CHAPTER XV THE THIRD DEGREE

"Good afternoon, Captain Woodhouse."

General Crandall came forward and shook the captain's hand cordially. "Miss Gerson, Major Bishop, of my staff."

Jane acknowledged the introduction. Major Bishop advanced to the meeting with Woodhouse expectantly. With an air of ill-assumed ease, the governor made them known to each other.

"Major Bishop, your new man in the signal tower, Captain Woodhouse, from Wady Halfa. Captain, do you happen to remember the major? Was a captain when you were here on the Rock—captain in the engineers."

"I'm afraid we never met," Woodhouse began easily. "I was here such a short time. Expected to meet Major Bishop when I reported at his office this morning, but he was over at the wireless station, his aid told me."

"Right, Captain!" Bishop chirped, shaking his subordinate's hand. "I—ah—imagine this is the first time we've met." He put the least shade of emphasis on the verb.

Woodhouse met his eyes boldly. Lady Crandall, bustling in at this minute, directed a maid where to wheel the tea wagon, while Jane went to assist her with the pouring. The men soon had their cups, and the general and major contrived to group themselves with Woodhouse sitting between them. Sir George, affecting a gruff geniality, launched a question:

"Rock look familiar to you, Captain?"

"After a fashion, yes," Woodhouse answered slowly. "Though three months is so short a time for one to get a lasting impression."

"Nonsense!" the general reproved gustily. "Some places you see once you never forget. This old Rock is one of them; eh, Bishop?"

"I don't know," the chunky little officer replied. "The powers back home never give me a chance to get away and forget." There was a pause as the men sipped their tea. Woodhouse broke the silence:

"Man can be stationed in worse places than Gibraltar."

"If you mean Egypt, I agree with you," Crandall assented. "There six years."

"Were you, General? What station?" Woodhouse was coolly stirring his tea, emphatically at his ease. Jane, her back to the men as she fussed over the tea wagon, filled her own cup with hot water inadvertently. She tried to laugh over the mistake, but her fingers trembled as she poured the water back into the kettle.

"Not on the lazy old Nile, as you were—lucky dog!" the general returned. "Out on the yellow sands—at Arkowan—a place in the sun, never fear!"

The women had their cups now, and joined the men, sitting a little behind. Jane caught a shrewd sidewise glance from the general—a glance that sought a quick and sure reading of her emotions. She poised her cup as if expecting a question and the glance turned aside. But it had warned the girl that she was not altogether a passive factor in the situation. She set a guard over her features.

"Let me see, Captain Woodhouse"—it was little Bishop who took up the probe—"you must have been here in the days when Craigen was governor—saw your papers have it that you were here three months in nineteen seven."

"Yes, Craigen was governor then," Woodhouse answered guardedly.

"You never saw him, General." Bishop turned to Sir George. "Big, bluff, blustering chap, with a voice like the bull of Bashan. Woodhouse, here, he'll recognize my portrait."

Woodhouse smiled—secret disdain for the clumsy trap was in that smile.

"I'm afraid I do not," he said. "Craigen was considered a small, almost a delicate, man." He had recognized the bungling emphasis laid by Bishop on the Craigen characteristics, and his answer was pretty safely drawn by choosing the opposites. Bishop looked flustered for an instant, then admitted Woodhouse was right. He had confused Sir David Craigen with his predecessor, he said in excuse.

"I fancy I ought to remember the man. I had tea in this very room with him several times," Woodhouse ventured. He let his eyes rove as if in reminiscence. "Much the same here—as—except, General Crandall, I don't recall that fireplace." He indicated the heavy Gothic ornament on the opposite side of the room.

Jane caught her breath under the surge of secret elation. The resource of the man so to turn to advantage a fact that she had carelessly given him in their conversation of a few moments back! The girl saw a flicker of surprise cross General Crandall's face. Lady Crandall broke in:

"You have a good memory, after all, Captain Woodhouse. That fireplace is just five years old."

"Um—yes, yes," her husband admitted. "Clever piece of work, though. Likely to deceive anybody by its show of antiquity."

