CHAPTER XXVII
THE WEEK-END BEGINS
Vita stood up. The swift rise and fall of her bosom bespoke an emotion which found added reflection in the light of her beautiful grey eyes. Her attitude was tense. It was full of that suggestion of urgency which straining ears ever convey. She was listening. And every muscle of her fair body was tuned to the pitch of her nerves.
Her eyes were upon the face of a small brass lantern clock. The figures on the dial were indistinct in the artificial light, but she read them with ease under the influence of the emotion stirring her. The dull metal hands were almost together. It was on the stroke of half-past six.
Her masses of red-gold hair were completely hidden under a brimless hat, which sank low upon her head. A streaming veil fell to her shoulders, completely covering her hat, and ready to be secured closely about the fair oval of her anxious face. Her costume was a stout dark coat and skirt which displayed to perfection the beauty of her tall figure. Across the back of a chair lay a heavy overcoat of semi-military fashioning. It was thick and warm. It was a man's coat.
The moments ticked away. Vita made no movement. The room was still; a deathly silence reigned throughout the house. And yet, to the waiting woman, a hundred ominous sounds blended with the solemn ticking of the clock. The long hand was within the smallest fraction of the half-hour point. At last she raised one long gloved hand, and the slim fingers were pressed to the temples hidden under the enveloping hat. Her hand was trembling.
When she removed her fingers it was with a gesture of impatience. And the gesture was followed by swift movement. She seized the overcoat and flung it across her arm, picked up a small hand-bag and moved towards the door. Again she paused. Her hand was on the knob of the door. She turned it softly and gently pulled the door ajar. Her eyes sought the crack.
Lights were burning beyond in the wide hallway. All was still, silent; and a deep sigh as of relaxing nerves escaped her. She opened the door wider. It creaked, and her fine brows drew together in anxiety. Then they smoothed again as the creaking ceased. Almost imperceptibly the opening widened. Then, in a twinkling it seemed, she had vanished, and the room was left empty.
As she went a door opened at the far end of the room she had left, and a woman's dark face appeared round it. For a moment she surveyed the empty apartment. Then she smiled softly. A moment later the face was withdrawn and the door reclosed.
A creaking stair set panic raging through Vita's heart. The great staircase was old – so old. She stood, scarcely daring to breathe, wondering in what direction the betrayal would display itself. The moments passed and no sign was given. She moved again, and, in a fever of apprehension, she left the step and essayed another.
This time there was no alarm. She passed on down the stairs, swiftly, stealthily. Only the dainty rustle of her skirts betrayed her movements. This she gave no heed to. It was always with her. Therefore it possessed no significance. The bottom of the great oak staircase was reached. Her breathing was hurried, not with exertion, but as a result of the nervous tension. She was relying on a man's word – a Prussian's. She believed it honest, but – A swift glance about the wide hall-place, and, for a moment, her nerves eased. The man was proving as good as his word. The doors into the various apartments were closed. The hall was empty.
Fresh courage flowed through her veins. She tiptoed across the polished marble, avoiding the loose rugs lest a slip might betray her. Then, in the centre of it, she stopped dead, her heart pounding out the alarm which had suddenly possessed her. Voices, men's voices, had reached her. And they came from immediately beyond a pair of heavy folding doors. She listened. The sound was slightly deadened. The doors made it impossible to hear the words.
Quite suddenly she realized that there was not a moment to lose. Without any further hesitation she flitted like a ghost, silently, towards the glass swing-doors which opened upon the entrance doors.
She thrust them apart. She passed down half a dozen wide, shallow steps. The outer doors yielded to her hand. Then she breathed the fresh, chill night air of the valley beyond. It was good, so good. It was the first breath of freedom. Deeply, deeply, she drank in the delight of it.
As the door swung gently to behind her, the folding doors of the apartment in which had sounded the men's voices were thrust apart. Von Salzinger and Johann Stryj stood framed in the archway.
"See, there is movement in the glass doors," observed Von Salzinger. "She has gone."
"I heard her," was the Secret Service man's cool reply.
Vita had paused only to put on the coat. Then, with skirts slightly raised, she sped on down the drive at something approaching a run. It was not easy in the pitch black of the night. But fear of pursuit lent her added power, and, surmounting every difficulty, she reached the iron gateway.
