Hurricane Island by H. B. Marriott Watson (free novels to read .TXT) 📕

dimensions. Now it has grown to the proportions of a--well, a balloon," I ended.

Both men gazed at me steadily.

"Out with it, man," urged the third officer.

"I have your permission?" I asked the lawyer's clerk, smiling.

"When you have told me what it is, I will tell you," said he, gravely jocose.

I put the paper in Holgate's hands, and pointed to the paragraph. He read it slowly aloud and then looked up.

"Well?" he asked.

"I am going to tell you something which you know," I said, addressing Pye. "The lady in the deck cabin is Mlle. Trebizond."

Holgate started. "Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, but Pye was quite silent, only keeping his eyes on me.

"I recognized her, but couldn't name her," I went on. "Now it has come back to me."

"Which means, of course," said Pye unemotionally, "that Mr. Morland is----"

"The Prince," said Holgate with a heavy breath.

Pye resumed his cigarette. "With all these sensations, my dear Holgate," he remarked, "I have forgotten my duty. Perhaps you will help yourself."

Holgate did so. "Good Heavens!" he said again, and then, "I suppose, if you're right, that we carry Caesar and his fortunes. He has got off with the lady and the plunder."

"The plunder!" I echoed.

He indicated the paragraph, and I read now another sentence which I had overlooked.

"The prince has expressed his intention, according to rumour, of marrying as he chooses, and as he inherits more than a million pounds from his mother, he is in a position to snap his fingers at the Empress. In that case, no doubt, he would follow precedent, and take rank as an ordinary subject."

I looked up at Holgate.

"We carry Caesar and his fortune," he said with a smiling emphasis on the singular, and then he waved his arm melodramatically. "And to think we are all paupers!" and grinned at me.

"It is inequitable," said I lightly; "it's an unjust distribution of this world's goods," echoing therein his own remark earlier in the evening.

Pye sat still, with an inexpressive face. His admirable silence, however, now ceased.

"So we shall have this gossip all over the ship to-morrow."

"No," said I curtly, for the suggestion annoyed me. "It is nothing to me. I told you because you knew. And I told Mr. Holgate----" I paused.

"Because I'm your chum," said the third officer.

I did not contradict him. I had spoken really out of the excitement of my discovery. Certainly I had not spoken because Holgate was my chum.


CHAPTER IV

AN AMAZING PROPOSITION

As I had said, it was no business of mine, and, having divulged my news, I was in no haste to go about with it like a common gossip. That Prince Frederic of Hochburg was Mr. Morland, and that Miss Morland was Princess Alix, I was as assured as that I had identified in my patient the well-known Parisian singer Yvonne Trebizond. But, having made the discovery, I promised myself some interest in watching the course of the rumour. It would spread about the ship like fire and would be whispered over taffrails, in galleys, and in stokehole. But, to my surprise, I could observe no signs of this flight of gossip. No one certainly offered me any communication on the subject, and I observed no curiosity and no surprise. The mess conducted itself with equanimity, and nothing was hinted of princes or of emperors, or of mysterious secrets. No facts ever hid themselves so cunningly as these obviously somewhat startling facts, and I wondered at the silence, but still held my tongue.

Mademoiselle continued to give me trouble during the next day, but that was more in the way of unreasonable demands and petulance than through hysteric exhibitions. She did not repeat her request to be landed, which was now quite impracticable, as we were well out in the Atlantic, but she referred to it.

"Where are we, doctor?" she inquired languidly, and I told her; at which she considered. "Well, perhaps it is worth it," she said and smiled at me confidingly.

Of Mr. Morland I saw little, for he was shut in his cabin a great part of the day, reading or writing, and smoking without cessation. And he walked regularly on the hurricane deck with his sister. Once I encountered him in mademoiselle's room, and he nodded.

"She is getting well, doctor; is it not so?" he asked in a pleasant way, and exhibited a tenderness in his words and manner to mademoiselle which I should not have associated with him.

Of his sister I saw even less, except in the distance, but her, too, I met in her friend's room. Mademoiselle was talkative that day, the second of my attendance on her, and spoke of things with a terrifying frankness, sometimes in bad English, but oftener in her own tongue. She rehearsed her sensations during sea-sickness, criticised Miss Morland, and asked me about Barraclough, whom she had seen passing by her window once or twice.

"Sir John," she said, speaking pretty broken English. "Then he is noble. Oh, comme il est gentil, comme il est beau!" and as quickly fell to cross-questioning me on my parentage and history.

