“I can see no object in the disuse of the hooter,” Crawshay declared querulously. “Nothing at sea could be worse than a collision. We are simply taking our lives in our hands, tearing along like this at sixteen knots an hour.”
“Isn’t there supposed to be a German raider out?” the other enquired.
“I think it is exceedingly doubtful whether there is really one in the Atlantic at all. The English gunboats patrol these seas. Besides, we are armed ourselves, and she wouldn’t be likely to tackle us.”
Jocelyn Thew had leaned a little forward. He was listening intently. At the same time, one of the figures upon the bridge, his hand to his ear, turned in the same direction.
“There’s some one who doesn’t mind letting their whereabouts be known,” he whispered, after a moment’s pause. “Can’t you hear a hooter?”
Crawshay listened but shook his head.
“Can’t hear a thing,” he declared laconically. “I’ve a cold in my head coming on, and it always affects my hearing.”
Jocelyn Thew stepped on tiptoe across the deck as far as the rail and returned in a few minutes.
“There’s a steamer calling, away on the starboard bow,” he announced. “She seems to be getting nearer, too. I wonder we don’t alter our course.”
“Well, I suppose it’s the captain’s business whether he chooses to answer or not,” Crawshay remarked. “I shall go down to my cabin. This gazing at nothing gets on my nerves.”
Jocelyn Thew returned to his damp vigil. Leaning over the wet wooden rail, he drew a little diagram on the back of an envelope and worked out some figures. Then he listened once more, the slight frown upon his forehead deepening. Finally he tore up his sketch and made his way to the doctor’s room. The doctor was seated at his desk and glanced up enquiringly as his visitor entered.
“I just looked in to see how young Robins was getting on,” Jocelyn explained.
“I am afraid he is in rather a bad way,” was the grave reply.
“What is the nature of his illness?”
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. His manner became a little vague.
“I must remind you, Mr. Thew,” he said, “that a doctor is not always at liberty to discuss the ailments of his patients. On board ship this custom becomes more, even, than mere etiquette. It is, in fact, against the regulations of the company for us to discuss the maladies of any passenger upon the steamer.”
“I recognise the truth of all that you say,” Jocelyn Thew agreed, “but it happens that I know the young man and his people. Naturally, therefore, I take an interest in him, and I am sure they would think it strange if, travelling upon the same steamer, I did not make these very ordinary enquiries.”
“You know his people, do you?” the doctor repeated. “Where does he come from, Mr. Thew?”
“Somewhere over New Jersey way,” was the glib reply, “but I used to meet his father often in New York. There can be no mystery about his illness, can there, doctor—no reason why I should not go and see him?”
“I have placed the young man in quarantine,” was the brief explanation, “and until he is released no one can go near him.”
“Something catching, eh?”
“Something that might turn out to be catching.”
Jocelyn Thew shrugged his shoulders and accepted what amounted almost to a little nod of dismissal. He ascended the staircase thoughtfully and came face to face with Katharine Beverley, issuing from the music room. She greeted him with a little exclamation of relief.
“Mr. Thew,” she exclaimed, “I have been looking for you everywhere. Doctor Gant thinks,” she added, lowering her voice, “that if you wish to see his patient alive, you had better come at once.” “There is a change in his condition, then?”
“Yes,” she told him gravely.
He stood for a moment thinking rapidly. The girl shivered a little as she watched the change in his face. Her hospital training had not lessened her awe and sympathy in the face of death, and it was so entirely obvious that Jocelyn Thew was considering only what influence upon his plans this event might have. Finally he turned and descended the stairs by her side.
“I am not at all sure that it is wise of me to come,” he said. “However, if he is asking for me I suppose I had better.”
They made their way into the commodious stateroom upon the saloon deck, which had been secured for the sick man. He lay upon a small hospital bed, nothing of him visible save his haggard face, with its ill-grown beard. His eyes were watching the door, and he showed some signs of gratification at Jocelyn’s entrance. Gant, who was standing over the bed, turned apologetically towards the latter.
“It’s the money,” he whispered. “He is worrying about that. I was obliged to send for you. He called out your name just now, and the ship’s doctor was hanging around.”
The newcomer drew a stool to the side of the bed, opened a pocketbook and counted out a great wad of notes. The dying man watched him with every appearance of interest.
“Five thousand dollars,” the former said at last. “That should bring in about eleven hundred and fifty pounds. Now watch me, Phillips.”
He took an envelope from his pocket, thrust the notes inside, gummed down the flap, and, drawing a fountain pen from his pocket, wrote an address. The dying man watched him and nodded feebly.
“These,” Jocelyn continued, “are for your wife. The packet shall be delivered to her within twelve hours of our landing in Liverpool. You can keep it under your pillow and hand it over to Miss Beverley here. You trust her?”
The man on the bed nodded feebly and turned slightly towards Katharine. She bent over him.
“I shall see myself,” she promised, “that the money is properly delivered.”
Phillips smiled and closed his eyes. It was obvious that he had no more to say. Jocelyn Thew stole softly out, followed, a moment later, by Katharine.
“The doctor thinks I am better away,” she whispered. “He won’t speak again. Poor fellow!”
