CHAPTER XXII
A TRIP ON THE SOUND
"Good morning, Dad," said Nitocris, as she entered the sitting-roomabout half an hour before breakfast the next morning. "What is youropinion of the European situation now?"
"Good morning, Niti; what is yours?" asked her father, looking at herwith grave eyes and smiling lips.
"As it was yesterday, only rather more so. In his present incarnation,Prince Oscar Oscarovitch is, I should think, about as black-hearted ascoundrel as ever polluted the air that honest people breathe."
"I entirely agree with you. And now, believing that, do you stillpropose to trust yourself to his tender mercies on board his own yacht,surrounded, as you will be, by men who, no doubt, are his absoluteslaves?"
"_I_ trust myself to his tender mercies, Dad?" she replied, drawingherself up and throwing her head back a little; "you seem to have gothold of the thing by the wrong end, as Brenda would say. That is onlywhat it will look like. The reality will be that he will blindly trusthimself to _my_ mercies--and I can assure you that he will find themanything but tender. No, dear, we shall accept His Highness's invitationto lunch, and then his offer of the hospitality of the yacht for thetrip, which, by the way, I fancy will be more to the eastward than tothe northward----"
"You mean, I suppose, Trelitz and Viborg?"
"Not Trelitz, I think, but Viborg almost certainly. That will be the endof the abduction as far as I can see from our present plane ofexistence."
"Really, Niti--well, well. Of course, I know that you will be perfectlysafe: but what would our good friends on this plane, as you put it, theVan Huysmans, for instance, think if they could hear you talking socalmly to your own father about getting yourself abducted by a man whomyou justly think to be one of the most unscrupulous scoundrels on earth!And, by the way, what is to become of me in the carrying out of thislittle scheme of yours? I hope you don't expect me to connive at theabduction of my own daughter. I have a certain amount of reputation tolose, you know."
"Oh, if His Highness is the clever villain that we know him to be, Ithink we may safely trust him to arrange for your temporarydisappearance from the scene. And whatever he does it will be easy foryou to play the part of the passive victim for the time being. He can'tinjure or kill you, for if it came to extremities you have the means ofgiving his people such a fright as would probably drive them out oftheir senses, just as I could if their master got troublesome. Really,from a certain point of view, the adventure will have a decidedlyhumorous aspect."
"With a very considerable leaven of tragedy."
"Yes, the tragedy will be a logical sequence of the comedy--and, as Isaid last night, it will be tragedy. And now suppose we go to breakfast.I have been up nearly two hours helping Jenny with the packing, and thislovely air has given me a raging appetite. There's a little more to doyet, and we shall have His Highness here before long to ask for ourdecision and take us off to the yacht."
Here she was quite right, for she had hardly left her father to hisafter-breakfast pipe and gone upstairs to help her maid, thanOscarovitch came into the smoking-room.
"Good morning, Professor Marmion! I need not ask you if you have had agood night. You look the very picture of a man who has slept the sleepof the just. And Miss Marmion?"
"Thanks, Your Highness, I think we have both managed to spend the nightto good purpose. The air here is glorious just now. I always think thatsound, dreamless sleep is the best sign that a place is doing you good."
"Oh, undoubtedly, though for some reason or other I did not sleep verywell last night. Something had disagreed with me, I suppose. I seemed tohave a sense of being pursued to the uttermost ends of the earth andback again by some relentless foe who simply would not allow me to takea moment's rest. But I didn't come to talk about the stuff that dreamsare made of. I came to ask whether my cruise is to be a lonely one, orwhether I am to have the very great pleasure of your company."
Franklin Marmion, for perhaps the first time in his life, feltdistinctly murderous towards a fellow-creature as he looked at thissplendid specimen of physical humanity, knowing so well the real man whowas hiding behind that fascinating exterior; but he managed to answerpleasantly enough:
"We have talked the matter over, Prince, and we have come to theconclusion that your very kind invitation is really too good to berefused. We know that we are incurring a debt that we shall not be ableto pay, but we are trusting to your generosity to let us off."
"On the contrary, my dear Professor," said Oscarovitch, without theslightest attempt to conceal the pleasure that the acceptation gave him,"it is yourself and Miss Marmion who have made me your debtor. In fact,if you had not found yourselves able to come, I should have run the_Grashna_ back to Cowes, gone up to London, plunged into a maelstroem ofdissipation, and probably ended by losing a great deal of money at Ascotand Goodwood. Ah, Miss Marmion, good morning! How well the air ofCopenhagen seems to agree with you! The Professor has just gladdened mysoul by telling me that you have decided to take pity on my loneliness."