General Crandall called for a second slice of lemon in his cup. He was obviously sparring for another opening, but was impressed by the showing the suspected man was making. Bishop pushed the inquisition another step:

"Did you happen to be present, Captain, at the farewell dinner we gave little Billy Barnes? I think it must have been in the spring you were here."

"There were many dinners, Major Bishop." Woodhouse was carefully selecting his words, and he broke his sentences with a sip from his cup. "Seven years is a long time, you know. We had much else to think about in Egypt than old dinners elsewhere."

Bishop appeared struck by an inspiration. He clapped his cup into its saucer with a sudden bang.

"Hang it, man, you must have been here in the days of Lady Evelyn. Remember her, don't you?"

"Would I be likely to forget?" the captain parried. Out of the tail of his eye he had a flash of Jane Gerson's white face, of her eyes seeking his with a palpitant, hunted look. The message of her eyes brought to him an instant of grace in sore trial.

"Seven years of Egypt—or of a hotter place—couldn't make a man forget her!" The major was rattling on for the benefit of those who had not come under the spell of the charmer. "Sir David Craigen's wife, and as lovely a woman as ever came out from England. Every man on the Rock lost his heart that spring. Woodhouse, even in three months' time you must have fallen like the rest of us."

"I'd rather not incriminate myself." Woodhouse smiled sagely as he passed his cup to Lady Crandall to be refilled.

"Don't blame you," Bishop caught him up. "A most outrageous flirt, and there was the devil to pay. Broken hearts were as thick on the Rock that year as strawberries in May, including poor Craigen's. And after one young subaltern tried to kill himself—you'll remember that, Woodhouse—Sir David packed the fair charmer off to England. Then he simply ate his heart out and—died."

"What an affecting picture!" Jane commented. "One lone woman capturing the garrison of Gibraltar!"

General Crandall rose to set his cup on the tea wagon. With the most casual air in the world, he addressed himself to Woodhouse:

"When Sir David died, many of his effects were left in this house to await their proper owner's disposition, and Lady Craigen has been—er—delicate about claiming them. Among them was the portrait of Lady Craigen herself which still hangs in this room. Have you recognized it, Captain?"

Woodhouse, whose mind had been leaping forward, vainly trying to divine the object of the Lady Evelyn lead, now knew, and the knowledge left him beyond his resources. He recognized the moment of his unmasking. But the man's nerve was steady, even in extremity. He rose and turned to face the rear wall of the library, against the tapestry of which hung four oil portraits in their deep old frames of heavy gold. Three of these were of women. A fourth, also the likeness of a woman, hung over the fireplace. Chances were four to one against blind choice.

As Woodhouse slowly lifted his eyes to the line of portraits, he noticed that Jane had moved to place the broad tent shade of a floor lamp on its tall standard of mahogany between herself and the other two men so that her face was momentarily screened from them. She looked quickly at the portrait over the mantel and away again. Woodhouse, knowing himself the object of two pairs of hostile eyes, made his survey deliberately, with purpose increasing the tension of the moment. His eyes ranged the line of portraits on the rear wall, then turned to that one over the fireplace.

"Ah, yes, a rather good likeness, eh, Major?" He drawled his identification with a disinterested air.

Crandall's manner underwent instant change. His former slightly strained punctiliousness gave way to naturalness and easy spirits. One would have said he was advocate for a man on trial, for whom the jury had just pronounced, "Not proven." Scotch verdict, yes, but one acceptable enough to the governor of Gibraltar. The desk telephone sounded just then, and General Crandall answered. After listening briefly, he gave the orders, "Dress flags!" and hung up the receiver.

"'Fleet's just entering the harbor,' signal tower reports," he explained to the others. "Miss Gerson, if you care to step here to the window you'll see something quite worth while."

