigate. Prisoners
+would visit each other in their cells, and that's not allowed in any respectable
+prison. I wonder if there's any one next door on either side of me. An iron
+grid won't keep out the sound. I'll try," and going again to the margin of
+the watercourse, he shouted several times as loudly as he could, but only
+a sepulchral echo, as if from a vault, replied to him.
+<P>
+"I imagine the adjoining cells are empty. No enjoyable companionship to be
+expected here. I wonder if they've got the other poor devils up from the
+steamer yet. I'll sit down on the bench and listen."
+<P>
+He could have found the bench and shelf almost immediately by groping round
+the wall, but he determined to exercise his sense of direction, to pit himself
+against the darkness.
+<P>
+"I need not hurry," he said, "I may be a long time here."
+<P>
+In his mind he had a picture of the cell, but now that he listened to the
+water it seemed to have changed its direction, and he found he had to rearrange
+this mental picture, and make a different set of calculations to fit the
+new position. Then he shuffled slowly forward with hands outstretched, but
+he came to the wall, and not to the bench. Again he mapped out his route,
+again endeavored, and again failed.
+<P>
+"This is bewildering," he muttered. "How the darkness baffles a man. For
+the first time in my life I appreciate to the full the benediction of God's
+command, 'Let there be light.'"
+<P>
+He stood perplexed for a few moments, and, deeply thinking, his hands
+automatically performed an operation as the servants of habit. They took
+from his pocket his cigarette case, selected a tube of tobacco, placed it
+between his lips, searched another pocket, brought out a match-box, and struck
+a light. The striking of the match startled Lermontoff as if it had been
+an explosion; then he laughed, holding the match above his head, and there
+at his feet saw the loaf of black bread. It seemed as if somebody had twisted
+the room end for end. The door was where he thought the stream was, and thus
+he learned that sound gives no indication of direction to a man blindfolded.
+The match began to wane, and feverishly he lit his cigarette.
+<P>
+"Why didn't I think of the matches, and oh! what a pity I failed to fill
+my pockets with them that night of the Professor's dinner party! To think
+that matches are selling at this moment in Sweden two hundred and fifty for
+a halfpenny!"
+<P>
+Guided by the spark at the end of his cigarette, he sought the bench and
+sat down upon it. He was surprised to find himself so little depressed as
+was actually the case. He did not feel in the least disheartened. Something
+was going to happen on his behalf; of that he was quite certain. It was perfectly
+ridiculous that even in Russia a loyal subject, who had never done any illegal
+act in his life, a nobleman of the empire, and a friend of the Czar, should
+be incarcerated for long without trial, and even without accusation. He had
+no enemies that he knew of, and many friends, and yet he experienced a vague
+uneasiness when be remembered that his own course of life had been such that
+he would not be missed by his friends. For more than a year he had been in
+England, at sea, and in America, so much absorbed in his researches that
+he had written no private letters worth speaking of, and if any friend were
+asked his whereabouts, he was likely to reply:
+<P>
+"Oh, Lermontoff is in some German university town, or in England, or traveling
+elsewhere. I haven't seen him or heard of him for months. Lost in a wilderness
+or in an experiment, perhaps."
+<P>
+These unhappy meditations were interrupted by the clang of bolts. He thought
+at first it was his own door that was being opened, but a moment later knew
+it was the door of the next cell up-stream. The sound, of course, could not
+penetrate the extremely thick wall, but came through the aperture whose roof
+arched the watercourse. From the voices he estimated that several prisoners
+were being put into one cell, and he wondered whether or not he cared for
+a companion. It would all depend. If fellow-prisoners hated each other, their
+enforced proximity might prove unpleasant.
+<P>
+"We are hungry," he heard one say. "Bring us food."
+<P>
+The gaoler laughed.
+<P>
+"I will give you something to drink first."
+<P>
+"That's right," three voices shouted. "Vodka, vodka!"
+<P>
+Then the door clanged shut again, and he heard the murmur of voices in Russian,
+but could not make out what was said. One of the new prisoners, groping round,
+appeared to have struck the stone bench, as he himself had done. The man
+in the next cell swore coarsely, and Lermontoff, judging from such snatches
+of their conversation as he could hear that they were persons of a low order,
+felt no desire to make their more intimate acquaintance, and so did not shout
+to them, as he had intended to do. And now he missed something that had become
+familiar; thought it was a cigarette he desired, for the one he had lit had
+been smoked to his very lips, then he recognized it was the murmur of the
+stream that had ceased.
+<P>
+"Ah, they can shut it off," he said. "That's interesting. I must investigate,
+and learn whether or no there is communication between the cells. Not very
+likely, though."
+<P>
+He crawled on hands and knees until he came to the bed of the stream, which
+was now damp, but empty. Kneeling down in its course, he worked his way toward
+the lower cell, and, as he expected, came to stout iron bars. Crouching thus
+he sacrificed a second match, and estimated that the distance between the
+two cells was as much as ten feet of solid rock, and saw also that behind
+the perpendicular iron bars were another horizontal set, then another
+perpendicular, then a fourth horizontal.
+<P>
+While in this position he was startled by a piercing scream to the rear.
+He backed out from the tunnel and stood upright once more. He heard the sound
+of people splashing round in water. The screamer began to jabber like a maniac,
+punctuating his ravings with shrieks. Another was cursing vehemently, and
+a third appealing to the saints. Lermontoff quickly knelt down in the
+watercourse, this time facing the upper cell, and struck his third match.
+He saw that a steel shield, reminding him of the thin shutter between the
+lenses of a camera, had been shot across the tunnel behind the second group
+of cross bars, and as an engineer be could not but admire the skill of the
+practical expert who had constructed this diabolical device, for in spite
+of the pressure on the other side, hardly a drop of water oozed through.
+He tried to reach this shield, but could not. It was just beyond the touch
+of his fingers, with his arm thrust through the two sets of bars, but if
+he could have stretched that far, with the first bar retarding his shoulder,
+he knew his hand would be helpless even if he had some weapon to puncture
+the steel shield. The men would be drowned before he could accomplish anything
+unless he was at the lever in the passage outside.
+<P>
+Crawling into his cell again he heard no more of the chatter and cries of
+the maniac, and he surmised that the other two were fighting for places on
+bench or shelf, which was amply large enough to have supported both, had
+they not been too demented with fear to recognize that fact. The cursing
+man was victorious, and now he stood alone on the shelf, roaring maledictions.
+Then there was the sound of a plunge, and Lermontoff, standing there, helpless
+and shivering, heard the prisoner swim round and round his cell like a furious
+animal, muttering and swearing.
+<P>
+"Don't exhaust yourself like that," shouted Lermontoff. "If you want to live,
+cling to the hole at either of the two upper corners. The water can't rise
+above you then, and you can breathe till it subsides."
+<P>
+The other either did not hear, or did not heed, but tore round and round
+in his confined tank, thrashing the water like a dying whale.
+<P>
+"Poor devil," moaned Jack. "What's the use of telling him what to do. He
+is doomed in any case. The other two are now better off."
+<P>
+A moment later the water began to dribble through the upper aperture into
+Jack's cell, increasing and increasing until there was the roar of a waterfall,
+and he felt the cold splashing drops spurt against him. Beyond this there
+was silence. It was perhaps ten minutes after that the lever was pulled,
+and the water belched forth from the lower tunnel like a mill race broken
+loose, temporarily flooding the floor so that Jack was compelled to stand
+on the bench.
+<P>
+He sunk down shivering on the stone shelf, laid his arms on the stone pillow,
+and buried his face in them.
+<P>
+"My God, my God!" he groaned.
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII</h3>
+<h4>A FELLOW SCIENTIST</h4>
+<P>
+IN this position Jack slept off and on, or rather, dozed into a kind of
+semi-stupor, from which he awoke with a start now and then, as he thought
+be heard again the mingled cries of devotion and malediction. At last he
+slept soundly, and awoke refreshed, but hungry. The loaf lay beside him,
+and with his knife he cut a slice from it, munching the coarse bread with
+more of relish than he had thought possible when he first saw it. Then he
+took out another cigarette, struck a match, looked at his watch, and lit
+the cigarette. It was ten minutes past two. He wondered if a night had
+intervened, but thought it unlikely. He had landed very early in the morning,
+and now it was afternoon. He was fearfully thirsty, but could not bring himself
+to drink from that stream of death. Once more he heard the bolts shot back.
+<P>
+"They are going to throw the poor wretches into the sea," he muttered, but
+the yellow gleam of a lantern showed him it was his own door that had been
+unlocked.
+<P>
+"You are to see the Governor," said the gaoler gruffly. "Come with me."
+<P>
+Jack sprang to the floor of his cell, repressing a cry of delight. Nothing
+the grim Governor could do to him would make his situation any worse, and
+perhaps his persuasive powers upon that official might result in some
+amelioration of his position. In any case there was the brief respite of
+the interview, and he would gladly have chummed with the devil himself to
+be free a few moments from this black pit.
+<P>
+Although the outside door of the Governor's room stood open, the room was
+not as well illumined as it had been before, for the sun had now gone round
+to the other side of the island, but to the prisoner's aching eyes it seemed
+a chamber of refulgence. The same lamp was burning on the table, giving forth
+an odor of bad oil, but in addition to this, two candles were lighted, which
+supplemented in some slight measure the efforts of the lamp. At the end of
+the table lay a number of documents under a paper-weight, arranged with the
+neat precision of a methodical man. The Governor had been warming his hands
+over the brazier, but ceased when Lermontoff was brought up standing before
+him. He lifted the paper-weight, took from under it the two letters which
+Lermontoff had given to the steward on the steamer, and handed them to the
+prisoner, who thus received them back for the second time.
+<P>
+"I wish to say," remarked the Governor, with an air of bored indifference
+which was evidently quite genuine, "that if you make any further attempt
+to communicate with the authorities, or with friends, you will bring on yourself
+punishment which will be unpleasant."
