CHAPTER XVII
A QUESTION FROM KEATS
Breitmann and the admiral usually worked from ten till luncheon, unless it was too stormy; and then the admiral took the day off. The business under hand was of no great moment; it was rather an outlet for the admiral's energy, and gave him something to look forward to as each day came round. Many a morning he longed for the quarter-deck of his old battle-ship; the trig crew and marines lined up for inspection; the revelries of the foreign ports; the great manoeuvres; the target practice. Never would his old heart swell again under the full-dress uniform nor his eyes sparkle under the plume of his rank. He was retired on half-pay. Only a few close friends knew how his half-pay was invested. There remained perhaps ten of the old war-crew, and among them every Christmas the admiral's half-pay was divided. This and his daughter were the two unalloyed joys of his life.
Since his country had no further use for him, and as it was as necessary as air to his lungs that he tread the deck of a ship, he had purchased the Laura; and, when he was not stirring up the bones of dead pirates, he was at Cowes or at Brest or at Keil or on the Hudson, wherever the big fellows indulged in mimic warfare.
"That will be all this morning, Mr. Breitmann," he said, rising and looking out of the port-hole.
"Very well, sir. I believe that by the time we make Corsica we shall have the book ready for the printers. It is very interesting."
"Much obliged. You have been a good aid. As you know, I am writing this rubbish only because it is play and passable mental exercise."
"I do not agree with you there," returned the secretary, with his pleasant smile. "The book will be really a treasure of itself. It is far more interesting than any romance."
The admiral shook his head dubiously.
"No, no," Breitmann averred. "There is no flattery in what I say. Flattery was not in our agreement. And," with a slight lift of the jaw, "I never say what I do not honestly mean. It will be a good book, and I am proud to have had a hand, however light, in the making."
The admiral chuckled. "That is the kind of flattery no man may shut his ears to. It has been a great pleasure to me; it has kept me out-of-doors, in the open, where I belong. Come in, Laura, come in."
The girl stood framed in the low doorway, a charming picture to the old man and a lovely one to the secretary. She balanced herself with a hand on each side of the jam.
"Father, how can you work when the sun is so beautiful outside? Good morning, Mr. Breitmann," cordially.
"Good morning."
"Work is over, Laura. Come in." The admiral reached forth an arm and caught her, drawing her gently in and finally to his breast.
Breitmann would have given an eye for that right. The picture set his nerves twitching.
"I am not in the way?"
"Not at all," answered the secretary. "I was just leaving." And with good foresight he passed out.
"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever," murmured the admiral.
"Fudge!" and she laughed.
"We are having a fine voyage."
"Splendid! Why is it that I am always happy?"
"It is because you do not depend upon others for it, my dear. I am happy, too. I am as happy as a boy with his first boat. But never has a ship gone slower than this one of mine. I am simply crazy to drop anchor in the Gulf of Ajaccio. I find it on the tip of my tongue, every night at dinner, to tell the others where we are bound."
"Why not? Where's the harm now?"
"I don't know, but something keeps it back. Laura," looking into her eyes, "did we ever cruise with brighter men on board?"
"What is it you wish to know, father?" merrily. "You dear old sailor, don't you understand that these men are different? They are men who accomplish things; they haven't time to bother about young women."
"You don't say!" pinching the ear nearest.
"This is the seventh day out, and not one of them has ceased to be interesting yet."
"Would they cease to be interesting if they proposed?" quizzing.
These two had no unshared secrets. They were sure of each other. He knew that when this child of his divided her affection with another man, that man would be deserving.
"I would rather have them all as they are. They make fine comrades."
He sighed thankfully. "Arthur seems to be out of the race."
"Rather say I am!" with laughter. "Why, a child could read Arthur
Cathewe's face when he looks at her. Isn't she simply beautiful?"
"Very. But there are types and types."
"Am I really pretty?" Sometimes she grew shy under her father's open admiration. She was afraid it was his love rather than his judgment that made her beautiful in his eyes.
"My child, there's more than one man who will agree with me when I say that there is no one to compare with you. You are the living quotation from Keats."
"I shall kiss you for that." And straightway she did.
