Part 48 (1/2)
”And it starts so early in the morning?”
”Yes; somewhere between 8 and 9.”
Aronson looked at his watch. It was just 8:15. If he could catch a train back, he might be in town at a little after half-past. And then--a delay! These great steamers are often delayed!
”Toot! Toot! Toot!” came the warning whistle of an engine, and Aronson was das.h.i.+ng down the path, never stopping to pick up his hat that was lifted off by the wind, bent only on beating his steam-propelled rival to the station. It took him the whole journey townward to recover the wind he had lost in that unwonted quarter-mile run. People laughed at his hatless head, but he did not heed them. Besides, if he had been a philosopher, he might have retorted that hats on a dog-day are simply one of the nuisances of civilized conventionality. So he took a wharf car and in less than half an hour was running out to the edge of the great Red Star quay, there to behold the Venetia proudly backing into the channel on the flood of the tide and turning her head oceanward. I regret to say this spectacle filled Aronson with violent wrath, and the wharf loungers must have taken him for a wild man as he smote his fists together and danced about.
”Missed your boat?” inquired casually a sea-beaten man, but Aronson was too irate to appreciate his well-meant sympathy. He only ran to the edge of the wharf and looked off, shading his eyes from the glare of the water.
Presently he found the man at his elbow again.
”I can catch her for you if it's anything important,” said the tar.
”I'll give you--I'll give you--” and then he checked himself, appalled at his own rashness. ”How much will you charge?” he asked.
”Well, the Venetians steaming for a record this trip.”
”How much?”
”She's got a start of a mile, and going twenty knots.”
”How much?”
”There were some picnic folks I expected down here to charter my tug. Don't see them, but they may drop in. I suppose you'll allow something for the disappointment if they come.”
”How much?” persisted Aronson, but the Venetia had just disappeared behind an island and the thought of returning empty-handed to s.h.a.garach acted like a rowel in his flank. ”I'll give you $50,” he cried, suddenly.
”Done,” said the Yankee, wringing his hand, and then Aronson knew that he ought to have offered $25. But it was no time for haggling. ”At any cost,” he repeated to himself. The mariner hurried him in and out among the wharves, till they came upon a battered but resolute-looking tugboat, on which two or three deck-hands were lounging.
”Get steam up, Si,” cried the skipper, and after a delay which seemed an hour to Aronson the water began to be churned to foam before her bow and the little craft had started on its long chase.
Past the islands of the harbor, past the slow merchant schooners, past the white-sailed careening pleasure sloops, past the harbor police boat, past the revenue cutter, past the excursion steamers to local beaches, past the crowded Yarmouth, they flew, cheered on by the pa.s.sengers--for everybody soon saw it was a race.
Aronson was studying the wide beam of the Venetia in front. How slowly they were gaining! They were out beyond the farthest island in the harbor, the lighthouse shoal that is covered at high tide, and still the Red Star liner bore away from them with half a mile of clear water between.
”Cheer up, s.h.i.+pmate,” cried Perkins; ”she's gettin' bigger and bigger. Heap the coals on down there, Si.”
The Venetia must have sighted her pursuer long ago, and indeed the faces of her pa.s.sengers on the bow were becoming more and more visible every moment. But this was a record trip, and it would be beneath her dignity to slow up for every petty rowboat that hailed her. So her engines continued to pump and she clove the glorious waters swiftly.
”Ahoy!” shouted Capt. Perkins.
”Ahoy yourself!” came the answer. Aronson thought he saw a woman's face that he knew on the deck.
”Heave to! A boarder!”
”Tell him to get out of bed in time,” came the ungracious reply. Evidently the Venetia's third mate was under orders not to stop for any belated pa.s.senger.
”What's your errand?” asked the skipper, a little puzzled, of Aronson.
”I have a subpoena from the court,” cried Aronson, all agog.
”Oh, you're a court officer.”
Then he rounded his hands and holloaed up: ”A court officer aboard!”
Court officer! This made an impression. The third mate withdrew from the gunwale and presently reappeared with the captain.
”Lash her to!” cried the captain. The tug-boat hugged her great sister and a ladder was let down, upon which Aronson mounted. With the white paper in his hand he looked decidedly formidable.
”I have a subpoena for Mrs. Alice Arnold, one of your pa.s.sengers. She is wanted as a witness in a murder trial. There she is,” he added, for Mrs. Arnold stood in front of the crowd that had rolled like a barrel of ballast toward the center of interest. The captain was nonplused. He was not familiar enough with law terms to know the limits of a subpoena's authority. But he felt that he was to some extent the protector of his pa.s.sengers.
”I don't understand this,” he said, turning to Mrs. Arnold.
”It is a great annoyance to me if I must go on so trifling a matter,” she said. She was pale and her manner was haughty. To Aronson it was something more. It bore every indication of conscious guilt. He had not foreseen resistance. The doc.u.ment, with s.h.a.garach's name appended, he had thought would open caverns and cause walls to fall.
”There is the lady. She prefers not to go. I presume you will have to compel her. But I don't see that I can permit violence on board my s.h.i.+p.”
The pa.s.sengers seemed to gloat on Saul Aronson's discomfiture, and s.h.a.garach's faithful courier was almost beside himself. In the distance lay the city, crowned with its gold dome, dwindling from sight. The lonely ocean roared around him. Capt. Perkins' tiny tug still hugged the larboard of her giant sister.
”It appears to me that paper's no good,” said the second mate suddenly. He happened to be a little of a lawyer. ”Let's have a look.”
Aronson reluctantly saw the summons leave his hand.
”Suffolk county. This ain't Suffolk county,” cried the mate, while the ring of pa.s.sengers laughed.
”s.h.i.+nny on your own side, youngster,” he added, returning the paper.
”But it's America,” cried Aronson.
”Just pa.s.sed the three-mile limit,” said the captain. He was an Englishman, the mate was an Englishman. They had no particular love for anything American, except the output of our national mints.
”I'm afraid the captain's right, young man,” said a kind, elderly gentleman, who might be a lawyer recruiting his health by an ocean trip before the fall term opened. ”You've got beyond your jurisdiction.”
Mrs. Arnold had gone below and the hatless invader reluctantly abandoned his prize. On the homeward voyage he gave way to exhaustion and fell into several naps of forty winks' duration, during the last of which a grotesque dream troubled his peace. He found himself chasing Serena Lamb around an enormous ba.s.s drum, as big as the Heidelberg tun, on the stretched skin of which the oaf, the manikin and the pantaloon were dancing a fandango. Still he chased Serena and still she escaped him, the toes of the dancers pounding a heavy tattoo. Faster and faster pursuer and pursued whirled around the side of the drum, till Aronson's head swam like a kitten's in hot pursuit of his own tail. At last in his despair he hurled the subpoena at Serena's head.
The three dancers disappeared with a bursting sound into the hollow of the drum, and he awoke to find the tugboat just b.u.mping its side against the dock. The sea had smoothed down to a lack-l.u.s.ter glaze, but it was less dreary than the heart of the baffled pursuer.
”We may as well cancel that little debit item now,” said Skipper Perkins, flinging a coil of rope ash.o.r.e.
”At any cost,” repeated Aronson sorely to himself. He had done his best, but Mrs. Arnold was out of sight of land--a fugitive from justice.
CHAPTER LVIII.
THE MIRACLE.
It was after two o'clock when, breathless, spiritless, and penniless, Saul Aronson arrived at the court-room again. The examination of Bertha was nearly ended.