+<P>
+"As a subject of the Czar, I have the right to appeal to him," said the Prince.
+<P>
+"The appeal you have written here," replied the Governor, "would have proved
+useless, even if it had been delivered. The Czar knows nothing of the
+Trogzmondoff, which is a stronghold entirely under the control of the Grand
+Dukes and of the Navy. The Trogzmondoff never gives up a prisoner."
+<P>
+"Then I am here for a lifetime?"
+<P>
+"Yes," rejoined the Governor, with frigid calmness, "and if you give me no
+trouble you will save yourself some inconvenience."
+<P>
+"Do you speak French?" asked the Prince.
+<P>
+"Net."
+<P>
+"English?"
+<P>
+"Net."
+<P>
+"Italian?"
+<P>
+"Net."
+<P>
+"German?"
+<P>
+"Da."
+<P>
+"Then," continued Lermontoff in German, "I desire to say a few words to you
+which I don't wish this gaoler to understand. I am Prince Ivan Lermontoff,
+a personal friend of the Czar's, who, after all, is master of the Grand Dukes
+and the Navy also. If you will help to put me into communication with him,
+I will guarantee that no harm comes to you, and furthermore will make you
+a rich man."
+<P>
+The Governor slowly shook his head.
+<P>
+"What you ask is impossible. Riches are nothing to me. Bribery may do much
+in other parts of the Empire, but it is powerless in the Trogzmondoff. I
+shall die in the room adjoining this, as my predecessor died. I am quite
+as much a prisoner in the Trogzmondoff as is your Highness. No man who has
+once set foot in this room, either as Governor, employee, or prisoner, is
+allowed to see the mainland again, and thus the secret has been well kept.
+We have had many prisoners of equal rank with your Highness, friends of the
+Czar too, I dare say, but they all died on the Rock, and were buried in the
+Baltic."
+<P>
+"May I not be permitted to receive certain supplies if I pay for them? That
+is allowed in other prisons."
+<P>
+The Governor shook his head.
+<P>
+"I can let you have a blanket," he said, "and a pillow, or a sheepskin if
+you find it cold at first, but my power here is very limited, and, as I tell
+you, the officers have little more comfort than the prisoners."
+<P>
+"Oh, I don't care anything about comfort," protested Lermontoff. "What I
+want is some scientific apparatus. I am a student of science. I have nothing
+to do with politics, and have never been implicated in any plot. Someone
+in authority has made a stupid mistake, and so I am here. This mistake I
+am quite certain will be discovered and remedied. I hold no malice, and will
+say nothing of the place, once I am free. It is no business of mine. But
+I do not wish to have the intervening time wasted. I should like to buy some
+electrical machinery, and materials, for which I am willing to pay any price
+that is asked."
+<P>
+"Do you understand electricity?" questioned the Governor, and for the first
+time his impassive face showed a glimmer of interest.
+<P>
+"Do I understand electricity? Why, for over a year I have been chief electrician
+on a war-ship."
+<P>
+"Perhaps then," said the Governor, relapsing into Russian again, "you can
+tell me what is wrong with our dynamo here in the Rock. After repeated
+requisition they sent machinery for lighting our offices and passages with
+electricity. They apparently did not care to send an electrician to the
+Trogzmondoff, but forwarded instead some books of instruction. I have been
+working at it for two years and a half, but I am still using oil lamps and
+candles. We wired the place without difficulty." He held up the candle, and
+showed, depending from the ceiling, a chandelier of electric lamps which
+Lermontoff had not hitherto noticed, various brackets, and one or two stand
+lamps in a corner, with green silk-covered wire attached.
+<P>
+"May I see your dynamo?" asked Lermontoff.
+<P>
+The Governor, with one final warming of his hands, took up a candle, told
+the gaoler to remove the shade from the lamp and bring it, led the way along
+a passage, and then into a room where the prisoner, on first entering, had
+heard the roar of water.
+<P>
+"What's this you have. A turbine? Does it give you any power?"
+<P>
+"Oh, it gives power enough," said the Governor.
+<P>
+"Let's see how you turn on the stream."
+<P>
+The Governor set the turbine at work, and the dynamo began to hum, a sound
+which, to the educated ear of Lermontoff, told him several things.
+<P>
+"That's all right, Governor, turn it off. This is a somewhat old-fashioned
+dynamo, but it ought to give you all the light you can use. You must be a
+natural born electrician, or you never could have got this machinery working
+as well as it does."
+<P>
+The dull eyes of the Governor glowed for one brief moment, then resumed their
+customary expression of saddened tiredness.
+<P>
+"Now," said Jack, throwing off his coat, "I want a wrench, screwdriver, hammer
+and a pair of pincers if you've got them."
+<P>
+"Here is the tool chest," said the Governor, and Jack found all he needed.
+Bidding the Governor hold the candle here, there and elsewhere, and ordering
+the gaoler about as if he were an apprentice, Jack set energetically to work,
+and for half an hour no one spoke.
+<P>
+"Turn on that water again," he commanded.
+<P>
+The Governor did so, and the machine whirred with quite a different note.
+Half a dozen electric lamps in the room flooded the place with a dazzling
+white glow.
+<P>
+"There you are," cried Jack, rubbing the oil off his hands on a piece of
+coarse sacking. "Now, Tommy, put these things back in the tool chest," he
+said to the gaoler. Then to the Governor:
+<P>
+"Let's see how things look in the big room."
+<P>
+The passage was lit, and the Governor's room showed every mark on wall, ceiling
+and floor.
+<P>
+"I told you, Governor," said Jack with a laugh, "that I didn't know why I
+was sent here, but now I understand. Providence took pity on you, and ordered
+me to strike a light."
+<P>
+At that moment the gaoler entered with his jingling keys, and the enthusiastic
+expression faded from the Governor's face, leaving it once more coldly impassive,
+but he spoke in German instead of Russian.
+<P>
+"I am very much indebted to your Highness, and it grieves me that our
+relationship remains unchanged."
+<P>
+"Oh, that's all right," cried Lermontoff breezily, "If it is within your
+power to allow me to come and give you some lessons in electricity and the
+care of dynamos, I shall be very glad to do so."
+<P>
+To this offer the Governor made no reply, but he went on still in German.
+<P>
+"I shall transfer you to cell Number One, which is not only more comfortable,
+but the water there is pure. Did you say you spoke English?"
+<P>
+"Yes, quite as well as I do Russian."
+<P>
+The Governor continued, with nevertheless a little hesitation: "On the return
+of the steamer there will be an English prisoner. I will give him cell Number
+Two, and if you don't talk so loud that the gaoler hears you, it may perhaps
+make the day less wearisome."
+<P>
+"You are very kind," said Jack, rigidly suppressing any trace of either emotion
+or interest as he heard the intelligence; leaping at once to certain conclusions,
+nevertheless. "I shan't ask for anything more, much as I should like to mention
+candles, matches, and tobacco."
+<P>
+"It is possible you may find all three in Number One before this time to-morrow;"
+then in Russian the Governor said to the gaoler:
+<P>
+"See if Number One is ready."
+<P>
+The gaoler departed, and the Governor, throwing open a drawer in his table,
+took out two candles, a box of matches, and a packet of cigarettes.
+<P>
+"Put these in your pocket," he said. "The cell door opens very slowly, so
+you will always know when the gaoler is coming. In that case blow out your
+light and conceal your candle. It will last the longer."
+<P>
+The gaoler returned.
+<P>
+"The cell is ready, Excellency," he said.
+<P>
+"Take away the prisoner," commanded the Governor, gruffly.
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII</h3>
+<h4>CELL NUMBER ONE</h4>
+<P>
+CELL Number One was a great improvement on Number Nine. There was no shelf
+of rock, or stone bench, but a cot bed in the corner, a table, and a wooden
+chair. The living spring issued from the living rock in a corner of the room.
+When the gaoler and his assistant had retired and shoved in the outside bolts,
+Jack lit his candle and a cigarette, feeling almost happy. He surveyed the
+premises now with more care. The bed was of iron and fastened to the floor.
+On the top of it was a mattress, a pillow, and a pair of blankets. At its
+head a little triangular shelf of rock had been left in the corner, and on
+this reposed a basin of tin, while a coarse piece of sacking took the place
+of a towel. Jack threw off his overcoat and flung it on the bed, intent on
+a satisfactory wash. He heard something jingle in the pockets, and forgetting
+for the moment what it could possibly be, thrust his hand in, and pulled
+out a glass-stoppered bottle of ozak. He held it out at arm's length, and
+stared at it for some moments like a man hypnotized.
+<P>
+"Holy Saint Peter!" he cried, "to think that I should have forgotten this!"
+<P>
+He filled the tin basin with water, and placed it on the table. Again he
+dissolved a minute portion of the chemical, and again filled the syringe.
+<P>
+"I must leave no marks on the wall that may arouse attention," he said, and
+taking the full syringe to the arch over the torrent, and placing the candle
+on the floor beside him, he gently pushed in the piston. The spray struck
+the rock, and the rock dissolved slightly but perceptibly. Coming back to
+the table he stood for a few minutes in deep thought. Although the cot bed
+was fixed to the floor, and although it was possible that the shelf in the
+next cell coincided with its position, the risk of discovery was too great
+to cut a passage between the two cells there. The obvious spot to attack
+was the interior of the tunnel through which the streamlet ran, but Jack,
+testing the temperature of the water with his hand, doubted his physical
+ability to remain in that ice-cold current more than a few minutes at a time,
+and if he worked in the tunnel he would be all but submerged. He feared he
+would perish with cold and cramp before he had made any impression on the
+rock.
