Chambers Robert William
The Dark Star

CHAPTER XIX
THE CAPTAIN OF THE VOLHYNIA

The captain of the Volhynia had just come from the bridge and was taking a bite of late supper in his cabin when the orderly announced Neeland. He rose at once, offering a friendly hand:

“Mr. Neeland, I am very glad to see you. I know you by name and reputation already. There were some excellent pictures by you in the latest number of the Midweek Magazine.”

“I’m so glad you liked them, Captain West.”

“Yes, I did. There was a breeze in them – a gaiety. And such a fetching girl you drew for your heroine!”

“You think so! It’s rather interesting. I met a young girl once – she comes from up-state where I come from. There was a peculiar and rather subtle attraction about her face. So I altered the features of the study I was making from my model, and put in hers as I remembered them.”

“She must be beautiful, Mr. Neeland.”

“It hadn’t struck me so until I drew her from memory. And there’s more to the story. I never met her but twice in my life – the second time under exceedingly dramatic circumstances. And now I’m crossing the Atlantic at a day’s notice to oblige her. It’s an amusing story, isn’t it?”

“Mr. Neeland, I think it is going to be what you call a ‘continued’ story.”

“No. Oh, no. It ought to be, considering its elements. But it isn’t. There’s no further romance in it, Captain West.”

The captain’s smile was pleasant but sceptical.

They seated themselves, Neeland declining an invitation to supper, and the captain asking his indulgence if he talked while eating.

“Mr. Neeland,” he said, “I’m about to talk rather frankly with you. I have had several messages by wireless today from British sources, concerning you.”

Neeland, surprised, said nothing. Captain West finished his bite of supper; the steward removed the dishes and went out, closing the door. The captain glanced at the box which Neeland had set on the floor by his chair.

“May I ask,” he said, “why you brought your suitcase with you?”

“It’s valuable.”

The captain’s keen eyes were on his.

“Why are you followed by spies?” he asked.

Neeland reddened.

“Yes,” continued the captain of the Volhynia, “my Government instructs me, by wireless, to offer you any aid and protection you may desire. I am informed that you carry papers of military importance to a certain foreign nation with which neither England nor France are on what might be called cordial terms. I am told it is likely that agents of this foreign country have followed you aboard my ship for the purpose of robbing you of these papers. Now, Mr. Neeland, what do you know about this business?”

“Very little,” said Neeland.

“Have you had any trouble?”

“Oh, yes.”

The captain smiled:

“Evidently you have wriggled out of it,” he said.

“Yes, wriggled is the literal word.”

“Then you do not think that you require any protection from me?”

“Perhaps I do. I’ve been a singularly innocent and lucky ass. It’s merely chance that my papers have not been stolen, even before I started in quest of them.”

“Have you been troubled aboard my ship?”

Neeland waved his hand carelessly:

“Nothing to speak of, thank you.”

“If you have any charge to make–”

“Oh, no.”

The captain regarded him intently:

“Let me tell you something,” he said. “Since we sailed, have you noticed the bulletins posted containing our wireless news?”

“Yes, I’ve read them.”

“Did they interest you?”

“Yes. You mean that row between Austria and Servia over the Archduke’s murder?”

“I mean exactly that, Mr. Neeland. And now I am going to tell you something else. Tonight I had a radio message which I shall not post on the bulletins for various reasons. But I shall tell you under the seal of confidence.”

“I give you my word of honour,” said Neeland quietly.

“I accept it, Mr. Neeland. And this is what has happened: Austria has decided on an ultimatum to Servia. And probably will send it.”

They remained silent for a moment, then the captain continued:

“Why should we deceive ourselves? This is the most serious thing that has happened since the Hohenzollern incident which brought on the Franco-Prussian War.”

Neeland nodded.

“You see?” insisted the captain. “Suppose the humiliation is too severe for Servia to endure? Suppose she refuses the Austrian terms? Suppose Austria mobilises against her? What remains for Russia to do except to mobilise? And, if Russia does that, what is going to happen in Germany? And then, instantly and automatically, what will follow in France?” His mouth tightened grimly. “England,” he said, “is the ally of France. Ask yourself, Mr. Neeland, what are the prospects of this deadly combination and deadlier situation.”

After a few moments the young man looked up from his brown study:

“I’d like to ask you a question – perhaps not germane to the subject. May I?”

“Ask it.”

“Then, of what interest are Turkish forts to any of the various allied nations – to the Triple Entente or the Triple Alliance?”

