“Much too strong,” Mr. Sabin murmured. “A sad waste of a very valuable drug, my friend. Now will you please come inside with me. We must have a little chat. But first kindly stand quite still for one moment. There is no particular reason why I should run any risk. I am going to take that revolver from your pocket and throw it overboard.”
Mr Watson’s first instinct was evidently one of resistance. Then suddenly he felt the cold muzzle of a revolver upon his forehead.
“If you move,” Mr. Sabin said quietly, “you are a dead man. My best policy would be to kill you; I am foolish not to do it. But I hate violence. You are safe if you do as I tell you.”
Mr. Watson recognised the fact that his companion was in earnest. He stood quite still and watched his revolver describe a semi-circle in the darkness and a fall with a little splash in the water. Then he followed Mr. Sabin into his cabin.
CHAPTER XLVIII
THE DOOMSCHEN
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“I suppose,” Mr. Sabin began, closing the door of the cabin behind him, “that I may take it—this episode—as an indication of your refusal to accept the proposals I made to you?”
Mr. Watson did not immediately reply. He had seated himself on the corner of a lounge and was leaning forward, his head resting moodily upon his hands. His sallow face was paler even than usual, and his expression was sullen. He looked, as he undoubtedly was, in an evil humour with himself and all things.
“It was not a matter of choice with me,” he muttered. “Look out of your window there and you will see that even here upon the ocean I am under surveillance.”
Mr. Sabin’s eyes followed the man’s forefinger. Far away across the ocean he could see a dim green light almost upon the horizon. It was the German man-of-war.
“That is quite true,” Mr. Sabin said. “I admit that there are difficulties, but it seems to me that you have overlooked the crux of the whole matter. I have offered you enough to live on for the rest of your days, without ever returning to Europe. You know very well that you can step off this ship arm-in-arm with me when we reach Boston, even though your man-of-war be alongside the dock. They could not touch you—you could leave your—pardon me—not too honourable occupation once and for ever. America is not the country in which one would choose to live, but it has its resources—it can give you big game and charming women. I have lived there and I know. It is not Europe, but it is the next best thing. Come, you had better accept my terms!”
The man had listened without moving a muscle of his face. There was something almost pitiable in its white, sullen despair. Then his lips parted.
“Would to God I could!” he moaned. “Would to God I had the power to listen to you!”
Mr. Sabin flicked the ash off his cigarette and looked thoughtful. He stroked his grey imperial and kept his eyes on his companion.
“The extradition laws,” the other interrupted savagely.
Mr. Sabin shrugged his shoulders. “By all means,” he murmured. “Personally I have no interest in them; but if you would talk like a reasonable man and tell me where your difficulty lies I might be able to help you.”
The man who had called himself Watson raised his head slowly. His expression remained altogether hopeless. He had the appearance of a man given wholly over to despair.
“Have you ever heard of the Doomschen?” he asked slowly.
Mr. Sabin shuddered. He became suddenly very grave. “You are not one of them?” he exclaimed.
The man bowed his head.
“I am one of those devils,” he admitted.
Mr. Sabin rose to his feet and walked up and down the little room.
“Of course,” he remarked, “that complicates matters, but there ought to be a way out of it. Let me think for a moment.”
The man on the lounge sat still with unchanging face. In his heart he knew that there was no way out of it. The chains which bound him were such as the hand of man had no power to destroy. The arm of his master was long. It had reached him here—it would reach him to the farthermost corner of the world. Nor could Mr. Sabin for the moment see any light. The man was under perpetual sentence of death. There was no country in the world which would not give him up, if called upon to do so.
“What you have told me,” Mr. Sabin said, “explains, of course to a certain extent, your present indifference to my offers. But when I first approached you in this way you certainly led me to think——”
“That was before that cursed Kaiser Wilhelm came up,” Watson interrupted. “I had a plan—I might have made a rush for liberty at any rate!”