+<P>
+To the edge of the stream he drew the table, and, mounting it, examined the
+upper orifice through which the water escaped when the cell was full. He
+found he could stand on the table and work in comfort until he had excavated
+sufficient rock to allow him to clamber into the upper tunnel and so continue
+his operations. The water he used would flow through the tunnel, and down
+to the main stream in the next cell. All he had to do was to dissolve a
+semi-circular hole in the rock that would bend round the end of those steel
+bars, and enter the tunnel again on the other side. Eager to be at work,
+he took the full basin, shoved it far along the tunnel until it was stopped
+by the bars, then, placing his candle beside it, and standing on the table,
+he began operations.
+<P>
+The limestone, under the influence of the spray, dissolved very slowly, and
+by the time the basin of water was exhausted, all the effect visible under
+the light of the candle was an exceedingly slight circular impression which
+was barely visible to the naked eye.
+<P>
+"I must make the solution stronger, I think," he said, grievously disappointed
+at the outcome of his labors, and as he looked at it he heard the clank of
+the withdrawing bolts. Blowing out the candle he sprang to the floor of the
+cell, picked up the table, set it down in the center of the room, groped
+for the chair, and sat down, his heart palpitating wildly at the fear of
+discovery.
+<P>
+Followed as usual by the man with the lantern, the gaoler came in, carrying
+a bowl of hot steaming soup, which he placed on the table, then he took from
+his pocket a spoon, a small hunk of black bread, and a piece of cheese. In
+the light of the lantern Lermontoff consulted his watch, and found it was
+six o'clock. The gaoler took the lantern from his assistant, held it high,
+and looked round the room, while Lermontoff gazed at him in anxiety, wondering
+whether that brutal looking official suspected anything. Apparently he did
+not, but merely wished to satisfy himself that everything was in order, for
+he said more mildly than he had hitherto spoken:
+<P>
+"It is a long time since any one occupied this cell."
+<P>
+Then his eye rested on the vacant corner shelf.
+<P>
+"Ah, Excellency," he continued, "pardon me, I have forgotten. I must bring
+you a basin."
+<P>
+"I'd rather you brought me a candle," said Lermontoff nonchalantly, although
+his lips were dry, and he moistened them as he spoke; then, to learn whether
+money was valueless on the rock, as the Governor had intimated, he drew from
+his pocket one of the remaining gold pieces, glad that he happened to have
+so many, and slipped it into the palm of the gaoler's hand, whose fingers
+clutched it as eagerly as if he were in St. Petersburg.
+<P>
+"I think a candle can be managed, Excellency. Shall I bring a cup?"
+<P>
+"I wish you would."
+<P>
+The door was again locked and bolted, but before Lermontoff had finished
+his soup, and bread and cheese, it was opened again. The gaoler placed a
+tin basin, similar to the former one, on the ledge, put a candle and a
+candle-stick on the table, and a tin cup beside them.
+<P>
+"I thought there was no part of Russia where bribery was extinct," said the
+Prince to himself, as the door closed again for the night.
+<P>
+After supper Lermontoff again shined his table, stood upon it, lit his candle,
+and resumed his tunnelling, working hard until after midnight. His progress
+was deplorably slow, and the spraying of the rock proved about as tiring
+a task as ever he had undertaken. His second basin-full of solution was made
+a little stronger, but without perceptible improvement, in its effect. On
+ceasing operations for the night he found himself in a situation common to
+few prisoners, that of being embarrassed with riches. He possessed two basins,
+and one of them must be concealed. Of course he might leave his working basin
+in the upper tunnel where it had rested when the gaoler had brought in his
+supper, but he realized that at any moment the lantern's rays might strike
+its shining surface, and so bring on an investigation of the upper tunnel,
+certain to prove the destruction of his whole scheme. A few minutes thought,
+however, solved the problem admirably: he placed the basin face downwards
+in the rapid stream which swept it to the iron bars between the two cells,
+and there it lay quite concealed with the swift water rippling over it. This
+done, he flung off his clothes, and got into bed, not awakening until the
+gaoler and his assistant brought in bread, cheese and coffee for breakfast.
+<P>
+The next day he began to feel the inconveniences of the Governor's friendship,
+and wished he were safely back to the time when one loaf lasted four days,
+for if such were now the case, he would be free of the constant state of
+tension which the ever-recurring visits of the gaoler caused. He feared that
+some day he might become so absorbed in his occupation that he would not
+hear the withdrawing of the bolt, and thus, as it were, be caught in the
+act.
+<P>
+Shortly after lunch the Governor sent for him, and asked many questions
+pertaining to the running of the dynamo. Lermontoff concealed his impatience,
+and set about his instructions with exemplary earnestness. Russian text books
+on electricity at hand were of the most rudimentary description, and although
+the Governor could speak German he could not read it, so the two volumes
+he possessed in that language were closed to him. Therefore John was compelled
+to begin at the very A B C of the science.
+<P>
+The Governor, however, became so deeply interested that he momentarily forgot
+his caution, unlocked a door, and took Lermontoff into a room which he saw
+was the armory and ammunition store-house of the prison. On the floor of
+this chamber the Governor pointed out a large battery of accumulators, and
+asked what they were for. Lermontoff explained the purposes of the battery,
+meanwhile examining it thoroughly, and finding that many of the cells had
+been all but ruined in transit, through the falling away of the composition
+in the grids. Something like half of the accumulators, however, were intact
+and workable; these he uncoupled and brought into the dynamo room, where
+he showed the Governor the process of charging. He saw in the store room
+a box containing incandescent lamps, coils of silk-covered wire and other
+material that made his eyes glisten with delight. He spoke in German.
+<P>
+"If you will give me a coil of this wire, one or two of the lamps, and an
+accumulator, or indeed half a dozen of them, I will trouble you no more for
+candles."
+<P>
+The Governor did not reply at the moment, but a short time after asked Lermontoff
+in Russian how long it would be before the accumulators were charged. Lermontoff
+stated the time, and the Governor told the gaoler to bring the prisoner from
+the cell at that hour, and so dismissed his instructor.
+<P>
+One feature of this interview which pleased Lermontoff was that however much
+the Governor became absorbed in these lessons, he never allowed himself to
+remain alone with his prisoner. It was evident that in his cooler moments
+the Governor had instructed the gaoler and his assistant to keep ever at
+the heels of the Prince and always on the alert. Two huge revolvers were
+thrust underneath the belt of the gaoler, and the lantern-holder, was similarly
+armed. Lermontoff was pleased with this, for if the Governor had trusted
+him entirely, even though he demanded no verbal parole, it would have gone
+against his grain to strike down the chief as he ruthlessly intended to do
+when the time was ripe for it, and in any case, he told himself, no matter
+how friendly the Governor might be, he had the misfortune to stand between
+his prisoner and liberty.
+<P>
+Lermontoff was again taken from his cell about half an hour before the time
+he had named for the completion of the charging, and although the Governor
+said nothing of his intention, the gaoler and his man brought to the cell
+six charged batteries, a coil of wire, and a dozen lamps. Lermontoff now
+changed his working methods. He began each night as soon as he had finished
+dinner, and worked till nearly morning, sleeping all day except when interrupted
+by the gaoler. Jack, following the example of Robinson Crusoe, attempted
+to tie knots on the tail of time by cutting notches with his knife on the
+leg of the table, but most days he forgot to perform this operation, and
+so his wooden almanac fell hopelessly out of gear. He estimated that he had
+been a little more than a week in prison when he heard by the clang of the
+bolts that the next cell was to have an occupant.
+<P>
+"I must prepare a welcome for him," he said, and so turned out the electric
+light at the end of the long flexible wire. He had arranged a neat little
+switch of the accumulator, and so snapped the light on and off at his pleasure,
+without the trouble of unscrewing the nuts which held in place one of the
+copper ends of the wire. Going to the edge of the stream and lighting his
+candle, he placed the glass bulb in the current, paid out the flexible line
+attached to it, and allowed the bulb to run the risk of being smashed against
+the iron bars of the passage, but the little globe negotiated the rapids
+without even a perceptible clink, and came to rest in the bed of the torrent
+somewhere about the center of the next cell, tugging like a fish on a hook.
+Then Jack mounted the table, leaned into the upper tunnel, and listened.
+<P>
+"I protest," Drummond cried, speaking loudly, as if the volume of sound would
+convey meaning to alien ears, "I protest against this as an outrage, and
+demand my right of communication with the British Ambassador."
+<P>
+Jack heard the gaoler growl: "This loaf of bread will last you for four days,"
+but as this statement was made in Russian, it conveyed no more meaning to
+the Englishman than had his own protest of a moment before brought intelligence
+to the gaoler. The door clanged shut, and there followed a dead silence.
+<P>
+"Now we ought to hear some good old British oaths," said Jack to himself,
+but the silence continued.
+<P>
+"Hullo, Alan," cried Jack through the bars, "I said you would be nabbed if
+you didn't leave St. Petersburg. You'll pay attention to me next time I warn
+you."
+<P>
+There was no reply, and Jack became alarmed at the continued stillness, then
+he heard his friend mutter:
+<P>
+"I'll be seeing visions by and by. I thought my brain was stronger than it
+is&#151; could have sworn that was Jack's voice."
+<P>
+Jack got speedily and quietly down, turned on the switch, and hopped up on
+the table again, peering through. He knew that the stream had now become
+a river of fire, and that it was sending to the ceiling an unholy, unearthly
+glow.
+<P>
+"Oh, damn it all!" groaned Drummond, at which Jack roared with laughter.
+<P>
+"Alan," he shouted, "fish out that electric bulb from the creek and hold
+it aloft; then you'll see where you are. I'm in the next cell; Jack Lamont,
+Electrician and Coppersmith: all orders promptly attended to: best of references,
+and prices satisfactory."
+<P>
+"Jack, is that really you, or have I gone demented?"
+<P>
+"Oh, you always <I>were</I> demented, Alan, but it is I, right enough. Pick
+up the light and tell me what kind of a cell you've got."
+<P>
+"Horrible!" cried Drummond, surveying his situation. "Walls apparently of
+solid rock, and this uncanny stream running across the floor."