"Good morning, Prince!" she replied, putting her hand for a moment inthe one he held out. "Yes, we are coming, if you will have us. In fact,I have just finished packing."
"Ah, excellent! Well now, since that is happily arranged, it would be apity to waste any of this lovely morning. The Sound is like a streak ofblue sky fallen from heaven. My gig is down at the jetty, and I have acouple of my men here who will convoy your baggage down. If it ispacked, as you say, you need not trouble about it. You will findeverything safe on board."
"Thank you, Prince," said the Professor. "Then I will go and settle upat the office while Niti puts her hat on. I will have the things sentdown, and we may as well walk to the jetty. It will do me good afterthat big breakfast. Jenny had better get into a cab and go down with theluggage."
When they reached the promenade along the Sound shore Oscarovitchpointed to a beautifully-shaped, three-masted, two-funnelled white yachtlying about five hundred yards out, and said:
"That is the _Grashna_, Miss Marmion. I hope you like the look of her."
"She is beautiful!" exclaimed Nitocris, recognising at once the vesselwhich had met the Russian destroyer on the early morning of the 7th."She almost looks as if she could fly."
"So she can in a sense," laughed the Prince. "Come now, here is the gig.We will get on board, and you shall see her go through her paces."
Neither she nor her father were strangers to yachts, but when theymounted the bridge of the _Grashna_ and looked over her from stem tostern, they had to admit that they had never seen anything quite sodaintily splendid. They had chosen their rooms, and Jenny was belowunpacking. Although, of course, he had a captain on board, the Princeoften sailed the yacht himself when he had guests on board. He had agenuine love for the beautiful craft, and he took an almost boyishdelight in showing what she could do. She was a twelve-hundred-ton,triple-screw, turbine-driven boat, and, thanks to the space-economy ofthe new system, her builders had been able to stow away fifteen thousandhorse-power in her engine-room, and this when fully developed gave aspeed in smooth water of thirty-five knots or a little over fortystatute miles an hour.
The anchor was up almost as soon as they got on to the bridge, andOscarovitch moved the pointer of the telegraph to "Ahead slow." Thequartermaster in the oval wheel-house behind him moved the little wheela few spokes to starboard, her mellow whistle tooted, and she glided inan outward curve through the other yachts and shipping, and gained theopen water.
"Now," he said, turning to Nitocris, "we can begin to move. It isroughly thirty English miles to Elsinore. If you have never done anyfast travelling at sea and would like to do some now, I can get youthere in about three-quarters of an hour."
"What!" exclaimed the Professor, "thirty miles in forty-five minutes bysea! That is over forty miles an hour. A wonderful speed."
"Yes," he replied, almost tenderly; "but my beautiful _Grashna_ is awonderful craft--at least, I think you will say so when you see what shecan do. N
ow, if you will take advice, you and Miss Marmion will go intoshelter, for it will begin to blow soon."
Behind the wheel-house was an observation room, as it would be called inthe States, running nearly the whole length of the bridge, and frontedwith thick plate glass. They went in, and Oscarovitch turned the pointerto half-speed. There was no increase in vibration, but the shore beganto slip away behind them faster and faster, and the northern suburbs ofCopenhagen rose ahead and fell astern as though they were part of aswiftly moving panorama. Then the pointer went down to full speed, andthe Prince, after a word to the quartermaster, joined them in thebridge-house and closed the door.
"You will need all your eyes to see much of the shore now," he said; "Ihave given her her wings."
Nitocris felt a shudder in the carpeted floor. Looking ahead she saw thebow lift slightly. Then a smooth, green swathe of water curled up oneither side. She looked aft, and saw a broad torrent of froth, foaminglike a furious, rapid stream away from the stern. The houses and treeson the shore seemed to run into each other, and slide out of sightalmost before the eye could rest upon them. The water alongside wasmerely a blue-green blur. Nitocris involuntarily held her breath asthough she had been out on deck.
"It is wonderful, Prince!" she said, almost in a whisper. "That allegedexpress from Hamburg was nothing to this: and yet how steadily she movesin spite of the speed. I should have thought that it would have nearlyshaken us to jelly."