“Turkish fortifications?”

“Yes – plans for them.”

The captain glanced instinctively at the box beside Neeland’s chair, but his features remained incurious.

“Turkey is supposed to be the ally of Germany,” he said.

“I’ve heard so. I know that the Turkish army is under German officers. But – if war should happen, is it likely that this ramshackle nation which was fought to a standstill by the Balkan Alliance only a few months ago would be likely to take active sides?”

“Mr. Neeland, it is not only likely, it is absolutely certain.”

“You believe Germany would count on her?”

“There is not a doubt of it. Enver Pasha holds the country in his right hand; Enver Pasha is the Kaiser’s jackal.”

“But Turkey is a beaten, discredited nation. She has no modern guns. Her fleet is rusting in the Bosporus.”

“The Dardanelles bristle with Krupp cannon, Mr. Neeland, manned by German gunners. Von der Goltz Pasha has made of a brave people a splendid army. As for ships, the ironclads and gunboats off Seraglio Point are rusting at anchor, as you say; but there are today enough German and Austrian armored ships within running distance of the Dardanelles to make for Turkey a powerful defensive squadron. Didn’t you know any of these facts?”

“No.”

“Well, they are facts… You see, Mr. Neeland, we English sailors of the merchant marine are also part of the naval reserve. And we are supposed to know these things.”

Neeland was silent.

“Mr. Neeland,” he said, “in case of war between the various powers of Europe as aligned today, where do you imagine your sympathy would lie – and the sympathies of America?”

“Both with France and England,” said Neeland bluntly.

“You think so?”

“Yes, I do – unless they are the aggressors.”

The captain nodded:

“I feel rather that way myself. I feel very sure of the friendliness of your country. Because of course we – France and England – never would dream of attacking the Central Powers unless first assailed.” He smiled, nodded toward the box on the floor: “Don’t you think, Mr. Neeland, that it might be safer to entrust those – that box, I mean – to the captain of the Royal Mail steamer, Volhynia?”

“Yes, I do,” said Neeland quietly.

“And – about these spies. Do you happen to entertain any particular suspicions concerning any of the passengers on my ship?” urged the captain.

“Indeed, I entertain lively suspicions, and even a few certainties,” replied the young fellow, laughing.

“You appear to enjoy the affair?”

“I do. I’ve never had such a good time. I’m not going to spoil it by suggesting that you lock up anybody, either.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” said the captain seriously.

“But I do. They’re friends of mine. They’ve given me the time of my life. A dirty trick I’d be serving myself as well as them if I came to you and preferred charges against them!”

The captain inspected him curiously for a few moments, then, in a soft voice:

“By any chance, Mr. Neeland, have you any Irish blood in your veins?”

“Yes, thank God!” returned the young fellow, unable to control his laughter. “And I’ll bet there isn’t a drop in you, Captain West.”

“Not a drop, thank G – I’m sorry! – I ask your pardon, Mr. Neeland!” added the captain, very red in the face.

But Neeland laughed so hard that, after a moment, the red died out in the captain’s face and a faint grin came into it.

So they shook hands and said good night; and Neeland went away, leaving his box on the floor of the captain’s cabin as certain of its inviolability as he was of the Bank of England.

CHAPTER XX
THE DROP OF IRISH

The usual signs of land greeted Neeland when he rose early next morning and went out on deck for the first time without his olive-wood box – first a few gulls, then puffins, terns, and other sea fowl in increasing numbers, weed floating, fishing smacks, trawlers tossing on the rougher coast waters.

After breakfast he noticed two British torpedo boat destroyers, one to starboard, the other on the port bow, apparently keeping pace with the Volhynia. They were still there at noon, subjects of speculation among the passengers; and at tea-time their number was increased to five, the three new destroyers appearing suddenly out of nowhere, dead ahead, dashing forward through a lively sea under a swirling vortex of gulls.

The curiosity of the passengers, always easily aroused, became more thoroughly stirred up by the bulletins posted late that afternoon, indicating that the tension between the several European chancelleries was becoming acute, and that emperors and kings were exchanging personal telegrams.

There was all sorts of talk on deck and at the dinner table, wild talk, speculative talk, imaginative discussions, logical and illogical. But, boiled down to its basic ingredients, the wildest imagination on board the Volhynia admitted war to be an impossibility of modern times, and that, ultimately, diplomacy would settle what certainly appeared to be the ugliest international situation in a hundred years.