+<P>
+"How are you furnished? Shelf of rock, stone bench?"
+<P>
+"No, there's a table, cot bed, and a wooden chair."
+<P>
+"Why, my dear man, what are you growling about? They have given you one of
+the best rooms in the hotel. You're in the Star Chamber."
+<P>
+"Where in the name of heaven are we?"
+<P>
+"Didn't you recognize the rock from the deck of a steamer?"
+<P>
+"I never saw the deck of a steamer."
+<P>
+"Then how did you come here?"
+<P>
+"I was writing a letter in my room when someone threw a sack over my head,
+and tied me up in a bundle, so that it was a close shave I wasn't smothered.
+I was taken in what I suppose was a cab and flung into what I afterwards
+learned was the hold of a steamer. When the ship stopped, I was carried like
+a sack of meal on someone's shoulder, and unhampered before a gaunt specter
+in uniform, in a room so dazzling with electric light that I could hardly
+see. That was a few minutes ago, Now I am here, and starving. Where is this
+prison?"
+<P>
+"Like the Mikado, as Kate would say, the authorities are bent on making the
+punishment fit the crime. You are in the rock of the Baltic, which you fired
+at with that gun of yours. I told you those suave officials at St. Petersburg
+were playing with you."
+<P>
+"But why have they put you here, Jack?"
+<P>
+"Oh, I was like the good dog Tray, who associated with questionable company,
+I suppose, and thus got into trouble."
+<P>
+"I'm sorry."
+<P>
+"You ought to be glad. I'm going to get out of this place, and I don't believe
+you could break gaol, unassisted, in twenty years. Here is where science
+confronts brutality. I say, Drummond, bring your table over to the corner,
+and mount it, then we can talk without shouting. Not much chance of any one
+outside hearing us, even if we do clamor, but this is a damp situation, and
+loud talk is bad for the throat. Cut a slice of that brown bread and lunch
+with me. You'll find it not half bad, as you say in England, especially when
+you are hungry. Now," continued Jack, as his friend stood opposite him, and
+they found by experiment that their combined reach was not long enough to
+enable them to shake hands through the bars, "now, while you are luxuriating
+in the menu of the Trogzmondoff, I'll give you a sketch of my plan for escape."
+<P>
+"Do," said Drummond.
+<P>
+"I happen to have with me a pair of bottles containing a substance which,
+if dissolved in water, and sprinkled on this rock, will disintegrate it.
+It proves rather slow work, I must admit, but I intend to float in to you
+one of the bottles, and the apparatus, so that you may help me on your side,
+which plan has the advantage of giving you useful occupation, and allowing
+us to complete our task in half the time, like the engineers on each side
+of the Simplon Tunnel."
+<P>
+"If there are bars in the lower watercourse," objected Drummond, "won't you
+run a risk of breaking your bottle against them?"
+<P>
+"Not the slightest. I have just sent that much thinner electric lamp through,
+but in this case I'll just tie up the bottle and squirt gun in my stocking,
+attach that to the wire, and the current will do the rest. You can unload,
+and I'll pull my stocking back again. If I dared wrench off a table leg,
+I could perhaps shove bottle and syringe through to you from here, but the
+material would come to a dead center in the middle of this tunnel, unless
+I had a stick to push it within your reach.
+<P>
+"Very well; we'll work away until our excavation connects, and we have made
+it of sufficient diameter for you to squeeze through. You are then in my
+cell. We put out our lights, and you conceal yourself behind the door. Gaoler
+and man with the lantern come in. You must be very careful not to close the
+door, because if you once shove it shut we can't open it from this side,
+even though it is unlocked and the bolts drawn. It fits like wax, and almost
+hermetically seals the room. You spring forward, and deal the gaoler with
+your fist one of your justly celebrated English knock-down blows, immediately
+after felling the man with the lantern. Knowing something of the weight of
+your blow, I take it that neither of the two men will recover consciousness
+until we have taken off their outer garments, secured revolvers and keys.
+Then we lock them in, you and I on the outside."
+<P>
+"My dear Jack, we don't need any tunnel to accomplish that. The first time
+these two men come into my room, I can knock them down as easily here as
+there."
+<P>
+"I thought of that, and perhaps you could, but you must remember we have
+only one shot. If you made a mistake; if the lantern man bolted and fired
+his pistol, and once closed the door&#151; he would not need to pause to lock
+it&#151; why, we are done for. I should be perfectly helpless in the next room,
+and after the attempt they'd either drown us, or put us into worse cells
+as far apart as possible."
+<P>
+"I don't think I should miss fire," said Drummond, confidently, "still, I
+see the point, and will obey orders."
+<P>
+"My official position on the rock, ever since I arrived, has been that of
+electrical tutor-in-chief to the Governor. I have started his dynamo working,
+and have wired such portions of the place as were not already wired before.
+During these lessons I have kept my eyes open. So far as the prison is concerned,
+there is the Governor, a sort of head clerk, the gaoler and his assistant;
+four men, and that is all. The gaoler's assistant appears to be the cook
+of the place, although the cooking done is of the most limited description.
+The black bread is brought from St. Petersburg, I think, as also tinned meat
+and soup; so the cuisine is on a somewhat limited scale."
+<P>
+"Do you mean to say that only these four men are in charge of the prison?"
+<P>
+"Practically so, but there is the garrison as well. The soldiers live in
+a suite of rooms directly above us, and as near as I can form an opinion,
+there are fourteen men and two officers. When a steamer arrives they draft
+as many soldiers as are necessary, unload the boat; then the Tommies go upstairs
+again. The military section apparently holds little intercourse with the
+officials, whom they look upon as gaolers. I should judge that the military
+officer is chief of the rock, because when he found the Governor's room lit
+by electricity, he demanded the same for his quarters. That's how I came
+to get upstairs. Now, these stairs are hewn in the rock, are circular, guarded
+by heavy oaken doors top and bottom, and these doors possess steel bolts
+on both sides of them. It is thus possible for either the military authorities
+upstairs, or the civil authorities, to isolate themselves from the others.
+In case of a revolt among the soldiers, the Governor could bolt them into
+their attic, and they would find great difficulty in getting out. Now, my
+plan of procedure is this. We will disarm gaoler and assistant, take their
+keys, outside garments and caps. The gaoler's toggery will fit you, and the
+other fellow's may do for me. Then we will lock them in here, and if we meet
+clerk or Governor in the passages we will have time to overcome either or
+both before they are aware of the change. I'll go up the circular stair,
+bolt from the inside the upper door, and afterwards bolt the lower door.
+Then we open all the cells, and release the other prisoners, descend from
+the rock, get into the Finnish fishing boat, keep clear of the two cannon
+that are up above us, and sail for the Swedish coast. We can't miss it; we
+have only to travel west, and ultimately we are safe. There is only one danger,
+which is that we may make our attempt when the steamer is here, but we must
+chance that."
+<P>
+"Isn't there any way of finding out? Couldn't you pump the Governor?"
+<P>
+"He is always very much on his guard, and is a taciturn man. The moment the
+tunnel is finished I shall question him about some further electrical material,
+and then perhaps I may get a hint about the steamer. I imagine she comes
+irregularly, so the only safe plan would be for us to make our attempt just
+after she had departed."
+<P>
+"Would there be any chance of our finding a number of the military downstairs?"
+<P>
+"I don't think so. Now that they have their electric light they spend their
+time playing cards and drinking vodka."
+<P>
+"Very well, Jack, that scheme seems reasonably feasible. Now, get through
+your material to me, and issue your instructions."
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX</h3>
+<h4>"STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE"</h4>
+<P>
+IN a very short time Drummond became as expert at the rock dissolving as
+was his friend. He called it piffling slow work, but was nevertheless extremely
+industrious at it, although days and weeks and, as they suspected, months,
+passed before the hands of the two friends met in the center of the rock.
+One lucky circumstance that favored them was the habit of the gaoler in visiting
+Drummond only once every four days.
+<P>
+The Lieutenant made his difficult passage, squeezing through the newly completed
+tunnel half an hour after a loaf had been set upon his table. Jack knew that
+the steamer had recently departed, because, two days before, the Governor
+had sent for him, and had exhibited a quantity of material recently landed,
+among other things a number of electric bells and telephones which the Governor
+was going to have set up between himself and the others, and also between
+his room and that of the clerk and gaoler. There were dry batteries, and
+primary batteries, and many odds and ends, which made Jack almost sorry he
+was leaving the place.
+<P>
+Heavy steps, muffled by the thickness of the door, sounded along the outer
+passage.
+<P>
+"Ready?" whispered Jack. "Here they come. Remember if you miss your first
+blow, we're goners, you and I."
+<P>
+Drummond made no reply, for the steps had come perilously near and he feared
+to be heard. Noiselessly he crossed the cell and took up his position against
+the wall, just clear of the space that would be covered by the opening of
+the door.
+<P>
+At the same moment Jack switched off the light, leaving the room black. Each
+of the two waiting prisoners could hear the other's short breathing through
+the darkness.
+<P>
+On came the shuffling footsteps of the gaoler and lantern-bearer. They had
+reached the door of Number One, had paused, had <I>passed on</I> and stopped
+in front of Number Two.
+<P>
+"Your cell!" whispered Jack, panic-stricken. "And they weren't due to look
+in on you for four days. It's all up! They'll discover the cell is empty
+and give the&#151;  Where are you going, man?" he broke off, as Drummond, leaving
+his place near the door, groped his way hurriedly along the wall.
+<P>
+"To squeeze my way back and make a fight for it. It's better than&#151;"
+<P>
+"Wait!"
+<P>
+Lamont's hand was on his shoulder, and he whispered a sharp command for silence.
+The two attendants had halted in front of Number Two, and while the
+lantern-bearer fumbled with the awkward bolt, his companion was saying:
+<P>
+"Hold on! After all, I'll bring the other his food first, I think."