It was in the thick of this that Miss Morland made her entrance. I do not know if it be a confession of weak-mindedness, or even of snobbishness (I hope not), but the fact was that since I had discovered Miss Morland's identity I did not judge her coldness and aloofness so hardly. I am disposed to think it was merely a reasonable attitude on my part produced by the knowledge of her circumstances, and what I set down as her trials. She bowed to me, and addressed some words to mademoiselle which, sympathetic in their import, were yet somewhat frigid in tone. Mademoiselle replied laughing:

"You are very good, my dear, but I am progressing. We are sailing into the land of romance and will find what we shall find there."

I lingered beyond what was necessary, and thus it happened that Miss Morland and I left the cabin together. Outside she spoke: "Is there any likelihood of a recurrence of the attack?"

"I don't think so," I answered. "But Mlle. Trebizond is a nervous subject."

It was the look in her eyes that made me suddenly realise my indiscretion. A light flashed in them, almost as if she would have struck me.

"Mlle. Chateray is almost well enough to dispense with a doctor's services," she said with an accent on the name.

"You must allow me to be the judge of that," I replied flushing. She was silent.

"Naturally," she said at last, and turned away.

The newspaper had stated that Princess Alix was sympathetic to her brother's attachment, but was she altogether so? I could not but attribute her coolness and her reticence to some scruple. She walked daily with her brother, and it was evident that she was fond of him, or why was she here? But how much of personal prejudice and of private conviction had she sacrificed on that pious altar?

I was sure that if the news of our passengers were bruited about at all I should hear of it from Lane, who was a gossip at heart; and as he said nothing I knew that Holgate had been silent--why, I could not conceive, unless Pye had gagged him. But in any case it appeared that Holgate also could keep his own counsel and hold his tongue. That he could speak I had yet to realise, as the astonishing narrative I am now approaching demonstrates.

It was the evening of our fifth day out, and the long swell of the Atlantic was washing on our port side, so that the _Sea Queen_ heeled over and dipped her snout as she ran. I had misgivings for my late patient, whom I had not seen for the last thirty-six hours, although she had made an appearance on the hurricane deck in a chair.

Holgate asked me to his cabin with his customary urbanity, saying that he wanted a few words with me. Once the door was shut he settled down on his bunk and lit a cigar.

"Help yourself, doctor," he said.

I declined and remained standing, for I was anxious to get away. He looked at me steadily out of his dark eyes.

"Do you know where we're going, doctor?" he asked.

"No," said I, "but I should be glad to."

"I've just discovered," he replied; "Buenos Ayres."

I told him that I was glad to hear it, as we should run into better weather.

"I couldn't just make up my mind," he went on, "till to-day. But it's pretty plain now, though the old man has not said so. Any fool can see it with the way we're shaping." He puffed for a moment or two and then resumed: "I've been thinking over things a bit, and, if your theory is correct, Mr. Morland is to marry the lady at Buenos Ayres and probably make his home there, or, it may be, in some other part of America. A capital place for losing identity is the States."

I said that it was quite probable.

"But as the yacht's chartered for a year," pursued Holgate evenly, "the odds are that there's to be cruising off and on, may be up the west coast of America, may be the South Seas, or may be Japan. There's a goodly cruise before us, doctor."

"Well, it will be tolerable for us," I answered.

"Just so," he replied, "only tolerable--not eighteen carat, which seems a pity."

"Shall we strike for higher wages?" I asked drily.

"I've been thinking over what you said, doctor," said the third officer, taking no heed of this, "and it's gone home pretty deep. Prince Frederic has cut himself adrift from his past--there's no getting behind that. The Emperor has thrown him up, and there's no one outside a penny-a-liner cares two pinches for him or what becomes of him. He's done with. The Chancelleries of Europe won't waste their time on him. He's negligible."

"Well?" said I, for I was not in the mood for a political discussion.

"Well, suppose he never turned up?" said Holgate, and leaned back and stared at me.

"I don't understand," said I. "I don't suppose he will turn up. As you say, he's done for."

"I mean that the ship might founder," said Holgate, still holding me with his eye.

I was perplexed, and seeing it, he laughed.

"Let us make no bones about it," he said, laying down his cigar. "Here's a discarded prince whom no one wants, sailing for no one knows where, with his fortune on board and no one responsible for him. Do you take me now?"

"I'm hanged if I do," I replied testily, for indeed I had no thought of what the man was driving at. But here it came out with a burst.

"Doctor, all this is in our hands. We can do what we will. We're masters of the situation."

I opened my mouth and stared at him. The broad swarthy face loomed like a menace in the uncertain light before us. It was dark; it was inscrutable; a heavy resolution was marked in that thick neck, low brow, and salient chin. We eyed each other in silence.

"But this is monstrous," I said with a little laugh. "You have not brought me here for a silly jest?"

"It's God's truth I