"That is the turbines, dear," said her father, who was already wonderingwhether Oscarovitch was doing this just to show how hopeless any pursuitof such a vessel would be. "They are a marvellous means of applyingsteam power. Lieutenant Parsons is robbing the sea of one, at least, ofits worst terrors."
"Yes," added the Prince, "we are travelling a little over forty miles anhour; and if you got that speed out of reciprocating engines you wouldscarcely be able to lie on the deck without holding on to something, yethere we are as comfortable as though we were standing in adrawing-room."
"You have given us a new experience to begin with," said Nitocris,thinking how nice it would be to take her wedding trip with Merrill insuch a craft as this. "Why, look at the two shores coming together,Dad!"
"No, excuse me," said Oscarovitch, "we are only about half-way to theGate of the Baltic yet. That land on the right is the island of Hvreen.When we have passed that you will soon see the heights of Elsinore andHelsingborg rising ahead. There are only about two and a half milesbetween Denmark and Sweden there."
"Oh yes, of course. I am forgetting my geography," laughed Nitocris, asthe low, wooded patch of land came rushing towards them as though itwere adrift on a fast-flowing stream. "Goodness, what a speed!"
"A very wonderful craft, Prince," added the Professor, as the islanddrifted past; "she quite inclines me towards a breach of the tenthcommandment. Now that you have given us this taste of the delights ofspeed, I think that if I were a millionaire, I should try to build oneto beat her."
"Exactly," laughed Oscarovitch. "It is marvellous this fascination ofspeed. Your poet, Henley, touched the pulse of the times when he wrotethose splendid lines of his. But surely, Professor, _you_ would not havevery much difficulty in leaving all far behind. A man to whommathematical impossibilities are as easy as an addition sum ought to beable to realise the dream of the ages and solve the problem of aerialnavigation."
He looked him straight in the eyes as he said this. He fully believed inthe possibility of human flight, given the transcendent genius who couldwork out the equation of weight and power. Perhaps that genius might bewith him now in the bridge-house. His vivid imagination was alreadypicturing the lovely girl at his side crowned Empress of the Russias andthe East, and himself in command of an aerial navy, beneath whoseassault the armies and navies and fortresses of the rest of the worldwould be as so many toys to play with and destroy.
"If I could do that, and I do not think it would be so very difficultafter all," said Franklin Marmion, returning his glance, "I would notdo it. It would put too much power in the hands of a few men, and wehave enough of that already. The owner of a fleet of aerial warshipswould be above all human law. He could terrorise the earth, and makemankind his slaves. Life would become unendurable under such conditions.Commercialism, which only means slavery plus the liberty to starve, isbad enough, but it is at least possible. The other would be impossible.There is no man quite honest enough to be trusted with such a power asthat. I have worked the thing out, and it is perfectly feasible, but Iburnt my designs and calculations."
"What!" exclaimed Oscarovitch, flushing in spite of his effort to keepthe blood back from his face. "You have solved the problem, and won'tmake use of the greatest invention of all the ages! Surely, Professor,that is a little quixotic, is it not?"
"Who am I that I should bring a curse upon humanity, Prince?" heanswered gravely. "Do you not kill each other fast enough now? No, theworld is not fit for such a development yet. My results will remain myown until Tom Hood's ideal of good government has been realised."
"And what was that, Dad?" asked Nitocris, who had a double reason forbeing interested in the conversation. "If I ever knew it, I haveforgotten it."
"Despotism, Niti--and an angel from heaven for the despot," he replied,with another look into the Prince's eyes which brought him to theconclusion that the sooner his presence on board the _Grashna_ wasdispensed with the better for his plans. There was a sense of quietmastery in Franklin Marmion's manner which made him uneasy.
"Ah! there is the famous fortress, is it not? the home of Hamlet andOphelia and the Ghost!" she exclaimed, pointing ahead to where agrey-blue mass was rising out of the water. "Do you believe in ghosts,Prince?" she added suddenly, flashing a glance at him which seemed topierce his brain like a ray of unearthly light.
"Ghosts? No, Miss Marmion. I'm afraid I am too hopelessly materialisticfor that. I never saw or heard of an authentic ghost, and I do notpropose to believe until I see."