+<P>
+"But," remonstrated the lantern-bearer, "the Governor said we were to bring
+the Englishman to him at once."
+<P>
+"What if he did? How will he know we stole a half minute to give the Prince
+his dinner? If we bring the Englishman upstairs first, the Prince may have
+to wait an hour before we can get back with the Englishman."
+<P>
+"Let him wait, then."
+<P>
+"With his pocket full of roubles? Not I. He may decide to give no more of
+his gold pieces to a gaoler who lets him go hungry too long."
+<P>
+"I've got the door unfastened now and&#151;"
+<P>
+"Then fasten it again and come back with me to Number One."
+<P>
+Faint as were the words, deadened by intervening walls, their purport reached
+Jack.
+<P>
+"Back to your place," he whispered, "they're coming!"
+<P>
+The rattle of bolts followed close on his words. The great door of Number
+One swung ponderously inward. The lantern-bearer, holding his light high
+in front of him, entered; then stepped to one side to admit the gaoler, who
+came close after, the tray of food in his outstretched hands.
+<P>
+Unluckily for the captives' plan, it was to the side of the cell opposite
+to that where Alan crouched that the lantern-bearer had taken his stand.
+There was no way of reaching him at a bound. The open door stood between.
+Were the gaoler to be attacked first, his fellow-attendant could readily
+be out of the cell and half-way up the corridor before Alan might hope to
+reach him.
+<P>
+The friends had counted on both men entering the room together and crossing
+as usual to the table. This change of plan disconcerted them. Already the
+gaoler had set down his tray and was turning toward the door. Alan, helpless,
+stood impotently in the shadow, biting his blond mustache with helpless rage.
+In another second their cherished opportunity would vanish. And, as the gaoler's
+next visit was to be to Number Two, discovery stared them in the eyes.
+<P>
+It was Jack who broke the momentary spell of apathy. He was standing at the
+far end of the cell, near the stream.
+<P>
+"Here!" he called sharply to the lantern-bearer, "bring your light. My electric
+apparatus is out of order, and I've mislaid my matches. I want to fix&#151;"
+<P>
+The lantern-bearer, obediently, had advanced into the room. He was half-way
+across it while Lamont was still speaking. Then, from the corner of his eye,
+he spied Alan crouching in the angle behind the door, now fully exposed to
+the rays of the lantern.
+<P>
+The man whirled about in alarm just as Alan sprang. In consequence the
+Englishman's mighty fist whizzed past his head, missing it by a full inch.
+<P>
+The gaoler, recovering from his amaze, whipped out one of the revolvers he
+wore in his belt. But Jack, leaping forward, knocked it from his hand before
+he could fire; and, with one hand clapped across the fellow's bearded lips,
+wound his other arm about the stalwart body so as to prevent for the instant
+the drawing of the second pistol.
+<P>
+Alan's first blow had missed clean; but his second did not. Following up
+his right-hand blow with all a trained boxer's swift dexterity, he sent a
+straight left hander flush on the angle of the light-bearer's jaw. The man
+dropped his lantern and collapsed into a senseless heap on the floor, while
+Alan, with no further delay, rushed toward the gaoler.
+<P>
+The fall of the lantern extinguished the light. The cell was again plunged
+in dense blackness, through which could be heard the panting and scuffing
+of the Prince and the gaoler.
+<P>
+Barely a second of time had elapsed since first Jack had seized the man,
+but that second had sufficed for the latter to summon his great brute strength
+and shake off his less gigantic opponent and to draw his pistol.
+<P>
+"Quick, Alan!" gasped Jack. "He's got away from me. He'll&#151;"
+<P>
+Drummond, guided by his friend's voice, darted forward through the darkness,
+caught his foot against the sprawling body of the lantern-bearer and fell
+heavily, his arms thrown out in an instinctive gesture of self-preservation.
+Even as he lost his balance he heard a sharp click, directly in front of
+him. The gaoler had pulled the trigger, and his pistol&#151; contract-made and
+out of order, like many of the weapons of common soldiers in Russia's frontier
+posts&#151; had missed fire.
+<P>
+To that luckiest of mishaps, the failure of a defective cartridge to explode,
+the friends owed their momentary safety.
+<P>
+As Alan pitched forward, one of his outing arms struck against an obstacle.
+It was a human figure, and from the feel of the leather straps, which his
+fingers touched in the impact, he knew it was the gaoler and not Lamont.
+<P>
+Old football tactics coming to memory, Alan clung to the man his arm had
+chanced upon, and bore him along to the ground; Jack, who had pressed forward
+in the darkness, being carried down as well by the other's fall.
+<P>
+Gaoler, Prince and Englishman thus struggled on the stone floor in one
+indistinguishable heap. It was no ordinary combat of two to one, for neither
+of the prisoners could say which was the gaoler and which his friend. The
+gaoler, troubled by no such doubts, laid about him lustily, and was only
+prevented from crying out by the fact that his heavy fur cap had, in the
+fall, become jammed down over his face as far as the chin and could not for
+the moment be dislodged.
+<P>
+He reached for and drew the sword-bayonet that hung at his side (for his
+second pistol had become lost in the scrimmage), and thrust blindly about
+him. Once, twice his blade met resistance and struck into flesh.
+<P>
+"Jack," panted Alan, "the beast's stabbing. Get yourself loose and find the
+electric light."
+<P>
+As he spoke, Alan's hand found the gaoler's throat. He knew it was not Alan's
+from the rough beard that covered it. The gaoler, maddened by the pressure,
+stabbed with fresh fury; most of his blows, fortunately, going wild in the
+darkness.
+<P>
+Alan's free hand reached for and located the arm that was wielding the bayonet,
+and for a moment the two wrestled desperately for its possession.
+<P>
+Then a key clicked, and the room was flooded with incandescent light, just
+as Alan, releasing his grip on the Russian's throat, dealt him a short-arm
+blow on the chin with all the power of his practiced muscles. The gaoler
+relaxed his tense limbs and lay still, while Alan, bleeding and exhausted,
+struggled to his feet.
+<P>
+"Hot work, eh?" he panted. "Hard position to land a knockout from. But I
+caught him just right. He'll trouble us no more for a few minutes, I fancy.
+You're bleeding! Did he wound you?"
+<P>
+"Only a scratch along my check. And you?"
+<P>
+"A cut on the wrist and another on the shoulder, I think. Neither of them
+bad, thanks to the lack of aim in the dark. Close call, that! Now to tie
+them up. Not a movement from either yet."
+<P>
+"You must have come close to killing them with those sledge-hammer blows
+of yours!"
+<P>
+"It doesn't much matter," said the imperturbable pugilist, "they'll be all
+right in half an hour. It's knowing where to hit. If there are only four
+men downstairs, we don't need to wear the clothes of these beasts. Let us
+take only the bunch of keys and the revolvers."
+<P>
+Securing these the two stepped out into the passage, locked and bolted the
+door; then Jack, who knew his way, proceeded along the passage to the stairway,
+leaped nimbly up the steps, bolted the door leading to the military quarters,
+then descended and bolted the bottom door.
+<P>
+"Now for the clerk, and then for the Governor."
+<P>
+The clerk's room connected with the armory, which was reached by passing
+through the apartment that held turbine and dynamo, which they found purring
+away merrily.
+<P>
+Covering the frightened clerk with four revolvers, Jack told him in Russian
+that if he made a sound it would be his last. They took him, opened cell
+Number Three, which was empty, and thrust him in.
+<P>
+Jangling the keys, the two entered the Governor's room. The ancient man looked
+up, but not a muscle of his face changed; even his fishy eyes showed no signs
+of emotion or surprise.
+<P>
+"Governor," said Jack with deference, "although you are under the muzzles
+of a quartet of revolvers, no harm is intended you. However, you must not
+leave your place until you accompany us down to the boat, when I shall hand
+the keys over to you, and in cell Number One you will find gaoler and lantern
+man a little worse for wear, perhaps, but still in the ring, I hope. In Number
+Three your clerk is awaiting you. I go now to release your prisoners. All
+communication between yourself and the military is barred. I leave my friend
+on guard until I return from the cells. You must not attempt to summon
+assistance, or cry out, or move from your chair. My friend does not understand
+either Russian or German, so there is no use in making any appeal to him,
+and much as I like you personally, and admire your assiduity in science,
+our case is so desperate that if you make any motion whatever, he will be
+compelled to shoot you dead."
+<P>
+The Governor bowed.
+<P>
+"May I continue my writing?" he asked.
+<P>
+Jack laughed heartily.
+<P>
+"Certainly," and with that he departed to the cells, which he unlocked one
+by one, only to find them all empty.
+<P>
+Returning, he said to the Governor:
+<P>
+"Why did you not tell me that we were your only prisoners?"
+<P>
+"I feared," replied the Governor mildly, "that you might not believe me."
+<P>
+"After all, I don't know that I should,", said Jack, holding out his hand,
+which the other shook rather unresponsively.
+<P>
+"I want to thank you," the Governor said slowly, "for all you have told me
+about electricity. That knowledge I expect to put to many useful purposes
+in the future, and the exercise of it will also make the hours drag less
+slowly than they did before you came."
+<P>
+"Oh, that's all right," cried Jack with enthusiasm. "I am sure you are very
+welcome to what teaching I have been able to give you, and no teacher could
+have wished a more apt pupil."
+<P>
+"It pleases me to hear you say that, Highness, although I fear I have been
+lax in my duties, and perhaps the knowledge of this place which you have
+got through my negligence, has assisted you in making an escape which I had
+not thought possible."
+<P>
+Jack laughed good-naturedly.
+<P>
+"All's fair in love and war," he said. "Imprisonment is a section of war.
+I must admit that electricity has been a powerful aid to us. But you cannot
+blame yourself, Governor, for you always took every precaution, and the gaoler
+was eternally at my heels. You can never pretend that you trusted me, you
+know."