"What do you think of Mr. Breitmann?" soberly.
"He is charming sometimes; but he has a little too much reserve.
Doubtless he sees his position too keenly. He should not."
"Do you like him?"
"Yes," frankly.
"So do I; and yet there are moments when I do not." The admiral filled his pipe carefully.
"But your reason?" surprised.
"That's just the trouble. I haven't any tangible reason. The doubt exists, and I can't explain it. The sea often looks smooth and mild, and the sky is cloudless; yet an old sailor will suddenly grow suspicious; he will see a storm, a heavy blow. And why, he couldn't say for the life of him. Flanagan will tell you."
The girl grew studious and grave. Had there not been an echo of this doubt in her own mind? Immediately she smiled.
"We are talking nonsense and wasting the sunshine."
"How about Fitzgerald?"
"Oh, he's the most sensible of them all. He proposed to me the first night out."
"What?" The admiral dropped his pipe.
"Not so loud!" she warned. And then the clear music of her laughter penetrated beyond the cabin; and Fitzgerald, wandering about without purpose, heard it and paused.
"You minx!" growled the admiral; "to scare your old father like that!"
"Dearest, weren't you fishing to be scared?"
"Let's get out into the sunshine. I never could get the best of you.
But you really don't mean—"
"I really do not. He's too busy telling me the plot of this novel he is going to write to make love to a girl who doesn't want more than one man in the family, and that's her foolish old father."
And they went outside, arm in arm, laughing together like the good comrades they were. M. Ferraud joined them.
"I wish," said he, "that I was a poet."
"What would you do?" she asked.
"I should write a sonnet to your eyebrows this morning, is it not?"
"Mercy, no! That kind of poetry has long been passé."
"Helas!" mournfully.
It was a beautiful morning, a sharp blue sky and a sea of running silver; warm, too, for they were bearing away into the southern seas now. Every one had sea-legs by this time, and the larder dwindled in a respectable manner.
Fitzgerald viewed his case dispassionately. But what to do? A thousand times he had argued out the question, with a single result, that he was a fool for his pains. He became possessed with sudden inexplicable longings for land. He could not get away from this yacht; on land there would have been a hundred straight lines to the woods and the fisherman's philosophy. Things were going directly to one end, and presently he would have no more power to stem the words. At least one thing was certain, the admiral could not drop him overboard.
"The villain?"
He was moved suddenly out of his dream, for the object of it stood smiling at his side. A wisp of hair was blowing across her eyes and she was endeavoring to adjust it under her cap.
"The villain?" making a fine effort to remarshal his thoughts.
"Yes. We were talking about him last night. Where did you leave him?"
"He was still pursuing, I believe."
"Why don't you make him a real villain, a man who never kills any one, but who makes every one unhappy?"
"But that's a problem-villain; what we must have is a romance-villain, the kind every one is sorry for. Look at that old Portuguese man-o'-war," pointing to the crest of a near-by wave. "Funny little codger!"
"When do you expect to begin the story on paper?"
"When I have all the material," not afraid of her eyes at that moment.
She propped her elbows on the rail. It was a seductive pose, and came very near being the young man's undoing.
"Does it seem impossible to you," she said, "that in these prosaic times we are treasure hunting? Must we not wake up and find it a dream?"
"Most dreams are perishable, but in this case we have the dream tightly bound. But what are we going to do with all this money when we find it?"
"Divide it or start a soldiers' home. I've never thought of it as money."
"Heaven knows, I have!"
"Why?"
"Do you really wish to know?" in a voice new to her ear. "Do you wish to know why I want money, lots and lots of it?"
She dropped her arms and turned. The tone agitated and alarmed her strangely. "Why, yes. With plenty of money you could devote all your time to writing; and I am sure you could write splendid stories."
"That was not my exact thought," he replied, resolutely pulling himself together. "But it will serve." By George! he thought, that was close enough.