She breathed a great relief. The gates were standing open, and, away beyond, and to the right, she beheld the reflection of light upon the roadway.
She hurried towards it. An overwhelming flood of gratitude and thankfulness swept over her. Von Salzinger was proving his loyalty. Every detail was working out as he had promised. Liberty and Life. They were sweet enough. And even the price lost something of its horror under her new emotion.
The car was a large one. It carried three great headlights. The chauffeur was at his wheel, and the purr of the running engines was music to her ears. The door stood wide open, and, without demur, without word, or a single qualm of fear, she stepped within and closed it after her. Instantly the car rolled away.
A figure moved from the dark window of the unlit lodge. It crossed the little room and stood against the wall. Then a groping hand pressed a button, and in the great hall of the mansion the peal of an electric bell rang out.
The week-end party had gathered. Saturday had been spent by the three principal guests under Ruxton and his father's guidance at the yards. But Ruxton had been an unimportant member of the party for the moment. Here in the great works Sir Andrew stood supreme. His was the chief control. His was the genius of organization. And to him these men, Sir Joseph Caistor, Sir Reginald Steele, and the Marquis of Lordburgh, looked for their information upon the new constructions.
It had been a day to remember for Sir Andrew. These brilliant technical men were exacting. Their trained, searching minds displayed a wonderful grasp of detail. There seemed to be no point too small for their consideration. Thus the day had to be entirely given up to them. Nor did Sir Andrew begrudge it. He was a great shipmaster, and his pride in his yards, and all they meant in the country's labors, found him with an almost childlike delight in his guests' interest and understanding.
Ruxton stood aloof. His thoughts and energies were concentrated elsewhere. Frequently he absented himself for long stretches of time together. Nor was it until their naval guests had satisfied their desire to study the new constructions that he became a factor in the day's affairs.
It was after the drive back to Dorby Towers that he slipped into the arena of affairs. It occurred while tea was served in the library. He drew Sir Joseph Caistor and Sir Reginald away from the rest of the party, and held a long private consultation with them.
The result of the consultation was the complete disappearance of Ruxton before dinner. He came into his father's room while the old man was in the midst of dressing.
"They've met me in everything, Dad, and now I'm off," he announced.
The abruptness of his announcement and the unceremonious fashion of his visit caused his father to pause in the act of adjusting his tie. He glanced up into the dark eyes. He needed no added scrutiny. Ruxton's eyes were shining with suppressed excitement. The smile in them was confident, and the set of his jaws told of a determination that was almost aggressive.
"When shall we see you again, boy?"
There was a gleam of anxiety in the deep-set eyes. But there was no suggestion of deterring him.
Ruxton shrugged.
"I can't tell. You see, it will depend entirely on circumstances."
"Yes."
His father returned to his attack on his tie. Then he smiled.
"It was a master stroke having the two heads of the Admiralty on the premises, also our Foreign Secretary. You left nothing to chance, Ruxton."
"Nothing but the chances of the right or wrong of my beliefs."
The old man sighed as his tie went straight.
"Your imagination is beyond me. I could never have seen these things as you see them. I am anxious for you."
"Don't trouble about me. Be anxious if you will, but let that anxiety be for the woman I love, and whom I hope even after this to present to you as your daughter. If she is safe, then – for me nothing else matters. I have done all that is humanly possible, at least which is possible to me. The rest is in the lap of the gods. Wish me luck, Dad, and good-bye."
He held out his hand. In a moment it was enveloped in both of his father's.
"With all my heart, lad. Good-bye. You will win out, I'm sure."
Then he turned again to his dressing-table and picked up his hair-brushes. He attacked his crisply curling white hair with almost unnecessary violence while his eyes watched the retreating figure of his only son in the reflection of the mirror.
Sunday dawned with a clouded, watery sky. All the morning the threat of rain held. Then, at lunch-time, a wind sprang out of the northeast, and the atmosphere grew dry and crisp, and the clouds lightened. The grey North Sea changed its hue to a lighter green, and at long intervals whitecaps broke up the oily aspect. The breeze had freshened by three o'clock and a chill swept over the moorlands, and the feel and aspect of winter settled upon the dull-tinted landscape. As evening began to close in the breeze dropped, and with it fell the temperature.