+<P>
+"I tried to do my duty," said the old man mournfully, "and if electricity
+has been your helper, it has not been with my sanction. However, there is
+one point about electricity which you impressed upon me, which is that although
+it goes quickly, there is always a return current."
+<P>
+"What do you mean by that, Governor?"
+<P>
+"Is it not so? It goes by a wire, and returns through the earth. I thought
+you told me that."
+<P>
+"Yes, but I don't quite see why you mention that feature of the case at this
+particular moment."
+<P>
+"I wanted to be sure what I have stated is true. You see, when you are gone
+there will be nobody I can ask."
+<P>
+All this time the aged Governor was holding Jack's hand rather limply. Drummond
+showed signs of impatience.
+<P>
+"Jack," he cried at last, "that conversation may be very interesting, but
+it's like smoking on a powder mine. One never knows what may happen. I shan't
+feel safe until we're well out at sea, and not even then. Get through with
+your farewells as soon as possible, and let us be off."
+<P>
+"Right you are, Alan, my boy. Well, Governor, I'm reluctantly compelled to
+bid you a final good-by, but here's wishing you all sorts of luck."
+<P>
+The old man seemed reluctant to part with him, and still clung to his hand.
+<P>
+"I wanted to tell you," he said, "of another incident, almost as startling
+as your coming into this room a while since, that happened six or eight months
+ago. As perhaps you know, we keep a Finland fishing-boat down in the cove
+below."
+<P>
+"Yes, yes," said Jack impatiently, drawing away his hand.
+<P>
+"Well, six or eight months ago that boat disappeared, and has never been
+heard of since. None of our prisoners was missing; none of the garrison was
+missing; my three assistants were still here, yet in the night the boat was
+taken away."
+<P>
+"Really. How interesting! Never learned the secret, did you?"
+<P>
+"Never, but I took precautions, when we got the next boat, that it should
+be better guarded, so I have had two men remain upon it night and day."
+<P>
+"Are your two men armed, Governor?"
+<P>
+"Yes, they are."
+<P>
+"Then they must surrender, or we will be compelled to shoot them. Come down
+with us, and advise them to surrender quietly, otherwise, from safe cover
+on the stairway, we can pot them in an open boat."
+<P>
+"I will go down with you," said the Governor, "and do what I can."
+<P>
+"Of course they will obey you."
+<P>
+"Yes, they will obey me&#151; if they hear me. I was going to add that only yesterday
+did I arrange the electric bell down at the landing, with instructions to
+those men to take a telegram which I had written in case of emergencies,
+to the mainland, at any moment, night or day, when that bell rang. Your Highness,
+the bell rang more than half an hour ago. I have not been allowed out to
+see the result."
+<P>
+The placid old man put his hand on the Prince's shoulder, as if bestowing
+a benediction upon him. Drummond, who did not understand the lingo, was amazed
+to see Jack fling off the Governor's grasp, and with what he took to be a
+crushing oath in Russian, spring to the door, which he threw open. He mounted
+the stone bench which gave him a view of the sea. A boat, with two sails
+spread, speeding to the southwest, across the strong westerly wind, was two
+miles or more away.
+<P>
+"Marooned, by God!" cried the Prince, swinging round and presenting his pistol
+at the head of the Governor, who stood there like a statue of dejection,
+and made no sign.
+<h3>CHAPTER XX</h3>
+<h4>ARRIVAL OF THE TURBINE YACHT</h4>
+<P>
+BEFORE Jack could fire, as perhaps he had intended to do, Drummond struck
+down his arm.
+<P>
+"None of that, Jack," he said. "The Russian in you has evidently been scratched,
+and the Tartar has come uppermost. The Governor gave a signal, I suppose?"
+<P>
+"Yes, he did, and those two have got away while I stood babbling here, feeling
+a sympathy for the old villain. That's his return current, eh?"
+<P>
+"He's not to blame," said Drummond. "It's our own fault entirely. The first
+thing to have done was to secure that boat."
+<P>
+"And everything worked so beautifully," moaned Jack, "up to this point, and
+one mistake ruins it. We are doomed, Alan."
+<P>
+"It isn't so bad as that, Jack," said the Englishman calmly. "Should those
+men reach the coast safely, as no doubt they will, it may cost Russia a bit
+of trouble to dislodge us."
+<P>
+"Why, hang it all," cried Jack, "they don't <I>need</I> to dislodge us. All
+they've got to do is to stand off and starve us out. They are not compelled
+to fire a gun or land a man."
+<P>
+"They'll have to starve their own men first. It's not likely we're going
+to go hungry and feed our prisoners."
+<P>
+"Oh, we don't mind a little thing like that, we Russians. They may send help,
+or they may not. Probably a cruiser will come within hailing distance and
+try to find out what the trouble is. Then it will lie off and wait till
+everybody's dead, and after that put in a new Governor and another garrison."
+<P>
+"You take too pessimistic a view, Jack. This isn't the season of the year
+for a cruiser to lie off in the Baltic. Winter is coming on. Most of the
+harbors in Finland will be ice-closed in a month, and there's no shelter
+hereabouts in a storm. They'll attack; probably open shell fire on us for
+a while, then attempt to land a storming party. That will be fun for us if
+you've got good rifles and plenty of ammunition."
+<P>
+Jack raised his head.
+<P>
+"Oh, we're well-equipped," he said, "if we only have enough to eat."
+<P>
+Springing to his feet, all dejection gone, he said to the Governor:
+<P>
+"Now, my friend, we're compelled to put you into a cell. I'm sorry to do
+this, but there is no other course open. Where is your larder, and what quantity
+of provisions have you in stock?"
+<P>
+A gloomy smile added to the dejection of the old man's countenance.
+<P>
+"You must find that out for yourself," he said.
+<P>
+"Are the soldiers upstairs well supplied with food?"
+<P>
+"I will not answer any of your questions."
+<P>
+"Oh, very well. I see you are determined to go hungry yourself. Until I am
+satisfied that there is more than sufficient for my friend and me, no prisoner
+in my charge gets anything to eat. That's the sort of gaoler I am. The stubborn
+old beast!" he cried in English, turning to Drummond, "won't answer my
+questions."
+<P>
+"What were you asking him?"
+<P>
+"I want to know about the stock of provisions."
+<P>
+"It's quite unnecessary to ask about the grub: there's sure to be ample."
+<P>
+"Why?"
+<P>
+"Why? Because we have reached the beginning of winter, as I said before.
+There must be months when no boat can land at this rock. It's bound to be
+provisioned for several months ahead at the very lowest calculation. Now,
+the first thing to do is to put this ancient Johnny in his little cell, then
+I'll tell you where our chief danger lies."
+<P>
+The Governor made neither protest nor complaint, but walked into Number Nine,
+and was locked up.
+<P>
+"Now, Johnny, my boy," said Drummond, "our anxiety is the soldiers. The moment
+they find they are locked in they will blow those two doors open in just
+about half a jiffy. We can, of course, by sitting in front of the lower door
+night and day, pick off the first four or five who come down, but if the
+rest make a rush we are bound to be overpowered. They have, presumably, plenty
+of powder, probably some live shells, petards, and what-not, that will make
+short work even of those oaken doors. What do you propose to do?"
+<P>
+"I propose," said Jack, "to fill their crooked stairway with cement. There
+are bags and bags of it in the armory."
+<P>
+The necessity for this was prevented by an odd circumstance. The two young
+men were seated in the Governor's room, when at his table a telephone bell
+rang. Jack had not noticed this instrument, and now took up the receiver.
+<P>
+"Hello, Governor," said a voice, "your fool of a gaoler has bolted the stairway
+door, and we can't open it."
+<P>
+"Oh, I beg pardon," replied Jack, in whatever imitation of the Governor's
+voice he could assume. "I'll see to it at once myself."
+<P>
+He hung up the receiver and told his comrade what had happened.
+<P>
+"One or both of these officers are coming down. If we get the officers safely
+into a cell, there will be nobody to command the men, and it is more than
+likely that the officers carry the keys of the powder room. I'll turn out
+the electric lamps in the hall, and light the lantern. You be ready at the
+foot of the stairway to fire if they make the slightest resistance."
+<P>
+The two officers came down the circular stairway, grumbling at the delay
+to which they had been put. Lermontoff took advantage of the clamping of
+their heavy boots in the echoing stairway to shove in the bolts once more,
+and then followed them, himself followed by Drummond, into the Governor's
+room. Switching on the electric light, he said:
+<P>
+"Gentlemen, I am Prince Lermontoff, in temporary charge of this prison. The
+Governor is under arrest, and I regret that I must demand your swords, although
+I have every reason to believe that they will be handed back to you within
+a very few days after I have completed my investigations."
+<P>
+The officers were too much accustomed to sudden changes in command to see
+anything odd in this turn of affairs. Lermontoff spoke with a quiet dignity
+that was very convincing, and the language he used was that of the nobility.
+The two officers handed him their swords without a word of protest.
+<P>
+"I must ask you whether you have yet received your winter supply of food."
+<P>
+"Oh, yes," said the senior officer, "we had that nearly a month ago."
+<P>
+"Is it stored in the military portion of the rock, or below here?"
+<P>
+"Our rations are packed away in a room upstairs."
+<P>
+"I am sorry, gentlemen, that I must put you into cells until my mission is
+accomplished. If you will write a requisition for such rations as you are
+accustomed to receive, I shall see that you are supplied. Meanwhile, write
+also an order to whomsoever you entrust in command of the men during your
+absence, to grant no one leave to come downstairs, and ask him to take care
+that each soldier is rigidly restricted to the minimum quantity of vodka."
+<P>
+The senior officer sat down at the table, and wrote the two orders. The men
+were then placed in adjoining cells, without the thought of resistance even
+occurring to them. They supposed there had been some changes at headquarters,
+and were rather relieved to have the assurance of the Prince that their arrest
+would prove temporary. Further investigation showed that there would be no
+danger of starvation for six months at least.