She did not ask him what his exact thought was, but she suspected it. There was a little shock of pleasure and disappointment; the one rising from the fact that he had stopped where he did and the other that he had not gone on. And she grew angry over this second expression. She liked him; she had never met a young man whom she liked more. But liking is never loving, and her heart was as free and unburdened as the wind. As once remarked, many of the men with whom she had come into contact had been bred in idleness, and her interest in them had never gone above friendly tolerance. Her admiration was for men, young or old, who cut their way roughly through the world's great obstacles, who achieved things in pioneering, in history, in science; and she admired them because they were rather difficult to draw out, being more familiar with startling journeys, wildernesses, strange peoples, than with the gilded metaphors of the drawing-room.
And here were three of them to meet daily, to study and to ponder over. And types as far apart as the three points of a triangle; the man at her side, young, witty, agreeable; Cathewe, grave, kindly, and sometimes rather saturnine; Breitmann, proud and reserved; and each of them having rung true in some great crisis. If ever she loved a man . . . The thought remained unfinished and she glanced up and met Fitzgerald's eyes. They were sad, with the line of a frown above them. How was she to keep him under hand, and still erect an impassable barrier! It was the first time she had given the matter serious thought. The joy of the sea underfoot, the tang of the rushing air, the journey's end, these had occupied her volatile young mind. But now!
"I am dull," said he gloomily.
"Thank you!"
"I mean that I am stupid, doubly stupid," he corrected.
"Cricket will be a cure for that."
"I doubt it," approaching dangerous ground once more.
"Let's go and talk to Captain Flanagan, then."
"There!" with sudden spirit, "the very thing I've been wanting!"'
It was of no importance that they both knew this to be a prevarication about which St. Peter would not trouble his hoary head nor take the pains to indite in his great book of demerits.
But all through that bright day the girl thought, and there were times when the others had to speak to her twice; not at all a reassuring sign.
CHAPTER XVIII
CATHEWE ADVISES AND THE ADMIRAL DISCLOSES
One day they dropped anchor in the sapphire bay of Funchal, in the summer calm, hot and glaring; Funchal, with its dense tropical growth, its cloud-wreathed mountains, its amethystine sisters in the faded southeast. And for two days, while Captain Flanagan recoaled, they played like children, jolting round in the low bullock-carts, climbing the mountains or bumping down the corduroy road. It was the strangest treasure hunt that ever left a home port. It was more like a page out of a boy's frolic than a sober quest by grown-ups. That danger, menace and death hid in covert would have appealed to them (those who knew) as ridiculous, impossible, obsolete. The story of cutlass and pistol and highboots had been molding in archives these eighty-odd years. Dangers? From whom, from what direction? No one suggested the possibility, even in jest; and the only man who could have advanced, with reasonable assurance, that danger, real and serious, existed, was too busy apparently with his butterfly-net. Still, he had not yet been consulted; he was not supposed to know that this cruise was weighted with something more than pleasure.
Fitzgerald waited with an impatience which often choked him. A secret agent had not so adroitly joined this expedition for the pleasure of seeing a treasure dug up from some reluctant grave. What was he after? If indeed Breitmann was directly concerned, if he knew of the treasure's existence, of what benefit now would be his knowledge? A share in the finding at most. And was Breitmann one who was conditioned of such easy stuff that he would rather be sure and share than to strike out for all the treasure and all the risks? The more he gave his thought to Breitmann the more that gentleman retracted into the fog, as it were. On several occasions he had noticed signs of a preoccupation, of suppressed excitement, of silence and moroseness. Fitzgerald could join certain squares of the puzzle, but this led forward scarce a step. Breitmann had entered the employ of the admiral for the very purpose for which M. Ferraud had journeyed sundrily into the cellar and beaten futilely on the chimney. It resolved to one thing, and that was the secretary had arrived too late. He was sure that Breitmann had no suspicion regarding M. Ferraud. But for a casual glance at the little man's hands, neither would he have had any. He determined to prod M. Ferraud. He was well trained in repression; so, while he often lost patience, there was never any external sign of it. Besides, there was another affair which over-shadowed it and at times engulfed it.