Jane, light-hearted almost to the point of mild hysteria at the noticeable relaxation of strain denoting danger passed, bounded to a double French window giving on a balcony and commanding a view of all the bay to the Spanish shore. She exclaimed, in awe:

"Ships—ships! Hundreds of them! Why, General, what——"

"The Mediterranean fleet, young woman, bound home to protect the Channel against the German high-seas fleet." Deep pride was in the governor's voice. His eyes kindled as they fell on the distant pillars of smoke—scores of them mounting straight up to support the blue on their blended arches. Captain Woodhouse could scarcely conceal the start General Crandall's announcement gave him. He followed the others to the window more slowly.

"Wirelessed they'd be in ten hours ago," the governor explained to his wife. "Rear-admiral won't make his official call until morning, however. In these times he sticks by his flagship after five o'clock."

"Wonderful—wonderful!" Bishop turned in unfeigned enthusiasm to Woodhouse, behind him. "There is the power—and the pride—of England. Sort of thrills a chap, eh?"

"Rather!" Woodhouse replied.

"Well, must get down to the quay to receive any despatches that may come ashore," the major exclaimed. "Gad, but it gives me a little homesick tug at the heart to see these grim old dogs of war. They represent that tight little island that rules the waves."

"Ah, London—London—the big, old town where they pull the strings that make us dance!" General Crandall, leaning against the window frame, his eyes on the incoming fleet, voiced the chronic nostalgia of the man in the service.

"The town for me!" Woodhouse exclaimed with fervor. "I'm sick for the sight of her—the sounds of her—the smells of her: the orange peel and the asphalt and the gas coming in over Vauxhall Bridge."

Bishop turned on him admiringly.

"By George, that does hit it off, old man—no mistake!"

Jane was out on the balcony now with field glasses she had picked up from the governor's desk. She called back through the curtains, summoning Woodhouse to come and pick out for her the flagship. When he had joined her, Bishop stepped quickly to his superior's side.

"What do you think, General? By George, it seems to me it would need an Englishman to give one that sniff of London this chap just got off."

"Exactly," the general caught him up crisply. "And an Englishman's done it—Rudyard Kipling. Any German who can read English can read Kipling."

"But what do you think, General? Chap strikes me as genuine—that portrait of Lady Evelyn clenched things, I take it."

"Confound it! We haven't absolutely proved anything, pro or con," General Crandall grumbled, in perplexity. "Thing'll have to be decided by the Indian—what he finds, or doesn't find—in Woodhouse's room. Let you know soon as I hear."

Bishop hurried to make his adieux to Lady Crandall and her guest, and was starting for the doors when Woodhouse, stepping in from the balcony, offered to join him. The governor stopped him.

"By the way, Captain, if you'll wait for me a minute I should like your company down the Rock."

Bishop had gone, and the general, taking Woodhouse's agreement for granted, also left the room.

Woodhouse, suddenly thrown back on his guard, could find nothing to do but assent. But when Lady Crandall excused herself on the score of having to dress for dinner, he welcomed compensation in being alone with the girl who had gone with him steadfastly, unflinchingly, through moments of trial. She stood before the curtains screening the balcony, hesitant, apparently meditating flight. To her Woodhouse went, in his eyes an appeal for a moment alone which would not be denied.

"You were—very kind to me," he began, his voice very low and broken. "If it had not been—for your help, I would have——"

"I could not see you—see you grope blindly—and fail." She turned her head to look back through the opened glass doors to the swiftly moving dots in the distance that represented the incoming battle fleet.

"But was there no other reason except just humanity to prompt you?" He had possessed himself of one of her hands now, and his eyes compelled her to turn her own to meet their gaze. "Once when they—were trying to trip me, I caught a look from your eyes, and—and it was more than—than pity."

"You are presuming too much," the girl parried faintly; but Woodhouse would not be rebuffed.

"You must hear me," he rushed on impetuously. "This is a strange time for me to say this, but you say you are going—going away soon. I may not have another opportunity—hear me! I am terribly in earnest when I tell you I love you—love you beyond all believing. No, no! Not for what you have done for me, but for what you are to me—beloved."

She quickly pulled her hand free from his grasp and tried to move to the door. He blocked her way.

