Part 59 (1/2)
”Yes, sir; but I darsn't let on to him I knew him--what with 'earing that you was in here----”
”You _did_ know him?”
”Yes, sir.”
”Who is he?”
”Mr. Neeland, sir, that there cove is wot he says he is, a member of Parliament, and his name is Wilson----”
”You're mad! He's an Eurasian, a spy; his name is Karl Breslau--I heard it from the others--and he tried to blow up the captain's cabin and the bridge with those three bombs lying there on the bed!”
”My G.o.d, sir--what you tell me may be so, but what I say is true, sir; that gentleman you heard talking outside the door to me is Charles Wilson, member of Parliament, representing Glebe and Wotherness; and I knew it w'en I 'anded 'im the 'ot stuff!--'strewth I did, sir--and took my chance you'd 'elp me out if I got in too rotten with the company!”
Neeland said:
”Certainly you may count on me. You're a brick!” He continued to rub and slap and pinch his arms and legs to restore the circulation, and finally ventured to rise to his shaky feet. The steward offered an arm; together they hobbled to the door, summoned another steward, placed him in charge of the room, and went on in quest of Captain West, to whom an immediate report was now imperative.
CHAPTER XXIII
ON HIS WAY
The sun hung well above the river mists and threw long, cherry-red beams across the choppy channel where clotted jets of steam and smoke from tug and steamer drifted with the fog; and still the captain of the _Volhynia_ and young Neeland sat together in low-voiced conference in the captain's cabin; and a sailor, armed with cutla.s.s and pistol, stood outside the locked and bolted door.
Off the port bow, Liverpool spread as far as the eye could see through the shredded fog; to starboard, off Birkenhead, through a haze of pearl and lavender, the tall phantom of an old-time battles.h.i.+p loomed.
She was probably one of Nelson's s.h.i.+ps, now only an apparition; but to Neeland, as he caught sight of her dimly revealed, still dominating the water, the old s.h.i.+p seemed like a menacing ghost, never to be laid until the sceptre of sea power fell from an enervated empire and the glory of Great Britain departed for all time. And in his Yankee heart he hoped devoutly that such disaster to the world might never come upon it.
Few pa.s.sengers were yet astir; the tender had not yet come alongside; the monstrous city beyond had not awakened.
But a boat manned by Liverpool police lay off the _Volhynia's_ port; Neeland's steamer trunk was already in it; and now the captain accompanied him to the ladder, where a sailor took his suitcase and the olive-wood box and ran down the landing stairs like a monkey.
”Good luck,” said the captain of the _Volhynia_. ”And keep it in your mind every minute that those two men and that woman probably are at this moment aboard some German fis.h.i.+ng craft, and headed for France.
”Remember, too, that they are merely units in a vast system; that they are certain to communicate with other units; that between you and Paris are people who will be notified to watch for you, follow you, rob you.”
Neeland nodded thoughtfully.
The captain said again:
”Good luck! I wish you were free to turn over that box to us. But if you've given your word to deliver it in person, the whole matter involves, naturally, a point of honour.”
”Yes. I have no discretion in the matter, you see.” He laughed.
”You're thinking, Captain West, that I haven't much discretion anyway.”
”I don't think you have very much,” admitted the captain, smiling and shaking the hand which Neeland offered. ”Well, this is merely one symptom of a very serious business, Mr. Neeland. That an attempt should actually have been made to murder you and to blow me to pieces in my cabin is a slight indication of what a cataclysmic explosion may shatter the peace of the entire world at any moment now.... Good-bye.
And I warn you very solemnly to take this affair as a deadly serious one and not as a lark.”
They exchanged a firm clasp; then Neeland descended and entered the boat; the Inspector of Police took the tiller; the policemen bent to the oars, and the boat shot away through a mist which was turning to a golden vapour.