At the bottom of his heart Neeland believed this, too; wished for it when his higher and more educated spiritual self was flatly interrogated; and yet, in the everyday, impulsive ego of James Neeland, the drop of Irish had begun to sing and seethe with the atavistic instinct for a row.

War? He didn’t know what it meant, of course. It made good poetry and interesting fiction; it rendered history amusing; made dry facts succulent.

Preparations for war in Europe, which had been going on for fifty years, were most valuable, too, in contributing the brilliant hues of uniforms to an otherwise sombre civilian world, and investing commonplace and sober cities with the omnipresent looming mystery of fortifications.

To a painter, war seemed to be a dramatic and gorgeous affair; to a young man it appealed as all excitement appeals. The sportsman in him desired to witness a scrap; his artist’s imagination was aroused; the gambler in him speculated as to the outcome of such a war. And the seething, surging drop of Irish fizzed and purred and coaxed for a chance to edge sideways into any fight which God in His mercy might provide for a decent gossoon who had never yet had the pleasure of a broken head.

“Not,” thought Neeland to himself, “that I’ll go trailing my coat tails. I’ll go about my own business, of course – but somebody may hit me a crack at that!”

He thought of Ilse Dumont and of the man with the golden beard, realising that he had had a wonderful time, after all; sorry in his heart that it was all over and that the Volhynia was due to let go her mudhooks in the Mersey about three o’clock the next morning.

As he leaned on the deck rail in the soft July darkness, he could see the lights of the destroyers to port and starboard, see strings of jewel-like signals flash, twinkle, fade, and flash again.

All around him along the deck passengers were promenading, girls in evening gowns or in summer white; men in evening dress or reefed in blue as nautically as possible; old ladies toddling, swathed in veils, old gentlemen in dinner coats and sporting headgear – every weird or conventional combination infested the decks of the Volhynia.

Now, for the first time during the voyage, Neeland felt free to lounge about where he listed, saunter wherever the whim of the moment directed his casual steps. The safety of the olive-wood box was no longer on his mind, the handle no longer in his physical clutch. He was at liberty to stroll as carelessly as any boulevard flâneur; and he did so, scanning the passing throng for a glimpse of Ilse Dumont or of the golden-bearded one, but not seeing either of them.

In fact, he had not laid eyes on them since he had supped not wisely but too well on the soup that Scheherazade had flavoured for him.

The stateroom door of the golden-bearded man had remained closed. His own little cockney steward, who also looked out for Golden Beard, reported that gentleman as requiring five meals a day, with beer in proportion, and the porcelain pipe steaming like Ætna all day long.

His little West Indian stewardess also reported the gossip from her friend on another corridor, which was, in effect, that Miss White, the trained nurse, took all meals in her room and had not been observed to leave that somewhat monotonous sanctuary.

How many more of the band there might be Neeland did not know. He remembered vaguely, while lying rigid under the grip of the drug, that he had heard Ilse Dumont’s voice mention somebody called Karl. And he had an idea that this Karl might easily be the big, ham-fisted German who had tried so earnestly to stifle him and throw him from the vestibule of the midnight express.

However, it did not matter now. The box was safe in the captain’s care; the Volhynia would be lying at anchor off Liverpool before daylight; the whole exciting and romantic business was ended.

With an unconscious sigh, not entirely of relief, Neeland opened his cigarette case, found it empty, turned and went slowly below with the idea of refilling it.

They were dancing somewhere on deck; the music of the ship’s orchestra came to his ears. He paused a moment on the next deck to lean on the rail in the darkness and listen.

Far beneath him, through a sea as black as onyx, swept the reflections of the lighted ports; and he could hear the faint hiss of foam from the curling flow below.

As he turned to resume his quest for cigarettes, he was startled to see directly in front of him the heavy figure of a man – so close to him, in fact, that Neeland instinctively threw up his arm, elbow out, to avoid contact.

But the man, halting, merely lifted his hat, saying that in the dim light he had mistaken Neeland for a friend; and they passed each other on the almost deserted deck, saluting formally in the European fashion, with lifted hats.

His spirits a trifle subdued, but still tingling with the shock of discovering a stranger so close behind him where he had stood leaning over the ship’s rail, Neeland continued on his way below.

Probably the big man had made a mistake in good faith; but the man certainly had approached very silently; was almost at his very elbow when discovered. And Neeland remembered the light-shot depths over which, at that moment, he had been leaning; and he realised that it would have been very easy for a man as big as that to have flung him overboard before he had wit to realise what had been done to him.

