Part 4 (1/2)

”Monsieur, what an idea--and what was wrong with it?”

”Oh, it was just a fancy. The sea breeds fancies and superst.i.tions, you know that, Lepine, for I believe you are superst.i.tious yourself.”

”Perhaps, monsieur; all sailors are, and I have had experiences. There are bad and good s.h.i.+ps, just as there are bad and good men, of that I am sure. Perhaps that three-master was a bad s.h.i.+p.” Lepine laughed as though at his own words. ”All the same,” he went on, ”I don't like warnings, especially off Kerguelen.”

They left the chart house and came out on the bridge.

The wind was still steady but the clouds had consolidated and the night was pitch black. On the bridge the _Gaston de Paris_ seemed driving into a solid wall of ebony.

The Prince after a glance into the binnacle was preparing to go down the bridge steps when a cry from the Look-out made him wheel round.

Suddenly, and as if evolved by magic from the blackness, the vague spectre of a vast s.h.i.+p shewed up ahead on the port bow making to cross their course. Thundering along under full canvas without lights and seemingly blind, she seemed only a pistol shot away.

Then the owner of the _Gaston de Paris_ did what no owner ought ever to do: seeing Destruction and judging that by a bold stroke it might be out-leaped, he sprang to the engine room telegraph and flung the lever to full speed ahead.

CHAPTER IV

DISASTER

Left alone, Mademoiselle de Bromsart finished the all but completed piece of embroidery in her lap. It did not take her five minutes. Then she held up the work and reviewed it with lips slightly pursed, then she rolled it up, rose, and went off to the state-room of Madame de Warens to bid her good-night.

Madame was sitting up in her bunk reading Maurice Barres' ”Greco.” The air of the place was stifling with the fume of cigarettes, and the girl nearly choked as she closed the door and stood facing the old lady in the bunk.

”Why don't you smoke, then you wouldn't mind it,” cried the latter, putting her book down and taking off her gla.s.ses. ”No, I won't have a port opened, d'you want me to be blown out of my bunk? Sit down.”

”No, I won't stay,” replied the other, ”I just came to say good-night--and tell you something--He asked me to marry him.”

”Who--Selm?”

”Yes.”

”And what did you say?”

”I said 'No.'”

”Oh, you did?--and what's the matter with him--I mean what's the matter with you?”

”How?”

”How! The best match in Europe and you say 'no' to him--a man who could marry where he pleases and whom he pleased and you say 'no.'

Good-looking, without vices, richer than many a crowned head, second only to the reigning families--and you say 'no.'”

The old lady was working herself up. This admirer of Anarchasis Clootz and dilletanti of Anarchism had lately possessed one supreme desire, the desire to have for niece the Princess Selm.

”I thought you didn't believe in all that,” said the girl.

”All what?”