CHAPTER XXI.

A PILLAR OF LIGHT.

“White Wings” Dares a Venture.

Merry, our little cockney cook—the aproned humbug pretends to be a Frenchman—swore that night by the shade of Carême that if ever he made a rago?t à la truffe à Perigord again for a master who dined off whisky-and-soda and a cigar, “’e ’oped he would be ’ung on a pot-’ook.” I solaced the good fellow by ordering supper at eleven o’clock, and inviting both Larry and Benson, our engineer, to my table. Needless to say that we had but one topic of conversation. Hardly were the glasses filled when I began to put my laconic questions, and wrote upon the slip of note at my side the answers to them.

“For how many days have you coal, Mr. Benson?”

“That depends how far and how fast you steam, sir.”

“Suppose that we are lying drifting here in these calms. There is no great consumption of coal then?”

“No, sir; but if you wish steam kept up against a run, that empties your bunkers.”

“It will depend upon what the other people can do, Benson. They may be in the same position as we are. If our friends at home believe our story, I don’t suppose there will be much coal going for Val Imroth or any of his company. Of course, he may have other resources. He would not rely upon relief ships from Europe altogether. The American governments are not likely to concern themselves overmuch in the matter. Their newspapers will make as much of the matter as the police will make little. Incredulity we must expect. If we are believed anywhere, it will be by the men who lose hundreds of thousands of pounds every year in South Africa. That’s the keynote to this mystery. The Jew may have a hundred agents stealing diamonds for him at Kimberley, he hides the men and the booty on this great moored ship until the danger has passed. A hint to those pleasant people, the magnates of Park Lane, will supply money enough for any purpose. I doubt their sense, however. They will leave the protection of their so-called interests to other people, as they have always done. We really need not consider them in the matter.”

“’Tis yourself and the young lady ye have to think of—no others,” interrupted Timothy. “Phwat the divil is Park Lane to you or to me or to any decent man? Do we care whether their diamonds are safe or stolen? Not a tinker’s curse, me bhoy. If ye hunt the Jew down, ’tis for your vanity’s sake and not for the good of humanity at all. Faith, I’d be a fool to tell ye ’tis not so. Ye want the glory of this, and ye want the girl on top of the glory. Let’s be plain with each other, and we’ll get on the faster.”

“Timothy,” I said, “you are a philosopher. We won’t quarrel about it. The glory of it is nothing to you, and if it were in your power, you’d return to Europe by the first steamer willing to carry you there. Let us agree to that.”

“Be d——d to it. I agree to nothing of the sort.”

“Ah, then here is Madame Vanity sheltered also in another human bosom. Say no more. If I am serious, it is to tell you that vanity has been less to me in all this time than the safety of Joan Fordibras and her freedom. Of that, I account myself the guardian. She is on board the Diamond Ship—reflect among what a company of villains, thieves, and assassins. Captain, Timothy, I have not the courage to tell myself what may befall her. Perhaps it would be better if she did not live to speak of it. You know what it may be. You must try to help me where my judgment fails.”

“To the last man on the ship,” said Captain Larry very solemnly.

Timothy did not reply. Emotional, as all Irishmen are, he heard me in a silence which spoke very eloquently of his affection. For my own part, I am no lover of a public sentiment. My friends understood what Joan’s safety meant to me, and that was sufficient.

“We should sight the ship after eight bells,” said I, diverting the subject abruptly, “and then our task begins. I am hoping to outwit them and to force a surrender by sheer bluff. Very possibly it will fail. We may even lose the yacht in the venture. I can promise nothing save this—that while I live I will hunt the Jew, afloat or ashore. Let us drink to that, gentlemen, a bumper. It may be the last occasion we shall find for some days to come.”

We filled our glasses and drank the toast. A willing steward carried my orders for a double dose of grog for the men, and an echo of the chantey they lifted came down to us as we sat. It was now nearly midnight, and yet no one thought of bed. An excitement which forbade words kept us there, talking of commonplace affairs. When the second officer informed me, exactly at eight bells, that the telegraph was working again and very clearly, I heard him almost with indifference. For the moment it might be dangerous to send any message across the waste of waters. There could be no further talk exchanged between the Jew and myself until I had definitely declared myself.

“They would shift their position, Captain. We must hold them to it and track them down. You think that we should sight them at two bells in the middle watch. I’ll step down and hear what they have to say, but unless it is vital I shall not answer them.”

I found the instrument tapping sharply as the second officer had said. The words spelled out “Colin Ross,” the name of the officer upon one of their relief ships, as they had already informed me. Repeated again and again, it gave me in the end an idea I was quick to act upon. They must think the relief steamer broken down, I said. Such should be the first card I had to play.

“Fordibras,” I signalled, and again “Fordibras,” and then upon it the simple words, “propeller shaft broken—all hands at work—repaired to-morrow—cable eight bells.”