Neither could he forget the curious gleam in the stranger’s eyes when a ray from a deck light fell across his shadowy face – unusually small eyes set a little too close together to inspire confidence. Nor had the man’s slight accent escaped him – not a Teutonic accent, he thought, but something fuller and softer – something that originated east of Scutari, suggesting the Eurasian, perhaps.

But Neeland’s soberness was of volatile quality; before he arrived at his stateroom he had recovered his gaiety of spirit. He glanced ironically at the closed door of Golden Beard as he fitted his key into his own door.

“A lively lot,” he thought to himself, “what with Scheherazade, Golden Beard, and now Ali Baba – by jinx! – he certainly did have an Oriental voice! – and he looked the part, too, with a beak for a nose and a black moustache à la Enver Pasha!”

Much diverted by his own waxing imagination, he turned on the light in his stateroom, filled the cigarette case, turned to go out, and saw on the carpet just inside his door a bit of white paper folded cocked-hat fashion and addressed to him.

Picking it up and unfolding it, he read:

May I see you this evening at eleven? My stateroom is 623. If there is anybody in the corridor, knock; if not, come in without knocking.

I mean no harm to you. I give my word of honour. Please accept it for as much as your personal courage makes it worth to you – its face value, or nothing.

Knowing you, I may say without flattery that I expect you. If I am disappointed, I still must bear witness to your courage and to a generosity not characteristic of your sex.

You have had both power and provocation to make my voyage on this ship embarrassing. You have not done so. And self-restraint in a man is a very deadly weapon to use on a woman.

I hope you will come. I desire to be generous on my part. Ask yourself whether you are able to believe this. You don’t know women, Mr. Neeland. Your conclusion probably will be a wrong one.

But I think you’ll come, all the same. And you will be right in coming, whatever you believe.

Ilse Dumont.

It was a foregone conclusion that he would go. He knew it before he had read half the note. And when he finished it he was certain.

Amused, his curiosity excited, grateful that the adventure had not yet entirely ended, he lighted a cigarette and looked impatiently at his watch.

It lacked half an hour of the appointed time and his exhilaration was steadily increasing.

He stuck the note into the frame of his mirror over the washstand with a vague idea that if anything happened to him this would furnish a clue to his whereabouts.

Then he thought of the steward, but, although he had no reason to believe the girl who had written him, something within him made him ashamed to notify the steward as to where he was going. He ought to have done it; common prudence born of experience with Ilse Dumont suggested it. And yet he could not bring himself to do it; and exactly why, he did not understand.

One thing, however, he could do; and he did. He wrote a note to Captain West giving the Paris address of the Princess Mistchenka, and asked that the olive-wood box be delivered to her in case any accident befell him. This note he dropped into the mailbox at the end of the main corridor as he went out. A few minutes later he stood in an empty passageway outside a door numbered 623. He had a loaded automatic in his breast pocket, a cigarette between his fingers, and, on his agreeable features, a smile of anticipation – a smile in which amusement, incredulity, reckless humour, and a spice of malice were blended – the smile born of the drop of Irish sparkling like champagne in his singing veins.

And he turned the knob of door No. 623 and went in.

She was reading, curled up on her sofa under the electric bulb, a cigarette in one hand, a box of bonbons beside her.

She looked up leisurely as he entered, gave him a friendly nod, and, when he held out his hand, placed her own in it. With delighted gravity he bent and saluted her finger tips with lips that twitched to control a smile.

“Will you be seated, please?” she said gently.

The softness of her agreeable voice struck him as he looked around for a seat, then directly at her; and saw that she meant him to find a seat on the lounge beside her.

“Now, indeed you are Scheherazade of the Thousand and One Nights,” he said gaily, “with your cigarette and your bonbons, and cross-legged on your divan–”

“Did Scheherazade smoke cigarettes, Mr. Neeland?”

“No,” he admitted; “that is an anachronism, I suppose. Tell me, how are you, dear lady?”

“Thank you, quite well.”

“And – busy?” His lips struggled again to maintain their gravity.

“Yes, I have been busy.”

“Cooking something up? – I mean soup, of course,” he added.

She forced a smile, but reddened as though it were difficult for her to accustom herself to his half jesting sarcasms.

“So you’ve been busy,” he resumed tormentingly, “but not with cooking lessons! Perhaps you’ve been practising with your pretty little pistol. You know you really need a bit of small arms practice, Scheherazade.”

“Because I once missed you?” she inquired serenely.