+<P>
+Next day Jack, at great risk of his neck, scaled to the apex of the island,
+as he had thought of flying, if possible, a signal of distress that might
+attract some passing vessel. But even though he reached the sharp ridge,
+he saw at once that no pole could be erected there, not even if he possessed
+one. The wind aloft was terrific, and he gazed around him at an empty sea.
+<P>
+When four days had passed they began to look for the Russian relief boat,
+which they knew would set out the moment the Governor's telegram reached
+St. Petersburg.
+<P>
+On the fifth day Jack shouted down to Drummond, who was standing by the door.
+<P>
+"The Russian is coming: heading direct for us. She's in a hurry, too, crowding
+on all steam, and eating up the distance like a torpedo-boat destroyer. I
+think it's a cruiser. It's not the old tub I came on, anyway."
+<P>
+"Come down, then," answered Alan, "and we&#151;"
+<P>
+A cry from above interrupted him. Jack, having at first glance spied the
+vessel whose description he had shouted to Drummond, had now turned his eyes
+eastward and stood staring aghast toward the sunrise.
+<P>
+"What's the matter?" asked Alan.
+<P>
+"Matter?" echoed Jack. "They must be sending the whole Russian Navy here
+in detachments to capture our unworthy selves. There's a second boat coming
+from the east&#151; nearer by two miles than the yacht. If I hadn't been all taken
+up with the other from the moment I climbed here I'd have seen her before."
+<P>
+"Is she a yacht, too?"
+<P>
+"No. Looks like a passenger tramp. Dirty and&#151;"
+<P>
+"Merchantman, maybe."
+<P>
+"No. She's got guns on her&#151;"
+<P>
+"Merchantman fitted out for privateersman, probably. That's the sort of craft
+Russia would be likeliest to send to a secret prison like this. What flag
+does&#151;"
+<P>
+"No flag at all. Neither of them. They're both making for the rock, full
+steam, and from opposite sides. Neither can see the other, I suppose. I&#151;"
+<P>
+"From opposite sides? That doesn't look like a joint expedition. One of those
+ships isn't Russian. But which?"
+<P>
+Jack had clambered down and stood by Alan's side.
+<P>
+"We must make ready for defense in either case," he said. "In a few minutes
+we'll be able to see them both from the platform below."
+<P>
+"One of those boats means to blow us out of existence if it can," mused Jack.
+"The other cannot know of our existence. And yet, if she doesn't, what is
+she doing here, headed for the rock?"
+<P>
+With that Jack scrambled, slid and jumped down. Drummond was very quiet and
+serious. Repeating rifles stood in a row on the opposite wall, easy to get
+at, but as far off as might be from the effects of a possible shell. The
+two young men now mounted the stone bench by the door, which allowed them
+to look over the ledge at the eastern sea. Presently the craft appeared round
+the end of the island, pure white, floating like a swan on the water, and
+making great headway.
+<P>
+"By Jove!" said Jack, "she's a fine one. Looks like the Czar's yacht, but
+no Russian vessel I know of can make that speed."
+<P>
+"She's got the ear-marks of Thornycroft build about her," commented Drummond.
+"By Jove, Jack, what luck if she should prove to be English. No flag flying,
+though."
+<P>
+"She's heading for us," said Jack, "and apparently she knows which side the
+cannon is on. If she's Russian, they've taken it for granted we've captured
+the whole place, and are in command of the guns. There, she's turning."
+<P>
+The steamer was abreast of the rock, and perhaps three miles distant. Now
+she swept a long, graceful curve westward and drew up about half a mile east
+of the rock.
+<P>
+"Jove, I wish I'd a pair of good glasses," said Drummond. "They're lowering
+a boat."
+<P>
+Jack showed more Highland excitement than Russian stolidity, as he watched
+the oncoming of a small boat, beautifully riding the waves, and masterfully
+rowed by sailors who understood the art. Drummond stood imperturbable as
+a statue.
+<P>
+"The sweep of those oars is English, Jack, my boy."
+<P>
+As the boat came nearer and nearer Jack became more and more agitated.
+<P>
+"I say, Alan, focus your eyes on that man at the rudder. I think my sight's
+failing me. Look closely. Did you ever see him before?"
+<P>
+"I think I have, but am not quite sure."
+<P>
+"Why, he looks to me like my jovial and venerable father-in-law, Captain
+Kempt, of Bar Harbor. Perfectly absurd, of course: it can't be."
+<P>
+"He does resemble the Captain, but I only saw him once or twice."
+<P>
+"Hooray, Captain Kempt, how are you?" shouted Jack across the waters.
+<P>
+The Captain raised his right hand and waved it, but made no attempt to cover
+the distance with his voice. Jack ran pell-mell down the steps, and Drummond
+followed in more leisurely fashion. The boat swung round to the landing,
+and Captain Kempt cried cordially:
+<P>
+"Hello, Prince, how are you? And that's Lieutenant Drummond, isn't it? Last
+time I had the pleasure of seeing you, Drummond, was that night of the ball."
+<P>
+"Yes," said Drummond. "I was very glad to see you then, but a hundred times
+happier to see you to-day."
+<P>
+"I was just cruising round these waters in my yacht, and I thought I'd take
+a look at this rock you tried to obliterate. I don't see any perceptible
+damage done, but what can you expect from British marksmanship?"
+<P>
+"I struck the rock on the other side, Captain. I think your remark is unkind,
+especially as I've just been praising the watermanship of your men."
+<P>
+"Now, are you boys tired of this summer resort?" asked Captain Kempt. "Is
+your baggage checked, and are you ready to go? Most seaside places are deserted
+this time of year."
+<P>
+"We'll be ready in a moment, captain," cried his future son-in-law. "I must
+run up and get the Governor. We've put a number of men in prison here, and
+they'll starve if not released. The Governor's a good old chap, though he
+played it low down on me a few days ago," and with that Jack disappeared
+up the stairway once more.
+<P>
+"Had a gaol-delivery here?" asked the Captain.
+<P>
+"Well, something by way of that. The Prince drilled a hole in the rock, and
+we got out. We've put the garrison in pawn, so to speak, but I've been mighty
+anxious these last few days because the sail-boat they had here, and two
+of the garrison, escaped to the mainland with the news. We were anxiously
+watching your yacht, fearing it was Russian. Jack thought it was the Czar's
+yacht. How came you by such a craft, Captain? Splendid-looking boat that."
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, I bought her a few days before I left New York. One likes to travel
+comfortably, you know. Very well fitted up she is."
+<P>
+Jack shouted from the doorway:
+<P>
+"Drummond, come up here and fling overboard these loaded rifles. We can't
+take any more chances. I'm going to lock up the ammunition room and take
+the key with me as a souvenir."
+<P>
+"Excuse me, Captain," said Drummond, who followed his friend, and presently
+bundles of rifles came clattering down the side of the precipice, plunging
+into the sea. The two then descended the steps, Jack in front, Drummond following
+with the Governor between them.
+<P>
+"Now, Governor," said Jack, "for the second time I am to bid you farewell.
+Here are the keys. If you accept them you must give me your word of honor
+that the boat will not be fired upon. If you do not promise that, I'll drop
+the bunch into the sea, and on your gray head be the consequences."
+<P>
+"I give you my word of honor that you shall not be fired upon."
+<P>
+"Very well, Governor. Here are the keys, and good-by."
+<P>
+In the flurry of excitement over the yacht's appearance, both Jack and Drummond
+had temporarily forgotten the existence of the tramp steamer the former had
+seen beating toward the rock.
+<P>
+Now Lamont suddenly recalled it.
+<P>
+"By the way, Governor," he said, "the relief boat you so thoughtfully sent
+for is on her way here. She should reach the rock at almost any minute now.
+In fact, I fancy we've little time to waste if we want to avoid a brush.
+It would be a pity to be nabbed now at the eleventh hour. Good-by, once more."
+<P>
+But the Governor had stepped between him and the boat.
+<P>
+"I&#151; I am an old man," he said, speaking with manifest embarrassment. "I was
+sent to take charge of this prison as punishment for refusing to join a Jew
+massacre plot. Governorship here means no more nor less than a life imprisonment.
+My wife and children are on a little estate of mine in Sweden. It is twelve
+years since I have seen them. I&#151;"
+<P>
+"If this story is a ruse to detain us&#151;"
+<P>
+"No! No!" protested the Governor, and there was no mistaking his pathetic,
+eager sincerity. "But&#151; but I shall be shot&#151; or locked in one of the cells
+and the water turned on&#151; for letting you escape. Won't you take me with you?
+I will work my passage. Take me as far as Stockholm. I shall be free there&#151; free
+to join my wife and to live forever out of reach of the Grand Dukes. Take
+me&#151;"
+<P>
+"Jump in!" ordered Jack, coming to a sudden resolution. "Heaven knows I would
+not condemn my worst enemy to a perpetual life on this rock. And you've been
+pretty decent to us, according to your lights. Jump aboard, we've no time
+to waste."
+<P>
+Nor did the Governor waste time in obeying. The others followed, and the
+boat shoved off. But scarcely had the oars caught the water when around the
+promontory came a large man-o'-war's launch, a rapid-fire gun mounted on
+her bows. She was manned by about twenty men in Russian police uniform.
+<P>
+"From the 'tramp,'" commented Alan excitedly. "And her gun is trained on
+us."
+<P>
+"Get down to work!" shouted Jack to the straining oarsmen.
+<P>
+"No use!" groaned Kempt. "She'll cross within a hundred yards of us. There's
+no missing at such close range and on such a quiet sea. What a fool I was
+to&#151;"
+<P>
+The launch was, indeed, bearing down on them despite the rowers' best efforts,
+and must unquestionably cut them off before they could reach the yacht.
+<P>
+Alan drew his revolver.
+<P>
+"We've no earthly show against her," he remarked quietly, "and it seems hard
+to 'go down in sight of port.' But let's do what we can."
