Part 9 (1/2)

There is some strange mystery about the matter, which we would fain have solved. But stay--not here, and not yet. You must be very tired and weary; you must first have rest and refreshment, after which you can tell us your tale. Stevenson, see the little boat hauled up; and, doctor, I place this young lady under your care; to-night I hope to land her safely in Reikjavik; meanwhile my cabin is at her disposal.”

”Come, la.s.sie,” said the good surgeon, laconically, leading the way down the companion.

Merely dropping a queenly curtsey to McBain and our young heroes, she followed the doctor without a word.

Peter the steward placed before her the most tempting viands in the s.h.i.+p, yet she seemed to have but little appet.i.te.

”I am tired,” she said at length, ”I fain would rest. Long weary weeks of sorrow have been mine. But they are past and gone at last.”

Then she retired, this strange ocean waif and stray, and so the day wore gradually to a close, and they saw no more of her until the sun, fierce, fiery, and red, began to disappear behind the distant snow-clad hills; then they found her once more in their midst.

She had gathered the folds of her plaid around her, her long yellow hair still floated over her shoulders, and her dreamy blue eyes were shyly raised to McBain's face as she began to speak.

”I owe you some explanation,” she said. ”My strange conduct must appear almost inexplicable to you. My appearance among you two nights ago was intended to save you from the destruction that awaited you--from the destruction that had been prepared for you by the Danish wreckers.”

”Sir,” she continued, after a pause, ”I am myself a Dane. My father was parish minister in the little village of Elmdene. Alas! I fear he is now no more. Afflictions gathered and thickened around us in our once happy little home, and the only way we could see out of them was to leave our native land and cross the ocean. In America we have many friends who had kindly offered us an asylum, until happier days should come again. Our vessel was a brig, our crew all told only twenty hands, and we, my brother, father, and myself--for mother has long since gone up beyond--were the only pa.s.sengers.

”All went well until we were off the northern Shetlands, when at the dark, starry hour of midnight our s.h.i.+p was boarded and carried by pirates. Every one in the s.h.i.+p was put to the sword, saving my father and myself. My poor dear brave brother was slain before my eyes, but he died as the Danes die--with his face to the foe. My father was promised his life if he would perform the ceremony of marriage between myself and the pirate captain, who is a Russian, a daring, fearless fellow, but a strange compound of superst.i.tion and vice--a man who will go to prayers before scuttling a s.h.i.+p! The object of this pirate was to seize your vessel; he would have met and fought you at sea, but the easier plan for him was to try to wreck you. Fortune seemed to favour this bold design of his. The lights placed on sh.o.r.e, to represent a vessel of large size, were part and parcel of his vile scheme. But the darkness of the night enabled me to escape and come towards you. Then I feared to return; but, alas! alas! I now tremble lest my dear father has had to pay the penalty of my rashness with his life.”

[The story of the pirate is founded on fact.]

”But the s.h.i.+p--this pirate?” said McBain. ”We sailed around the island next day but saw no signs of him?”

”Then,” said the girl, ”he must have escaped in the darkness, immediately after discovering the entire failure of his scheme.”

”And whither were you bound for when we overtook you, my poor girl?”

asked McBain.

”At Reikjavik,” she replied, ”I have an uncle, a minister. He it was who taught me all I know, while he was still at home in Elmdene--taught me among other things the beautiful language of your country, which I speak, but speak so indifferently.”

”Can this be,” said McBain, ”the self-same pirate that attacked the _s...o...b..rd_?”

”The very same thought,” answered Ralph, ”was pa.s.sing through my own mind.”

”And yet how strange that a pirate should, cruise in these far northern seas?”

”She has less chance of being caught, at all events,” Allan said.

”Ha?” exclaimed McBain, with a kind of grim, exultant laugh, ”if she comes across the _Arrandoon_, that chance will indeed be a small one.

She'll find us a different kind of a craft from the _s...o...b..rd_.”

The vessel was now heading directly for the south-east coast of Iceland.

Somewhere in there, though at present hidden by points of land and rocky islets, lay the capital of Iceland, which they hoped to reach ere midnight.

A more lovely land and seascape than that which was now stretched out before them, it would indeed be difficult to conceive. The sun had gone down behind the western end of a long line of snow-clad mountains, serrated, jagged, and peaked, but their tops were all rose-tipped with his parting beams. Above them the sky was clear, with just one speck of crimson cloud; the lower land between was bathed in a purple mist, through which the ice-bound rocks could dimly be discerned, while the mantle of night had already been spread over the ocean.

It was ”nightfall on the sea.”

CHAPTER EIGHT.