"I can not have you go without a word from you," he pleaded. "Just a word to tell me I may——"

"How can you expect—that—I—knowing what I do——" She was stumbling blindly, but persisted: "You, who have deceived others, are deceiving them now—how can I know you are not deceiving me, too?"

"I can not explain." He dropped his head hopelessly, and his voice seemed lifeless. "It is a time of war. You must accept my word that I am honest—with you."

She slowly shook her head and started again for the double doors. "Perhaps—when you prove that to me——." He took an eager step toward her. "But, no, you can not. I will be sailing so soon, and—and you must forget."

"You ask the impossible!" Woodhouse quickly seized her hand and raised it to his lips. As he did so, the double doors opened noiselessly and Jaimihr Khan stood between them, sphinx-like.

Jane, startled, withdrew her hand, and without a farewell glance, ran across the library and through the door to Lady Crandall's room. Jaimihr Khan, with a cold glance at Woodhouse, moved silently to the door of General Crandall's room and knocked.

"It is I—Jaimihr Khan," he answered to the muffled hail from within. "Yes, General Sahib, I will wait."

He turned and looked toward Woodhouse. The latter had taken a cigarette from the case Almer had sent him through Jane, and was turning it over in his hand curiously. The Indian, treading like a hunting cat, began lighting candles. His tour of the room brought him to the captain's side, and there he stood, motionless, until Woodhouse, with a start, observed him.

"Cap-tain Wood-house has been most in-discreet," he said, in his curious mechanical way of speech.

Woodhouse turned on him angrily.

"What do you mean?" he snapped.

"Is it that they have ceased to teach discretion—at the Wilhelmstrasse?" The Indian's face was a mask.

"I know nothing about the Wilhelmstrasse," the white man answered, in a voice suddenly strained.

"Then it is veree, veree foolish for the captain to leave in his room these plans." Jaimihr Khan took from his girdle a thin roll of blue prints—the plans of the signal tower and Room D which Almer had given Woodhouse the night before. He held them gingerly between slender thumb and forefinger.

Woodhouse recoiled.

"The general sahib has sent me to search the cap-tain's room," the even voice of Jaimihr Khan ran on. "Behold the results of my journey!"

Woodhouse sent a lightning glance at the door leading to the governor's room, then stepped lightly away from the Indian and regarded him with hard calculating eyes.

"What do you propose to do—with those plans?"

"What should I do?" The white shoulders of the Indian went up in a shrug. "They will stand you before a wall, Cap-tain Wood-house. And fire. It is the price of in-discretion at a time like this."

Woodhouse's right hand whipped back to his holster, which hung from his sword belt, and came forward again with a thick, short-barreled weapon in it.

"Give me those plans, you yellow hound!"

"Shoot!" Jaimihr Khan smiled. "Add one in-discretion to another. Shoot, my youthful fool!"

The door to General Crandall's room opened, and the general, in uniform evening dress, stepped into the library. Woodhouse swiftly slipped his revolver behind his back, though keeping it ready for instant use.

"All ready, Captain. Smoke." The general extended his cigarette case toward Woodhouse.

The latter smilingly declined, his eyes all the while on the Indian, who stood by the corner of the general's desk. Between the sleek brown hands a tiny blue roll of paper was twisting into a narrower wisp under the careless manipulation of thin fingers.

"Well, Jaimihr," Crandall briskly addressed the servant, "have you completed the errand I sent you on?"

"Yes, General Sahib." The brown fingers still caressed the plans of the signal tower.

"Have you anything to report?" The general had his cigarette in his mouth and was pawing his desk for a match. Jaimihr Khan slowly lifted the tip of the paper wisp in his fingers to the flame of a candle on the end of the desk, then held the burning tip to his master's cigarette.

Jaimihr Khan held the tip to his master's cigarette.
Jaimihr Khan held the tip to his master's cigarette.

"Nothing, General Sahib."

"Very good. Come, Woodhouse; sorry to have kept you waiting." The general started for the double doors. Woodhouse followed. He passed very close to the Indian, but the latter made no sign. His eyes were on the burning wisp of paper between his fingers.