I say that I repeated the message, as one almost invariably is called upon to do when the instrument is wireless and no receivers have been tuned to a scheme. A little to my astonishment, there was no reply whatever. As I had ceased to speak to the Diamond Ship yesterday, so she had ceased to speak to me to-night. A renewal of the call earned no better reward. I fell to the conclusion that the news had been so astounding that the man who received it went headlong to the captain of the vessel, and that an answer would be returned anon. So half an hour passed and found me still waiting. It must have been nearly one o’clock by this time. I recollect that it was seventeen minutes past one precisely when our forward “look-out” discerned the lights of the Diamond Ship upon a far horizon, and Captain Larry burst in upon me with his splendid news. Now, surely, had I no further need of messages. You may judge how I followed him to the deck to feed my eyes upon the spectacle.

“Have you just seen her, Larry?”

“This very instant, doctor. I could not have fallen down the stairs quicker.”

“Does McShanus know?”

“He’s shaking all over—like a man with an ague. I sent him to the cabin for brandy.”

“It could be no other ship, Larry?”

“How could it be, sir? This is no course for anywhere. She’s what we’re after, right enough.”

“Does she lie far off, Larry?”

“I can’t say, sir. You shall judge for yourself.”

I went up upon the bridge with him for a better view, and immediately discerned the spectacle which had so excited him. Many miles away, as I judged, upon our port-bow, a light flashed out brilliantly above a sleeping ocean; a blinking, hovering, mad-cap light, now turning its glowing face to a fleecy sky, now making lakes of golden fire upon the glassy water, now revolving as in some mighty omnivorous circle which should embrace all things near and far and reveal their presence to watching eyes. Plainly directed by a skilful hand, I said that a trained officer worked the lantern as they work it on board a man-of-war; but as though to deny that the unknown ship was a man-of-war, the monster searchlight began anon to answer as though to a dancing, drunken measure of some hand that wearied of duty and made a jest of it. Not for one minute would this have been permitted upon the deck of a battleship. I could doubt no longer that Captain Larry spoke the truth.

“We are carrying no lights ourselves, Larry?” I exclaimed presently, and added apologetically, “that goes without saying.”

“It goes without saying, doctor. I ordered lights out at eight bells.”

“We shall show a haze of red light above our funnels?”

“Not with those guards to port Mr. Benson has fitted up.”

“Do you think we dare run up to her, Larry?”

“There would be little risk when they get tired of their fireworks, doctor.”

“We’ll do it, Larry. Don’t forget Joan Fordibras is aboard there. I would give much for one spoken word that she could understand.”

He nodded significantly, and as he rang down his orders to the engine-room I perceived that McShanus had come up from the saloon. He did not speak to me, as he told me afterwards, being under the ridiculous apprehension, which comes to men in danger, that any speech above a whisper is a peril. The men themselves were all grouped about the fo’castle like children for a stage-play to be given on the water. We carried no lights. From stem to stern of the ship not so much as a single electric lamp broke in upon the darkness. The clash of our engines remained the only sound. I turned to Timothy and astonished him by my greeting.

“A steady hand now, is it that, Timothy?”

“Take a grip of it yourself, me bhoy.”

“It certainly is not the cold hand of the poets. Would it help with the machine guns if need be, Timothy?”

“Whist!—could it not! Are ye not speaking over-loud, doctor, me bhoy?”

“Oh, come, you think they can hear us five miles away, Timothy. Shout if you like, old boy. I hope to God there will be silence enough by-and-by. We are going to have a look at them, Timothy. ’Tis to learn the colour of their coats, as you would say.”

“Ye are not going within shot of their guns?”

“Timothy,” I said, speaking in that low tone he had desired. “I am going to learn how it fares with Joan Fordibras.”

“Ah, bad cess to it, when a woman holds the lantern—there goes Jack the Giant-killer. ’Twill help her to be sunk, Ean.”

“I do not think they will sink us, Timothy.”

“God be good to me. I’m no better than a coward this night. What was it I said?”

“That you were quite of my opinion, Timothy.”

We laughed together, and then fell to silence. Fitfully now in the dark heavens there could be seen the glimmer of the searchlight’s open lantern. The sea about us was a sea of night, very black and awesome and still. We were a thing of darkness, rushing onward with spinning bows and throbbing turbines and furnaces at a white heat—a stealthy enemy creeping upon our prey through the immense shadows which darkened the face of the resting waters. No man aboard disguised from himself the risk we were taking. Let the Diamond Ship catch us in the path of her mighty beam of radiant light, and we were instantly discovered. A single shell from her modern guns would destroy us utterly. There could be no greater triumph for the Jew than that. We alone carried the whole story of his secret. What, then, would he not give to destroy us?

So we crept on, mile by mile. Every eye aboard the White Wings watched that resting searchlight as though it had been endowed with telepathic powers and would of itself warn the rogue’s crew. I don’t think we believed for an instant in the good fortune which followed us. It seemed incredible that they should not keep a better look-out—and yet the fact so stands. The resting beam of light in the sky was our goal. We drew upon it moment by moment as to some gate of destiny which should tell a story fruitful beyond any we had heard. And still the Diamond Ship did not awake.

I heard Captain Larry give an order down the tube, and realised that the yacht had come to a stand. We were then but half a mile from the great vessel herself, and could in reason dare to draw no nearer. The rest lay with the whim of the night. We knew not, could not imagine the strange fortune which awaited us.