Two figures paced the winding footpath at the edge of the cliffs. Both were clad in heavy civilian ulsters, and their coat-collars sheltered the lower portions of their clean-shaven faces. In their shaded eyes was that far-off gaze which is only to be found in the eyes of men of the sea. It is an expression which must ever betray the man who belongs to the sea the moment he approaches that element, which is at once his friend and his bitterest foe.
Sir Reginald Steele paused and pointed out at the already darkening horizon.
"What a target," he cried. "Look at her, with her absurdly proud and vaunting four funnels. Look at the great upstanding chest like some vain pouter-pigeon. Man, give me an armored submarine, with a brace of heavy guns on it, and wirelessly controlled torpedoes, and I'd – sink her cold. I'd sink her before she got my range. I'd sink her while she fumbled amongst her cumbersome armaments."
He laughed the merry laugh of a man who wishes to probe the open wound of disagreement between two close friends.
"You're welcome to the submarine, Reggie. I'll take the 'pouter' every time. I'll give you a dozen shots with your wireless controlled as a start, and your pop-guns can amuse themselves indefinitely. She's a handsome craft. Town class, isn't she? She'd make you hate it in spite of your steel-clad hide."
Both men were smiling pleasantly as they watched the distant cruiser steaming slowly and sedately upon the wintry waters. The challenge had been replied to, and neither of the men seemed inclined to carry the debate further. Admiral Sir Reginald Steele had hurled every argument in favor of his submarine beliefs at the head of his friend and chief, during official hours, and they had agreed to differ. Now, in friendly intercourse, he was ready to add his pin-pricks, but he knew there was nothing important to be gained.
"The Farlows are smart men," he observed presently, obviously following out his train of thought aloud. "The old man is something unusual in the way of a shipmaster. One doesn't associate these shipping princes with real understanding of naval force. But once or twice yesterday I thought there were things he could teach me."
"Yes."
Sir Joseph was intent upon the movements of the cruiser. She had displayed no lights and the dusk was creeping on.
"I suppose it is the old man who is the genius of Dorby. What about young Ruxton? Harborough is keen on him. So is Lordburgh. I confess to a weakness that way myself. That was a great stroke of his, getting the secrets of that place in the Baltic. Apparently there's some one also who shares your faith in – underwater."
Sir Reginald had become absorbed in the horizon. He produced a pair of glasses and peered out in the gathering gloom.
"All far-seeing people do. These Farlows for instance," he replied. "What's that beyond the cruiser? She's low in the water."
Sir Joseph produced glasses. For some silent minutes they remained scouring the sea with eyes long trained to the work. Finally it was Sir Joseph who spoke.
"You should recognize it," he said.
"Yes. Underwater, and – a foreigner."
They relapsed into a long silence. The stars came out and a light frost was settling upon the moor. The air was brilliantly clear. Their glasses revealed the two distant objects.
"She's hove-to," observed Sir Reginald later on.
"The cruiser – yes. That's a mistake."
Sir Joseph made a sound of impatience with his tongue.
Again a prolonged silence fell. Both men were absorbed. The passage of time seemed of no consequence. The cold of the night seemed to concern them not at all.
"I don't know," Steele said much later, in answer to his chief's remark. "You can't tell what's doing from here. Nor what arrangements young Farlow has made. Ah!"
"Lights." Sir Joseph waited.
"Green astern. White ahead. Red amidships. The foreigner has shed a pinnace. It's coming ashore. It's getting interesting. That boy seemed pretty clear. I hope things are all right."
The boat was racing towards the shore at a point to the right of the two watchers. Sir Reginald was following it closely with his night glasses. The other continued his survey of the vessels beyond.
Presently he spoke.
"She's steaming again – the cruiser."
"Yes." The other's glasses were raised towards the horizon again.
"She's covered the foreigner's lights." Sir Joseph lowered his glasses. "What's the time?"
His companion lowered his glasses. He glanced at his watch.
"Nearly half-past six," he said significantly. Then in a moment his glasses were levelled at a point much nearer into land. "Ah, here she comes," he said, in his quick way. "Now the play begins. The curtain's going up. No lights. A good many regulations are being broken to-night. Shall we need an enquiry into it, Chief?" Sir Reginald laughed. "Well, Lordburgh is to blame if any trouble occurs. He forced us to lend our powerful aid in this thing. The odds are on that boy Ruxton. I'd bet my hopes of pension on it. He's keen and confident. Such romance never came our way, eh? I haven't heard before of units of the British Navy being used to secure a man a wife."