“But surely you would have been marked down at Boston,” Mr. Sabin said.
“The only friend I have in the world,” the other said slowly, “is the manager of the Government’s Secret Cable Office at Berlin. He was on my side. It would have given me a chance, but now”—he looked out of the window—“it is hopeless!”
Mr. Sabin resumed his chair and lit a fresh cigarette. He had thought the matter out and began to see light.
“It is rather an awkward fix,” he said, “but ‘hopeless’ is a word which I do not understand. As regards our present dilemma I think that I see an excellent way out of it.”
A momentary ray of hope flashed across the man’s face. Then he shook his head.
“It is not possible,” he murmured.
Mr. Sabin smiled quietly.
“My friend,” he said, “I perceive that you are a pessimist! You will find yourself in a very short time a free man with the best of your life before you. Take my advice. Whatever career you embark in do so in a more sanguine spirit. Difficulties to the man who faces them boldly lose half their strength. But to proceed. You are one of those who are called ‘Doomschen.’ That means, I believe, that you have committed a crime punishable by death,—that you are on parole only so long as you remain in the service of the Secret Police of your country. That is so, is it not?”
The man assented grimly. Mr. Sabin continued—
“If you were to abandon your present task and fail to offer satisfactory explanations—if you were to attempt to settle down in America, your extradition, I presume, would at once be applied for. You would be given no second chance.”
“I should be shot without a moment’s hesitation,” Watson admitted grimly.
“Exactly; and there is, I believe, another contingency. If you should succeed in your present enterprise, which, I presume, is my extermination, you would obtain your freedom.”
The man on the lounge nodded. A species of despair was upon him. This man was his master in all ways. He would be his master to the end.
“That brings us,” Mr. Sabin continued, “to my proposition. I must admit that the details I have not fully thought out yet, but that is a matter of only half an hour or so. I propose that you should kill me in Boston Harbour and escape to your man-of-war. They will, of course, refuse to give you up, and on your return to Germany you will receive your freedom.”
“But—but you,” Watson exclaimed, bewildered, “you don’t want to be killed, surely?”
“I do not intend to be—actually,” Mr. Sabin explained. “Exactly how I am going to manage it I can’t tell you just now, but it will be quite easy. I shall be dead to the belief of everybody on board here except the captain, and he will be our accomplice. I shall remain hidden until your Kaiser Wilhelm has left, and when I do land in America—it shall not be as Mr. Sabin.”
Watson rose to his feet He was a transformed man. A sudden hope had brightened his face. His eyes were on fire.
“It is a wonderful scheme!” he exclaimed. “But the captain—surely he will never consent to help?”
“On the contrary,” Mr. Sabin answered, “he will do it for the asking. There is not a single difficulty which we cannot easily surmount.”
“There is my companion,” Watson remarked; “she will have to be reckoned with.”
“Leave her,” Mr. Sabin said, “to me. I will undertake that she shall be on our side befor
e many hours are passed. You had better go down to your room now. It is getting light and I want to rest.”
Watson paused upon the threshold. He pointed in some embarrassment to the table by the side of the bed.
“Is it any use,” he murmured in a low tone, “saying that I am sorry for this?”
“You only did—what—in a sense was your duty,” Mr. Sabin answered. “I bear no malice—especially since I escaped.”