Jocelyn stepped softly up the stairs and drew a little breath of relief as they reached the promenade deck without meeting any one. Both seemed to feel the desire for fresh air, and they stepped outside for a moment. There were tears in Katharine’s eyes.
“Of course,” she said, a little timidly, “I don’t understand this at all, but it is terribly tragic. Do you think that he would have lived if he had not undertaken the journey?”
“It was absolutely impossible,” her companion assured her. “He was a dying man from the moment the operation was finished.”
“Will he be buried at sea?”
“I think not. He was exceedingly anxious to be buried at his home near Chester. It isn’t a pleasant thing to talk about,” Jocelyn went on, “but they brought his coffin on board with him. It’s lying in the companionway now, covered over with a rug.”
She shivered.
“It’s a horrible day altogether,” she declared, looking out into the seemingly endless banks of mist.
“Entirely my opinion, Miss Beverley,” a voice said in her ear. “I find it most depressing—and unhealthy. And listen.—Do you hear that?”
They all listened intently. Again they could hear the hooting of a steamer in the distance.
“Between ourselves,” Crawshay went on confidentially, “the captain seems to me rather worried. That steamer has been following us for hours. She is evidently waiting for the fog to lift, to see who we are.”
“How does she know about us?” Katharine asked. “We haven’t blown our hooter once.”
“We don’t need to,” was the fractious reply. “That’s where we are being over-careful. She can hear our engines distinctly.”
“Who does the captain think she is, then?”
Crawshay’s voice was dropped to a mysterious pitch, but though he leaned towards the girl, his eyes were fixed upon her companion.
“He doesn’t go as far as to express a definite opinion, but he thinks that it might be that German raider�
��the Blucher, isn’t it? She can steal about quite safely in the fog, and she can tell by the beat of the engines whether she is near a man-of-war or not.”
Not a muscle of Jocelyn’s face twitched, but there was a momentary gleam in his eyes of which Crawshay took swift note. He glanced aft to where the two seamen were standing by the side of their guns.
“If it really is the German raider,” he remarked, “they might as well fire off a popgun as that thing. She is supposed to be armed with four six-inch guns and two torpedo tubes.”
Crawshay nodded.
“So I told the captain. We might have a go at a submarine, but the raider would sink us in two minutes if we tried to tackle her. What a beastly voyage this is!” he went on, in a depressed tone. “I can’t get over the fact that I risked my life to get on board, too.”
Jocelyn Thew, with a little word of excuse, had swung around and disappeared. Katharine looked at her companion curiously.
“Do you believe that it really is the raider, Mr. Crawshay?” she enquired.
He hesitated. In Jocelyn’s absence his manner seemed to undergo some subtle change, his tone to become crisper and less querulous.
“We had some reason to hope,” he said cautiously, “that she was on a different course. It is just possible, however, that in changing it she might have struck this bank of fog and preferred to hang about for a time.”
“What will happen if she finds us?”
“That depends entirely upon circumstances.”
“I have an idea,” Katharine continued, “that you know more about this matter than you feel inclined to divulge.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “Nowadays, every one has to learn discretion.”
“Is it necessary with me?” “It is necessary with any friend of Mr. Jocelyn Thew,” he told her didactically.
“What a suspicious person you are!” she exclaimed, a little scornfully. “You are just like all your countrymen. You get hold of an idea and nothing can shake it. Mr. Jocelyn Thew, I dare say, possesses a past. I know for a fact that he has been engaged in all sorts of adventures during his life. But—at your instigation, I suppose—they have already searched his person, his stateroom, and every article of luggage he has. After that, why not leave him alone?”
“Because he is an extremely clever person.”
“Then you are not satisfied yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Am I, may I ask, under suspicion?” she enquired, with faint sarcasm.
“I should not like to say,” he replied glibly, “that you were altogether free from it.”
She laughed heartily.
“I should not worry about the army if I were you,” she advised. “I am quite sure that secret-service work is the natural outlet for your talents.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” he confided, “if headquarters didn’t insist upon my taking it up permanently. It will depend a little, of course, upon what success I have during this voyage.”
She laughed in his face and turned away.
“I will tell you what I find so interesting about you, Mr. Crawshay,” she said. “You must be either very much cleverer than you seem, or very much more foolish. You keep me continually guessing as to which it is.”
CHAPTER XIII
Table of Contents
Towards six o’clock that evening, without any apparent change in the situation, Captain Jones descended from the bridge and signalled to Crawshay, whom he passed on the deck, to follow him into his room. The great ship was still going at full speed through a sea which was as smooth as glass.
“Getting out of it, aren’t we?” Crawshay enquired.
The captain nodded. His hair and beard were soaked with moisture, and there were beads of wet all over his face. Otherwise he seemed little the worse for his long vigil. In his eyes, however, was a new anxiety.
“Another five miles,” he confided, “should see us in clear weather.”
“Steamer’s still following us, isn’t she?”
“Sticking to us like a leech,” was the terse reply. “She is not out of any American port. She must have just picked us up. She isn’t any ordinary cargo steamer, either, or she couldn’t make the speed.”