Sir Joseph laughed shortly.
"There's a good deal more than a woman in this. According to Lordburgh this trifling naval episode may secure the person of Germany's strong man – criminally engaged. It would be worth while. Sparling's a good man. If they pull it off it'll be his best day's work. Hello!"
At that moment a great white beam of light shot athwart the sky. It moved swiftly and rigidly. It swept in a great arc and settled on the face of the cliff away to their right.
"Look. Three lights just below us." Sir Reginald pointed out upon the water. "Green astern. White ahead. Red amidships. It isn't the foreigner from outside. It's – "
"Hark!" Sir Joseph held up a warning hand.
The two men listened acutely. Far away, remote but distinct, the sound of a pistol-shot reached them.
"That's the second," said Sir Joseph. "Come along, let's go and see what's happening."
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE WEEK-END
Prince von Hertzwohl gazed about him. His tall figure was bowed. He was no longer clad in the working costume which had been his disguise for so many days in Dorby. His lean face was shaded beneath a wide, soft-brimmed hat which entirely concealed that wonderful forehead which had so impressed Ruxton. But the shaven cheeks added years to his age. Beneath his chin were displayed those fleshy cords which do not belong to anything up to the middle life. He certainly looked older than ever in the foreign-designed clothes which he was now wearing.
The cold breath of the moor swept by him, it penetrated the lightish overcoat he was wearing. Once or twice he shivered as he gazed this way and that, searching the already hazy sky-line for a sign of any movement.
For some time he seemed in doubt. Then at last he drew in towards the black shelter of the old mill, which stood out in the grey light, keeping its ancient watch over the cove below. He glanced within its shadowed interior. It was inhospitable. But it was as he had always known it. Everything was undisturbed. He drew his coat about him and buttoned it up. The air was so keen, and he had little relish for it. Presently he sat down upon a fallen timber under the shelter of the wall. He must wait. Nothing could be done until the arrival he was expecting.
It was a desolate spot, and the influence of it was not unfelt. But the solitude was not altogether unappreciated. If there were eyes watching they failed to make their presence felt, and he was glad. He lit a cigar and sought comfort in it from the bleak northern air. His thoughtful eyes wandered in every direction his shelter permitted. To the east, across the sea. To the south, over the rolling moor. To the west, where the dying light of day was melting steadily before the grey obscurity of coming night.
The minutes passed slowly, slowly, as they ever pass to the anxious mind. But the dark of evening gathered with all the rapidity of early winter.
The long journey was drawing to its close. Long since, the great North Road had been left behind. Now the powerful car swept along, with its monotonous purr, over the winding coast road, which split the wide-spreading moorland, and headed on in the teeth of the bitter northeasterly breeze.
The chill penetrated to the snug interior of the car. Vita was forced to draw the heavy overcoat more closely about her. She shivered, but it was not with the actual cold. Her thoughts were a-riot. They were full of an intense and painful dread.
She had made the journey north in the company of the man whom she knew she was now condemned to marry – condemned beyond reprieve. The only gleam of light which had struggled through the darkness of her despair was that he had spared her his company in the car. He had dismissed the driver of the car at Bath, and taken upon himself that duty. Thus Vita had been spared an added torture to the desperate feelings assailing her.
She had no thought of revolt. She felt that destiny loomed before her in overwhelming force. Escape had no place in her thought. She had entered into a contract. A sordid contract, she felt. A contract which had perhaps been forced upon her, but which had been accepted by her through an invincible desire to be permitted to drag out the weary years of life, rather than face bravely the harsh consequences and penalties of truth and loyalty to the demands of honor. She admitted the dreadful cowardice which had driven her, and a wave of loathing for herself left her crushed under a burden of bitter contempt.