“Why so you did, didn’t you?” he exclaimed, delighted to goad her into replying.

“Yes,” she said, “I missed you. I needn’t have. I am really a dead shot, Mr. Neeland.”

“Oh, Scheherazade!” he protested.

She shrugged:

“I am not bragging; I could have killed you. I supposed it was necessary only to frighten you. It was my mistake and a bad one.”

“My dear child,” he expostulated, “you meant murder and you know it. Do you suppose I believe that you know how to shoot?”

“But I do, Mr. Neeland,” she returned with good-humoured indifference. “My father was head jäger to Count Geier von Sturmspitz, and I was already a dead shot with a rifle when we emigrated to Canada. And when he became an Athabasca trader, and I was only twelve years old, I could set a moose-hide shoe-lace swinging and cut it in two with a revolver at thirty yards. And I can drive a shingle nail at that distance and drive the bullet that drove it, and the next and the next, until my revolver is empty. You don’t believe me, do you?”

“You know that the beautiful Scheherazade–”

“Was famous for her fantastic stories? Yes, I know that, Mr. Neeland. I’m sorry you don’t believe I fired only to frighten you.”

“I’m sorry I don’t,” he admitted, laughing, “but I’ll practise trying, and maybe I shall attain perfect credulity some day. Tell me,” he added, “what have you been doing to amuse yourself?”

“I’ve been amusing myself by wondering whether you would come here to see me tonight.”

“But your note said you were sure I’d come.”

“You have come, haven’t you?”

“Yes, Scheherazade, I’m here at your bidding, spirit and flesh. But I forgot to bring one thing.”

“What?”

“The box which – you have promised yourself.”

“Yes, the captain has it, I believe,” she returned serenely.

“Oh, Lord! Have you even found out that? I don’t know whether I’m much flattered by this surveillance you and your friends maintain over me. I suppose you even know what I had for dinner. Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Come, I’ll call that bluff, dear lady! What did I have?”

When she told him, carelessly, and without humour, mentioning accurately every detail of his dinner, he lost his gaiety of countenance a little.

“Oh, I say, you know,” he protested, “that’s going it a trifle too strong. Now, why the devil should your people keep tabs on me to that extent?”

She looked up directly into his eyes:

“Mr. Neeland, I want to tell you why. I asked you here so that I may tell you. The people associated with me are absolutely pledged that neither the French nor the British Government shall have access to the contents of your box. That is why nothing that you do escapes our scrutiny. We are determined to have the papers in that box, and we shall have them.”

“You have come to that determination too late,” he began; but she stopped him with a slight gesture of protest:

“Please don’t interrupt me, Mr. Neeland.”

“I won’t; go on, dear lady!”

“Then, I’m trying to tell you all I may. I am trying to tell you enough of the truth to make you reflect very seriously.

“This is no ordinary private matter, no vulgar attempt at robbery and crime as you think – or pretend to think – for you are very intelligent, Mr. Neeland, and you know that the contrary is true.

“This affair concerns the secret police, the embassies, the chancelleries, the rulers themselves of nations long since grouped into two formidable alliances radically hostile to one another.

“I don’t think you have understood – perhaps even yet you do not understand why the papers you carry are so important to certain governments – why it is impossible that you be permitted to deliver them to the Princess Mistchenka–”

“Where did you ever hear of her!” he demanded in astonishment.

The girl smiled:

“Dear Mr. Neeland, I know the Princess Mistchenka better, perhaps, than you do.”

“Do you?”

“Indeed I do. What do you know about her? Nothing at all except that she is handsome, attractive, cultivated, amusing, and apparently wealthy.

“You know her as a traveller, a patroness of music and the fine arts – as a devotee of literature, as a graceful hostess, and an amiable friend who gives promising young artists letters of introduction to publishers who are in a position to offer them employment.”

That this girl should know so much about the Princess Mistchenka and about his own relations with her amazed Neeland. He did not pretend to account for it; he did not try; he sat silent, serious, and surprised, looking into the pretty and almost smiling face of a girl who apparently had been responsible for three separate attempts to kill him – perhaps even a fourth attempt; and who now sat beside him talking in a soft and agreeable voice about matters concerning which he had never dreamed she had heard.

For a few moments she sat silent, observing in his changing expression the effects of what she had said to him. Then, with a smile:

“Ask me whatever questions you desire to ask, Mr. Neeland. I shall do my best to answer them.”

“Very well,” he said bluntly; “how do you happen to know so much about me?”