“I’ve worked it out by your chart,” Crawshay declared, “and it might very well be the Blucher. I don’t think I made the altered course wide enough, and she might very well have been hanging about a bit when she struck the fog and heard our engines.”
The captain lit a pipe. “I am not in the habit, as you may imagine, of discussing the conduct of my ship with any one, Mr. Crawshay,” he said, “but you come to me with very absolute credentials, and it’s rather a comfort to have some one standing by with whom one can share the responsibility. You see my couple of guns? They are about as useful as catapults against the Blucher, whereas, on the other hand, she could sink us easily with a couple of volleys.”
“Just so,” Crawshay agreed. “What about speed, Captain?”
“If our reports are trustworthy, we might be able to squeeze out one more knot than she can do,” was the doubtful reply, “but, you see, she’ll follow us out of this last bank of fog practically within rifle range. I’ve altered my course three or four times so as to get a start, but she hangs on like grim death. That’s what makes me so sure that it’s the Blucher.”
“Want my advice?” Crawshay asked.
“That’s the idea,” the captain acquiesced.
“Stoke her up, then, and drive full speed ahead. Take no notice of any signals. Make for home with the last ounce you can squeeze out of her.”
“That’s all very well,” Captain Jones observed, “but there will be at least half an hour during which we shall be within effective range. She might sink us a dozen times over.”
“Yes, but I don’t think she will.”
“Why not?”
“If the theory upon which I started this wild-goose chase is correct,” Crawshay explained, “there is something on board this ship infinitely more valuable than the ship itself to Germany. That is why I think that she will strain every nerve to try and capture you, of course, but she will never sink you, because if she did she would lose everything her Secret Service have worked for in Germany ever since, and even before the commencement of the war.”
“It’s an idea,” the captain admitted, with a gleam in his eyes.
“It’s common sense,” Crawshay urged. “When I left Halifax, I was ready to take twenty-five to one that we’d been sold. I wouldn’t mind laying twenty-five to one now that what we are in search of is somewhere on board this steamer. If that is so, the Blucher will never dare to sink you, because there will still remain the chance of the person on board who is in charge of the documents getting away with them at the other end, whereas down at the bottom of the Atlantic they would be of no use to any one.”
“I see your point of view,” the other agreed.
“Then you’d better take my tip,” Crawshay continued. “There isn’t a passenger on board who didn’t know the risk they were running when they started, and I’m sure no one will blame you for not surrendering your ship like a dummy directly you’re asked. They’re a pretty sporting lot in the saloon, you know. All those newspaper men are real good fellows.”
The captain’s face brightened.
“Next to fighting her,” he soliloquised, stroking his beard,—
“The idea of fighting her is ridiculous,” Crawshay interrupted. “Look here, you haven’t any time to lose. Send to the engineer and let him give it to them straight down below. I’ll give a tenner apiece to the stokers, if we get clear, and if my advice turns out wrong, I’ll see you through it, anyway.”
“We can leg it at a trifle over nineteen knots,” Captain Jones declared, as he picked up his cap, “and, anyway, anything’s better than having one of those short-haired, smooth-tongued, blustering Germans on board.”
He hurried off, and Crawshay followed him on deck to watch developments. Already, through what seemed to be
an opening in the walls of fog, there was a vision in front of clear blue sea on which a still concealed sun was shining. Soon they passed out into a new temperature of pleasant warmth, with a skyline ahead, hard and clear. The passengers came crowding on deck. Every one leaned over the starboard rail, looking towards the place whence the sound of the hooting was still proceeding. Suddenly a steamer crept out of the fog mountain and drew clear, barely half a mile away. The first glimpse at her was final. She had cast off all disguise. Her false forecastle was thrown back, and the sun glittered upon three exceedingly formidable-looking guns, trained upon the City of Boston. A row of signals, already hoisted, were fluttering from her mast.
“It’s the Blucher, by God!” Sam West muttered.
“We’re nabbed!” his little friend groaned.
“Wonder what they’ll do with us.”
Every eye was upturned now to the mast for the answering signals. To the universal surprise, none were hoisted. The captain stood upon the bridge with his glass focussed upon the raider. He gave no orders, only the black smoke was beginning to belch now from the funnels, and little pieces of smut and burning coal blew down the deck. Jocelyn Thew, who was standing a little apart, frowned to himself. He had seen Crawshay and the captain come out of the latter’s cabin together.
The blue lightnings were playing now unchecked about the top of the Marconi room. Another more imperative signal flew from the pirate ship. A minute later there was a puff of white smoke, a loud report, and a shell burst in the sea, fifty yards ahead. Crawshay edged up to where Jocelyn Thew was standing.
“This is a damned unpleasant affair,” he said.
“It is,” was the grim reply.
“You know it’s the Blucher?”
“No doubt about that.”
“What on earth are we up to?” Crawshay continued, in a dissatisfied tone. “We haven’t even replied to her signals.”
“It appears to me,” Jocelyn Thew pronounced irritably, “that we are going to try and get away. I never heard of such lunacy. They can blow us to pieces if they want to.”
Crawshay shivered.
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