But during the journey, in communion with her own wretched thoughts, she had searched the future as only vivid imagination permitted, and the picture she had discovered was perhaps a thousandfold more dreadful than her earlier anticipations. Panic had urged her in the first place. But now the original panic which had driven her into her contract had passed, leaving her only the skeleton, which, in the first place, had been clothed in the brilliant flesh and raiment inspired by the yearning for life. To think of the right she had given that square, fleshy figure sitting before her beyond the glass partition of the car! The right to control her destiny; to be always near her, to – caress her. And all the while another image lay treasured in her heart, another voice was always in her ears, another hand lay in hers, and other lips – It was beyond endurance – the thought. To think that way lay madness. Her eyes grew haggard with dry tears. She was left beyond ordinary emotion. She could only stir restlessly, with brain heated almost to fever by the pressure of dreadful thought.
So the miles had been devoured by the senseless, softly droning wheels. Merciless wheels they became. Nothing could stop them, nothing could deter the progress towards that maelstrom of horror in the direction of which she was gliding.
Then came the familiar breath of the Yorkshire moorlands. She remembered it. She remembered every aspect of the scene about her. It was not possible for it to be otherwise. She writhed under the lash of memory. Was it not here she had first looked down upon the prone figure and upward-glancing dark eyes of Ruxton Farlow? Was it not here she had poured out to him the vaunting story of her desires to serve humanity? Had she not witnessed the light of sympathy leap into his eyes here – here, at the passionate profession she had made to him? And now – oh, the pity of it! – the miserable, cowardly sequel to all her protestations.
The grey of evening filled the car, and somehow Vita was glad of it. She felt she could hide her worthless self beneath it. The moorland scene faded, and the great dark gorse banks merged into one blackening world. Then, directly ahead, the aged landmark of the skeleton mill rose sharply out of the dusk.
Her pulses quickened. The journey was at its end. Her father would be there awaiting her, and she must face those wide, understanding eyes as she told him the story of her cowardly yielding. She shrank further into the corner. She knew the fearless spirit of the man, and she dreaded his contempt. The secret of her contract with the man driving the car was still her own, but, in a few minutes, it must be revealed to one whose contempt would deal the final crushing blow.
She nerved herself as the car drew up. Then, with ashen lips and frightened eyes, she became aware of a tall, lean figure standing out against the sky-line.
She waited for no assistance. She flung the door wide, and, in a moment, she was enfolded in her father's embrace.
But she dared not yield to the joy of reunion. She freed herself, and began to talk. Not a moment must be lost in telling him her story, the story of all the dread and horror she had lived through. She knew she dared not risk delay, or her last vestige of courage would vanish into thin air.
She poured out the story of the machinations, in the toils of which they had been caught. She told him the story of the jeopardy in which he stood; of the power which had been transferred from Berlin to bring about his final destruction. She told him of the death sentence which had been passed upon her by the terrible Von Berger, and how, in the last moment of her despair, succor had been proffered in the last quarter from which it could have reasonably been expected. And then came the story of her pledge.
To the long story the old man listened with the closest attention. He gave no sign, he offered no interruption. At its conclusion Vita paused, breathlessly awaiting the verdict in the man's luminous eyes. She watched them. She searched them, seeking that faint spark which might hold out the smallest hope. She was living for that alone – now.
The Prince stood for a moment, his eyes gazing past her at the sides of the travel-stained car. Then one long thin hand went up to his forehead, and his soft hat was thrust back on his head. The hand pressed down upon his brows and moved across them, as though brushing aside some sense of weariness. His eyes shifted their gaze towards the man standing near the car. They took in the square, burly figure from the crown of its hat to the soles of its feet. Then they came back to Vita, and the smile in them suggested a final sympathetic decision overriding the natural antagonistic feelings towards the man whom he looked upon as his enemy.
"Where is he – Von Salzinger?" he demanded.
Vita caught her breath. It was the crisis.
"Here, father. He drove the car."
The Prince's eyes again sought the man. Then he spoke, and the tone of his voice eased the woman's tension.
"You have done me a service, Herr von Salzinger. A service I could hardly have looked for. It is to be paid for, I understand, and the price is high. However, the risks you have taken, the sacrifices you have made are doubtless great, from your point of view. Therefore I can only – thank you. Come. The vessel should be lying off by this time. What will you do with the car?"
Von Salzinger stepped forward. The night was dark, and it was impossible to observe the expression of his face.
"The car can remain. It is – not mine."
The Prince inclined his head.
"Then we will go down to the cove. Vita!"