“I know something about the friends of the Princess Mistchenka. I have to.”

“Did you know who I was there in the house at Brookhollow?”

“No.”

“When, then?”

“When you yourself told me your name, I recognised it.”

“I surprised you by interrupting you in Brookhollow?”

“Yes.”

“You expected no interruption?”

“None.”

“How did you happen to go there? Where did you ever hear of the olive-wood box?”

“I had advices by cable from abroad – directions to go to Brookhollow and secure the box.”

“Then somebody must be watching the Princess Mistchenka.”

“Of course,” she said simply.

“Why ‘of course’?”

“Mr. Neeland, the Princess Mistchenka and her youthful protégée, Miss Carew–”

“What!!!”

The girl smiled wearily:

“Really,” she said, “you are such a boy to be mixed in with matters of this colour. I think that’s the reason you have defeated us – the trained fencer dreads a left-handed novice more than any classic master of the foils.

“And that is what you have done to us – blundered – if you’ll forgive me – into momentary victory.

“But such victories are only momentary, Mr. Neeland. Please believe it. Please try to understand, too, that this is no battle with masks and plastrons and nicely padded buttons. No; it is no comedy, but a grave and serious affair that must inevitably end in tragedy – for somebody.”

“For me?” he asked without smiling.

She turned on him abruptly and laid one hand lightly on his arm with a pretty gesture, at once warning, appealing, and protective.

“I asked you to come here,” she said, “because – because I want you to escape the tragedy.”

“You want me to escape?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I – am sorry for you.”

He said nothing.

“And – I like you, Mr. Neeland.”

The avowal in the soft, prettily modulated voice, lost none of its charm and surprise because the voice was a trifle tremulous, and the girl’s face was tinted with a delicate colour.

“I like to believe what you say, Scheherazade,” he said pleasantly. “Somehow or other I never did think you hated me personally – except once–”

She flushed, and he was silent, remembering her humiliation in the Brookhollow house.

“I don’t know,” she said in a colder tone, “why I should feel at all friendly toward you, Mr. Neeland, except that you are personally courageous, and you have shown yourself generous under a severe temptation to be otherwise.

“As for – any personal humiliation – inflicted upon me–” She looked down thoughtfully and pretended to sort out a bonbon to her taste, while the hot colour cooled in her cheeks.

“I know,” he said, “I’ve also jeered at you, jested, nagged you, taunted you, kiss–” He checked himself and he smiled and ostentatiously lighted a cigarette.

“Well,” he said, blowing a cloud of aromatic smoke toward the ceiling, “I believe that this is as strange a week as any man ever lived. It’s like a story book – like one of your wonderful stories, Scheherazade. It doesn’t seem real, now that it is ended–”

“It is not ended,” she interrupted in a low voice.

He smiled.

“You know,” he said, “there’s no use trying to frighten such an idiot as I am.”

She lifted her troubled eyes:

“That is what frightens me,” she said. “I am afraid you don’t know enough to be afraid.”

He laughed.

“But I want you to be afraid. A really brave man knows what fear is. I want you to know.”

“What do you wish me to do, Scheherazade?”

“Keep away from that box.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Yes, you can. You can leave it in charge of the captain of this ship and let him see that an attempt is made to deliver it to the Princess Mistchenka.”

She was in deadly earnest; he saw that. And, in spite of himself, a slight thrill that was almost a chill passed over him, checked instantly by the hot wave of sheer exhilaration at the hint of actual danger.

“Oho!” he said gaily. “Then you and your friends are not yet finished with me?”

“Yes, if you will consider your mission accomplished.”

“And leave the rest to the captain of the Volhynia?”

“Yes.”

“Scheherazade,” he said, “did you suppose me to be a coward?”

“No. You have done all that you can. A reserve officer of the British Navy has the box in his charge. Let him, protected by his Government, send it toward its destination.”

In her even voice the implied menace was the more sinister for her calmness.

He looked at her, perplexed, and shook his head.

“I ask you,” she went on, “to keep out of this affair – to disassociate yourself from it. I ask it because you have been considerate and brave, and because I do not wish you harm.”

He turned toward her, leaning a little forward on the lounge:

“No use,” he said, smiling. “I’m in it until it ends–”

“Let it end then!” said a soft, thick voice directly behind him. And Neeland turned and found the man he had seen on deck standing beside him. One of his fat white hands held an automatic pistol, covering him; the other was carefully closing the door which he had noiselessly opened to admit him.