+<P>
+"Put up that pop-gun," ordered Kempt. "She will sink us long before you're
+in range for revolver work. I'll run up my handkerchief for a white flag."
+<P>
+"To surrender?"
+<P>
+"What else can we do?"
+<P>
+"And be lugged back to the rock, all of us? Not I, for one!"
+<P>
+The launch was now within hailing distance, and every man aboard her was
+glaring at the helpless little yacht-gig.
+<P>
+"Wait!"
+<P>
+It was the Governor who spoke. Rising from his seat in the stern, he hailed
+the officer who was sighting the rapid-fire gun.
+<P>
+"Lieutenant Tschersky!" he called.
+<P>
+At sight of the old man's lean, uniformed figure, rising from among the rest,
+there was visible excitement and surprise aboard the launch. The officer
+saluted and ordered the engine stopped that he might hear more plainly.
+<P>
+"Lieutenant," repeated the Governor, "I am summoned aboard His Highness the
+Grand Duke Vladimir's yacht. You will proceed to the harbor and await my
+return to the rock. There has been a mutiny among the garrison, but I have
+quelled it."
+<P>
+The officer saluted again, gave an order, and the launch's nose pointed for
+the rock.
+<P>
+"Governor," observed Lamont, as the old man sank again into his seat, "you've
+earned your passage to Stockholm. You need not work for it."
+<h3>CHAPTER XXI</h3>
+<h4>THE ELOPEMENT</h4>
+<P>
+THE girls on the yacht had no expectation that Captain Kempt would come back
+with the two young men. But when, through their powerful binoculars, the
+girls became aware that Drummond and the Prince were in the small boat, they
+both fled to the chief saloon, and sat there holding one another's hands.
+Even the exuberant Kate for once had nothing to say. She heard the voice
+of her father on deck, giving command to the mate.
+<P>
+"Make for Stockholm, Johnson. Take my men-o'-war's men&#151; see that no one else
+touches the ammunition&#151; and fling the shells overboard. Heave the gun after
+them, and then clear out the rifles and ammunition the same way. When we
+reach Stockholm to-morrow morning, there must not be a gun on board this
+ship, and the ridiculous rumor that got abroad among your men that we were
+going to attack something or other, you will see is entirely unfounded. You
+impress that on them, Johnson."
+<P>
+"Oh, Dorothy," whispered Katherine, drawing a deep breath. "If you are as
+frightened as I am, get behind me."
+<P>
+"I think I will," answered Dorothy, and each squeezed the other's hand.
+<P>
+"I tell you what it is, Captain," sounded the confident voice of the Prince.
+"This vessel is a beauty. You have done yourself fine. I had no idea you
+were such a sybarite. Why, I've been aboard the Czar's yacht, and I tell
+you it's nothing&#151; Great heavens! Katherine!" he shouted, in a voice that
+made the ceiling ring.
+<P>
+She was now standing up and advanced toward him with both hands held out,
+a welcoming smile on her pretty lips, but he swooped down on her, flung his
+arms round her like a cabman beating warmth into his hands, kissed her on
+the brow, the two cheeks and the lips, swaying her back and forward as if
+about to fling her upstairs.
+<P>
+"Stop, stop," she cried. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Before my father,
+too! You great Russian bear!" and, breathless, she put her open palm against
+his face, and shoved his head away from her.
+<P>
+"Don't bother about me, Kate," said her father. "That's nothing to the way
+we acted when I was young. Come on, boys, to the smoking-room, and I'll mix
+you something good: real Kentucky, twenty-seven years in barrel, and I've
+got all the other materials for a Manhattan."
+<P>
+"Jack, I am glad to see you," panted Katherine, all in disarray, which she
+endeavored to set right by an agitated touch here and there. "Now, Jack,
+I'm going to take you to the smoking-room, but you'll have to behave yourself
+as you walk along the deck. I won't be made a spectacle of before the crew."
+<P>
+"Come along, Drummond," said the Captain, "and bring Miss Dorothy with you."
+<P>
+But Drummond stood in front of Dorothy Amhurst, and held out his hand.
+<P>
+"You haven't forgotten me, Miss Amhurst, I hope?"
+<P>
+"Oh, no," she replied, with a very faint smile, taking his hand.
+<P>
+"It seems incredible that you are here," he began. "What a lucky man I am.
+Captain Kempt takes his yacht to rescue his son-in-law that is to be, and
+incidentally rescues me as well, and then to find you here! I suppose you
+came because your friend Miss Kempt was aboard?"
+<P>
+"Yes, we are all but inseparable."
+<P>
+"I wrote you a letter, Miss Amhurst, the last night I was in St. Petersburg
+in the summer."
+<P>
+"Yes, I received it."
+<P>
+"No, not this one. It was the night I was captured, and I never got a chance
+to post it. It was an important letter&#151; for me."
+<P>
+"I thought it important&#151; for me," replied Dorothy, now smiling quite openly.
+"The Nihilists got it, searching your room after you had been arrested. It
+was sent on to New York, and given to me."
+<P>
+"Is that possible? How did they know it was for you?"
+<P>
+"I had been making inquiries through the Nihilists."
+<P>
+"I wrote you a proposal of marriage, Dorothy."
+<P>
+"It certainly read like it, but you see it wasn't signed, and you can't be
+held to it."
+<P>
+He reached across the table, and grasped her two hands.
+<P>
+"Dorothy, Dorothy," he cried, "do you mean you would have cabled 'Yes'?"
+<P>
+"No."
+<P>
+"You would not?"
+<P>
+"Of course not. I should have cabled 'Undecided.' One gets more for one's
+money in sending a long word. Then I should have written&#151;" she paused, and
+he cried eagerly:
+<P>
+"What?"
+<P>
+"What do you think?" she asked.
+<P>
+"Well, do you know, Dorothy, I am beginning to think my incredible luck will
+hold, and that you'd have written 'Yes.'"
+<P>
+"I don't know about the luck: that would have been the answer."
+<P>
+He sprang up, bent over her, and she, quite unaffectedly raised her face
+to his.
+<P>
+"Oh, Dorothy," he cried.
+<P>
+"Oh, Alan," she replied, with quivering voice, "I never thought to see you
+again. You cannot imagine the long agony of this voyage, and not knowing
+what had happened."
+<P>
+"It's a blessing, Dorothy, you had learned nothing about the Trogzmondoff."
+<P>
+"Ah, but I did: that's what frightened me. We have a man on board who was
+flung for dead from that dreadful rock. The Baltic saved him; his mother,
+he calls it."
+<P>
+Drummond picked her up in his arms, and carried her to the luxurious divan
+which ran along the side of the large room. There they sat down together,
+out of sight of the stairway.
+<P>
+"Did you get all of my letters?"
+<P>
+"I think so."
+<P>
+"You know I am a poor man?"
+<P>
+"I know you said so."
+<P>
+"Don't you consider my position poverty? I thought every one over there had
+a contempt for an income that didn't run into tens of thousands."
+<P>
+"I told you, Alan, I had been unused to money, and so your income appears
+to me quite sufficient."
+<P>
+"Then you are not afraid to trust in my future?"
+<P>
+"Not the least: I believe in you."
+<P>
+"Oh, you dear girl. If you knew how sweet that sounds! Then I may tell you.
+When I was in London last I ran down to Dartmouth in Devonshire. I shall
+be stationed there. You see, I have finished my foreign cruising, and Dartmouth
+is, for a time at least, to be my home. There's a fine harbor there, green
+hills and a beautiful river running between them, and I found such a lovely
+old house; not grand at all, you know, but so cosey and comfortable, standing
+on the heights overlooking the harbor, in an old garden filled with roses,
+shrubs, and every kind of flower; vines clambering about the ancient house.
+Two servants would keep it going like a shot. Dorothy, what do you say?"
+<P>
+Dorothy laughed quietly and whole heartedly.
+<P>
+"It reads like a bit from an old English romance. I'd just love to see such
+a house."
+<P>
+"You don't care for this sort of thing, do you?" he asked, glancing round
+about him.
+<P>
+"What sort of thing?"
+<P>
+"This yacht, these silk pannellings, these gorgeous pictures, the carving,
+the gilt, the horribly expensive carpet."
+<P>
+"You mean should I feel it necessary to be surrounded by such luxury? I answer
+most emphatically, no. I like your ivy-covered house at Dartmouth much better."
+<P>
+For a moment neither said anything: lips cannot speak when pressed together.
+<P>
+"Now, Dorothy, I want you to elope with me. We will be in Stockholm long
+before daylight to-morrow at the rate this boat is going. I'll get ashore
+as soon as practicable, and make all inquiries at the consulate about being
+married. I don't know what the regulations are, but if it is possible to
+be married quietly, say in the afternoon, will you consent to that, and then
+write a letter to Captain Kempt, thanking him for the trip on the yacht,
+and I'll write, thanking him for all he has done for me, and after that we'll
+make for England together. I've got a letter of credit in my pocket, which
+luckily the Russians did not take from me. I shall find all the money we
+need at Stockholm, then we'll cross the Swedish country, sail to Denmark,
+make our way through Germany to Paris, if you like, or to London. We shan't
+travel all the time, but just take nice little day trips, stopping at some
+quaint old town every afternoon and evening."
+<P>
+"You mean to let Captain Kempt, Katherine, and the Prince go to America alone?"
+<P>
+"Of course. Why not? They don't want us, and I'm quite sure we&#151; well, Dorothy,
+we'd be delighted to have them, to be sure&#151; but still, I've knocked a good
+deal about Europe, and there are some delightful old towns I'd like to show
+you, and I hate traveling with a party."
+<P>
+Dorothy laughed so heartily that her head sank on his shoulder.
+<P>
+"Yes, I'll do that," she said at last.
+<P>
+And they did.
+<h4>THE END</h4>
+<P>
+  <HR>
+
+<pre>
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+</pre>
+</BODY></HTML>
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