At the gentle tone of his voice the woman moved at once to his side. Whatever his innermost thoughts and feeling's, he had conveyed to her troubled heart the assurance of his perfect love and sympathy.
A man stood in the steel doorway of the clumsy tower which supported a pair of periscopes. The vessel was an early type of submarine. It was crude in finish and severe in fashion. Its flush deck was narrow, and a mere rail protected its sides.
His attention seemed divided between a group of men in oilskins engaged in launching a motor pinnace, and the movements of a war-craft standing off some distance astern.
Night was closing upon an oily sea, which lolled in listless fashion beneath the starry sheen of a now almost windless evening. The threatened "northeaster" which had been developing all the afternoon had suddenly died out under the influence of a sharp frost. There was a certain satisfaction in the luck of the weather. This man knew quite well what he might have been called upon to face on the bitter northeast coast of Britain.
The stone-grey eyes of the man were no less keen than the bitter air. Nor were they less watchful than the peeping stars already beginning to stud the sky. The rest of his face was lost in the folds of a woollen scarf, which was in turn enveloped in the high collar of his overcoat.
There was the sound of footsteps behind him coming up the steel companion, and in a moment he was joined by a man in oilskins. The latter were carelessly adjusted about the neck, and from beneath them peeped the details of a uniform which was foreign to the coast off which the vessel was lying.
The newcomer joined in the survey of the war-craft's dim outline against the horizon.
"She's not there by chance, Excellency," he said warningly, in the deep guttural of the Teutonic language.
For some moments the other made no reply. His eyes were upon the men at work. The boat was launched, and the engine was being started.
"No," he said at last. Then his eyes came sharply to the other's face. "You have had to take big chances in your time. You've got to take a greater chance now. This is not war."
"No, Excellency. This is peace." The man laughed deep-throatedly.
"That is why the warship does not matter. She will not break the peace, and we are beyond the home-water limit. We are free to do as we please."
"And yet she is watching us. It interests me what she intends. These British naval men are a different race from those ashore. They will do as they think, in spite of – peace."
"Yes." There was a speculative look in the stone-grey eyes.
Finally he gave his whole attention to the men on the deck. He seemed to have put all speculation aside.
"Von Hertzwohl's submersible will soon be along now. We shall see her lights. She will carry lights. She must do so for the shore boat. You have your orders."
"Yes, Excellency. When you have left in this boat the other will be prepared. I shall take a party and board Hertzwohl's vessel, and make myself master of it. Meanwhile, this vessel will lie off with lights out, standing by in case of accidents to pick you up. If all goes well you will return from shore and come aboard Von Hertzwohl's vessel. Instantly she will submerge and lay a course for Heligoland Bight. It is clear, and should be simple."
"It should be simple. Hertzwohl's vessel must go back with us. She has the U-rays lamp on her." The grey eyes were turned questioningly in the direction where the war-vessel had been lying. The darkness had become such that its outline was scarcely visible. Then he went on. "This vessel will follow us to the Bight. Ha!" He thrust out a pointing hand. "The lights. Red. Green. White." He turned again, and his eyes were hard and stern in the light of the conning-tower. "Make no mistakes. Your orders to – the letter."
"Yes, Excellency."
Both men moved off down the gently swaying deck towards the break in the rail where the pinnace, with its complement of four men, was waiting. The man with the stone-grey eyes leapt into the boat. The next moment its crew had cast off, and its head had been swung round shorewards in response to the race of its powerful motor.
Suddenly a great beam of light shot athwart the sky. It lowered slowly, and, a moment later, it fell upon the submarine, on the deck of which a number of men had replaced those which had just left. For a moment the officer in charge of them looked up, and his eyes were caught in the dazzle of the blinding light. Then the light was raised and swept away landwards. It described a great arc and fell upon the shore. A moment later it was withdrawn. Again it settled upon the submarine.
The officer waited for it to pass. A look of deep anxiety began to fill his eyes. He was thinking of his orders, and of the man who had given them. But the light remained focussed full upon his deck, and presently it dawned upon him that the warship was steaming, steaming slowly and almost noiselessly towards him. A feeling of impotence took hold of him. He thought of his torpedo tubes, but the thought passed, thrust aside with an impatient remembrance that it was peace and – not war. His impotence grew. He could only stand there helpless and stupid.