Watson closed the door and Mr. Sabin glanced at the bed. For a moment or two he hesitated, although the desire for sleep had gone by. Then he stepped out on to the deck and leaned thoughtfully over the white railing. Far away eastwards there were signs already of the coming day. A soft grey twilight rested upon the sea; darker and blacker the waters seemed just then by contrast with the lightening skies. A fresh breeze was blowing. There was no living thing within sight save that faint green light where the rolling sea touched the clouds. Mr. Sabin’s eyes grew fixed. A curious depression came over him in that half hour before the dawn when all emotion is quickened by that intense brooding stillness. He was passing, he felt, into perpetual exile. He who had been so intimately in touch with the large things of the world had come to that point when after all he was bound to write his life down a failure. For its great desire was no nearer consummation. He had made his grand effort and he had failed. He had been very near success. He had seen closely into the Promised Land. Perhaps it was such thoughts as these which made his non-success the more bitter, and then, with the instincts of a philosopher, he asked himself now, surrounded in fancy by the fragments of his broken dreams, whether it had been worth while. That love of the beautiful and picturesque side of his country which had been his first inspiration, which had been at the root of his passionate patriotism, seemed just then in the grey moments of his despair so weak a thing. He had sacrificed so much to it—his whole life had been moulded and shaped to that one end. There had been other ways in which he might have found happiness. Was he growing morbid, he wondered, bitterly but unresistingly, that her face should suddenly float before his eyes. In fancy he could see her coming towards him there across the still waters, the old brilliant smile upon her lips, the lovelight in her eyes, that calm disdain of all other men written so plainly on the face which should surely have been a queen’s.
Mr. Sabin thought of those things which had passed, and he thought of what was to come, and a moment of bitterness crept into his life which he knew must leave its mark for ever. His head drooped into his hands and remained buried there. Thus he stood until the first ray of sunlight travelling across the water fell upon him, and he knew that morning had come. He crossed the deck, and entering his cabin closed the door.
CHAPTER XLIX
MR. SABIN IS SENTIMENTAL
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Mr. Sabin found it a harder matter than he had anticipated to induce the captain to consent to the scheme he had formulated. Nevertheless, he succeeded in the end, and by lunch time the following day the whole affair was settled. There was a certain amount of risk in the affair, but, on the other hand, if successfully carried out, it set free once and for ever the two men mainly concerned in it. Mr. Sabin, who was in rather a curious mood, came out of the captain’s room a little after one o’clock feeling altogether indisposed for conversation of any sort, ordered his luncheon from the deck steward, and moved his chair apart from the others into a sunny, secluded corner of the boat.
It was here that Mrs. Watson found him an hour later. He heard the rustle of silken draperies across the deck, a faint but familiar perfume suddenly floated into the salt, sunlit air. He looked around to find her bending over him, a miracle of white—cool, dainty, and elegant.
“And why this seclusion, Sir Misanthrope?”
He laughed and dragged her chair alongside of his.
“Come and sit down,” he said. “I want to talk to you. I want,” he added, lowering his voice, “to thank you for your warning.”
They were close together now and alone, cut off from the other chairs by one of the lifeboats. She looked up at him from amongst the cushions with which her chair was hung.
“You understood,” she murmured.
“Perfectly.”
“You are safe now,” she said. “From him at any rate. You have won him over.”
“I have found a way of safety,” Mr. Sabin said, “for both of us.”
She leaned her head upon her delicate white fingers, and looked at him curiously.
“Your plans,” she said, “are admirable; but what of me?”
Mr. Sabin regarded her with some faint indication of surprise. He was not sure what she meant. Did she expect a reward for her warning, he wondered. Her words would seem to indicate something of the sort, and yet he was not sure.
“I am afraid,” he said kindly, “we have not considered you very much yet. You will go on to Boston, of course. Then I suppose you will return to Germany.”
“Never,” she exclaimed, with suppressed passion. “I have broken my vows. I shall never set foot in Germany again. I broke them for your sake.”
Mr. Sabin looked at her thoughtfully.
“I am glad to hear you say that,” he declared. “Believe me, my dear young lady, I have seen a great deal of such matters, and I can assure you that the sooner you break away from all association with this man Watson and his employers the better.”
“It is all over,” she murmured. “I am a free woman.”
Mr. Sabin was delighted to hear it. Yet he felt that there was a certain awkwardness between them. He was this woman’s debtor, and he had made no effort to discharge his debt. What did she expect from him? He looked at her through half-closed eyes, and wondered.
“If I can be of any use to you,” he suggested softly, “in any fresh start you may make in life, you have only to command me.”