"We have a ghost at 'The Wilderness,'--the wraith of a poor young ladywho killed herself after some royal blackguard had abused his ownhospitality. She often comes to visit me in my study," said theProfessor, as though he were relating the most ordinary occurrence.
"Ah," smiled the Prince, "that is very interesting: but, of course, itwould be in the power of a man like yourself to have experiences whichare denied to ordinary mortals. Still, granted all that, I confess thatI have often wondered whether or not I should be frightened if I reallydid see a ghost."
"Yes, I wonder?" murmured Nitocris, with a great deal more meaning thanhe had any idea of just then.
All three felt that the conversation was getting a little difficult, andthey were not sorry when the rapid rising of the rock of Elsinore madeit necessary for Oscarovitch to go out to the engine telegraph.
"His Highness doesn't believe in ghosts now," whispered Nitocris to herfather, when the door shut behind him, "but I think he will before verylong. I wonder what he is really going to do? I've half a mind to----"
"No, no, Niti," he said quickly; "keep this side of the Border till youreally have to cross it. What on earth, literally, would happen if hecame back and found me standing here alone?"
"Oh, of course I didn't mean it," she smiled. "It would be very poorsport to spoil both the comedy and the tragedy before the curtain goesup. I wonder if the drama will begin to-night? I shouldn't besurprised."
"Nor I," said the Professor, a trifle grimly. "I didn't at all like hislooks when I was talking about the flying machine. The brute looked asif he were quite capable of locking me up and starving or torturing meuntil I gave him the secret. My word, I should like to see him try! I'dhave him grovelling at my feet in five minutes."
The door opened and Oscarovitch came in. He took off the cap which hadbeen pulled tight over his eyes, and said:
"Well, we have arrived! Almost exactly forty-five minutes. There isElsinore, there is Kronborg, King Frederick's sixteenth-century castle,and there is Marienlyst, which is to Copenhagen what Brighton is t
oLondon, only, I must say, in a much more refined sense. Now what isyour pleasure, Miss Marmion? We have still nearly two hours beforelunch, so, if you would like an hour's stroll ashore, the gig will beready in a couple of minutes."
"Thank you, Prince," she said with a rewarding smile. "Dad, what do youthink? It all looks very beautiful under this sun and sky."
"Which, of course, means that you want to go ashore, Niti," said herfather. "For my own part, I certainly should like a little walk on newground. I have never been here before."
"Then, of course we will go," said Oscarovitch, opening the door andgoing to the telegraph.
The yacht came to a standstill in a few minutes, and the gig was waitingat the foot of the gangway ladder. They spent a very pleasant hourashore, and what they saw, you may read of in your Murray and Baedeker,wherefore there is no need to set it down here. When they came aboardagain, lunch was almost ready, and the steward presented his master andthe Professor with quite exceptional cocktails in the smoking-room. Thenthey went and had a wash, and the mellow gong sounded.
I am not very fond of those descriptions in stories which read likeextracts from an upholsterer's price-list, nor yet those accounts ofmeals that, after all, are only menus writ large, so it may suffice tosay that the saloon of the _Grashna_ was an arrangement of sandal-woodpanels, framed in thin silver filigree, and hung with exquisite littlemasterpieces in water-colour, and black and white, and crayon, mostlysea-scapes, with here and there a beautiful head with living eyes whichfollowed you everywhere; that the rich yellow of the panels was enhancedby _portieres_ and curtains of deep golden-bronze silk, and that thedomed ceiling was of pale, sky-blue enamel spangled with theconstellations of the northern heavens, which at night lit up the wholesaloon with a soft electric radiance. As for the lunch, it was as nearlyperfect as the best-paid chef afloat could make it, after his master hadasked him as a personal favour to do so.
They ran back quietly to Copenhagen at twenty knots, and Oscarovitch andthe Professor went ashore to send off a few telegrams, leaving Nitocris,for her own reasons, to make herself at home on the yacht. They returnedin time to dress for dinner and enjoy a stroll on the broad upper deck,and watch the sunset over the town and the quickly-increasing sparkle ofthe myriad lights on shore and sea. When they came up after dinner,these lights were only represented by a luminous haze glimmering underthe stars to the northward. The _Grashna_ was heading nearly due southat an easy speed towards the Baltic Islands.
Something told both Nitocris and her father that the decisive hour wouldcome soon, and they were both prepared for its advent.
The Mummy and Miss Nitocris: A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension Page 23