She kept her face averted from him. There was land in sight, and she seemed much interested in it.
“What are you going to do in America?”
Mr. Sabin looked out across the sea, and he repeated her question to himself. What was he going to do in this great, strange land, whose ways were not his ways, and whose sympathies lay so far apart from his?
“I cannot tell,” he murmured. “I have come here for safety. I have no country nor any friends. This is the land of my exile.”
A soft, white hand touched his for a moment. He looked into her face, and saw there an emotion which surprised him.
“It is my exile too,” she said. “I shall never dare to return. I have no wish to return.”
“But your friends?” Mr. Sabin commenced. “Your family?”
“I have no family.”
Mr. Sabin was thoughtful for several moments, then he took out his case and lit a cigarette. He watched the blue smoke floating away over the ship’s side, and looked no more at the woman at his elbow.
“If you decide,” he said quietly, “to settle in America, you must not allow yourself to forget that I am very much your debtor. I——”
“Your friendship,” she interrupted, “I shall be very glad to have. We may perhaps help one another to feel less lonely.”
Mr. Sabin gently shook his head.
“I had a friend of your sex once,” he said. “I shall—forgive me—never have another.”
“Is she dead?”
“If she is dead, it is I who have killed her. I sacrificed her to my ambition. We parted, and for months—for years—I scarcely thought of her, and now the day of retribution has come. I think of her, but it is in vain. Great barriers have rolled between us since those days, but she was my first friend, and she will be my only one.”
There was a long silence. Mr. Sabin’s eyes were fixed steadily seawards. A flood of recollections had suddenly taken possession of him. When at last he looked round, the chair by his side was vacant.
CHAPTER L
A HARBOUR TRAGEDY
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The voyage of the Calipha came to its usual terminatio
n about ten o’clock on the following morning, when she passed Boston lights and steamed slowly down the smooth waters of the harbour. The seven passengers were all upon deck in wonderfully transformed guise. Already the steamer chairs were being tied up and piled away; the stewards, officiously anxious to render some last service, were hovering around. Mrs. Watson, in a plain tailor gown and quiet felt hat, was sitting heavily veiled apart and alone. There were no signs of either Mr. Watson or Mr. Sabin. The captain was on the bridge talking to the pilot. Scarcely a hundred yards away lay the Kaiser Wilhelm, white and stately, with her brass work shining like gold in the sunlight, and her decks as white as snow.
The Calipha was almost at a standstill, awaiting the doctor’s brig, which was coming up to her on the port side. Every one was leaning over the railing watching her. Mr. Watson and Mr. Sabin, who had just come up the gangway together, turned away towards the deserted side of the boat, engaged apparently in serious conversation. Suddenly every one on deck started. A revolver shot, followed by two heavy splashes in the water, rang out clear and crisp above the clanking of chains and slighter noises. There was a moment’s startled silence—every one looked at one another—then a rush for the starboard side of the steamer. Above the little torrent of minor exclamations, the captain’s voice sang out like thunder.
“Lower the number one boat. Quartermaster, man a crew.”
The seven passengers, two stewards, and a stray seaman arrived on the starboard side of the gangway at about the same moment. There was at first very little to be seen. A faint cloud of blue smoke was curling upwards, and there was a strong odour of gunpowder in the air. On the deck were lying a small, recently-discharged revolver and a man’s white linen cap, which, from its somewhat peculiar shape, every one recognised at once as belonging to Mr. Sabin. At first sight, there was absolutely nothing else to be seen. Then, suddenly, some one pointed to a man’s head about fifty yards away in the water. Every one crowded to the side to look at it. It was hard at that distance to distinguish the features, but a little murmur arose, doubtful at first, but gaining confidence. It was the head of Mr. Watson. The murmur rather grew than increased when it was seen that he was swimming, not towards the steamer, but away from it, and that he was alone. Where was Mr. Sabin?
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