Love. The cross-tides of sense and sentiment made a pretty disturbance. And still further, there was another counter-tide. Love does not necessarily make a young man keen-sighted, but it generally highly develops his talent for suspicion. By subtle gradations, Breitmann had shifted in Fitzgerald's mind from a possible friend to a probable rival. Breitmann did not now court his society when the smoking bouts came round, or when the steward brought the whisky and soda after the ladies had retired. Breitmann was moody, and whatever variance his moods had, they retained the gray tone. This Fitzgerald saw and dilated upon; and it rankled when he thought that this hypothetical adventurer had rights, level and equal to his, always supposing he had any.
In this state of mind he drooped idly over the rail as the yacht drew out of the bay, the evening of the second day. The glories of the southern sunset lingered and vanished, a-begging, without his senses being roused by them; and long after the sea, chameleon-like, changed from rose to lavender, from lavender to gray, the mountains yet jealously clung to their vivid aureolas of phantom gold. Fitzgerald saw nothing but writing on the water.
"Well, my boy," said Cathewe, lounging affectionately against
Fitzgerald, "here we are, rolled over again."
"What?"
Cathewe described a circle with his finger lazily.
"Oh!" said Fitzgerald, listless. "Another day more or less, crowded into the past, doesn't matter."
"Maybe. If we could only have the full days and deposit the others and draw as we need them; but we can't do it. And yet each day means something; there ought always to be a little of it worth remembering."
"Old parson!" cried Fitzgerald, with a jab of his elbow.
"All bally rot, eh? I wish I could look at it that way. Yet, when a man mopes as you are doing, when this sunset. . ."
"New one every day."
"What's the difficulty, Jack?"
"Am I walking around with a sign on my back?" testily.
"Of a kind, yes."
Cathewe spoke so solemnly that Fitzgerald looked round, and saw that which set his ears burning. Immediately he lowered his gaze and sought the water again.
"Have I been making an ass of myself, Arthur?"
"No, Jack; but you are laying yourself open to some wonder. For three or four days now, except for the forty-eight hours on land there, you've been a sort of killjoy. Even the admiral has remarked it."
"Tell him it's my liver," with a laugh not wholly free of embarrassment. "Suppose," he continued, in a low voice; "suppose—" But he couldn't go on.
"Yes, suppose," said Cathewe, taking up the broken thread; "suppose there was a person who had a heap of money, or will have some day; and suppose there's another person who has but little and may have less in days to come. Is that the supposition, Jack? The presumption of an old friend, a right that ought never to be abrogated." Cathewe laid a hand on his young friend's shoulder; there was a silent speech of knowledge and brotherhood in it such as Fitzgerald could not mistake.
"That's the supposition," he admitted generously.
"Well, money counts only when you buy horses and yachts and houses, it never really matters in anything else."
"It is easy to say that."
"It is also easy to learn that it is true."
"Isn't there a good deal of buying these days where there should be giving?"
"Not among real people. You have had enough experience with both types to be competent to distinguish the one from the other. You have birth and brains and industry; you're a decent sort of chap besides," genially. "Can money buy these things when grounded on self-respect as they are in you? Come along now; for the admiral sent me after you. It's the steward's champagne cocktail; and you know how good they are. And remember, if you will put your head into the clouds, don't take your feet off the deck."
Fitzgerald expanded under his tactful interpretation. A long breath of relief issued from his heart, and the rending doubt was dissipated: the vulture-shadow spread its dark pennons and wheeled down the west. A priceless thing is that friend upon whom one may shift the part of a burden. It seemed to be one of Cathewe's occupations in life to absorb, in a kindly, unemotional manner, other people's troubles. It is this type of man, too, who rarely shares his own.
It would be rather graceless to say that after drinking the cocktail Fitzgerald resumed his aforetime rosal lenses. He was naturally at heart an optimist, as are all men of action. And so the admiral, who had begun to look upon him with puzzled commiseration, came to the conclusion that the young man's liver had resumed its normal functions. An old woman would have diagnosed the case as one of heart (as Mrs. Coldfield secretly and readily and happily did); but an old fellow like the admiral generally compromises on the liver.
When one has journeyed for days on the unquiet sea, a touch of land underfoot renews, Antaeus-wise, one's strength and mental activity; so a festive spirit presided at the dinner table. The admiral determined to vault the enforced repression of his secret. Inasmuch as it must be told, the present seemed a propitious moment. He signed for the attendants to leave the salon, and then rapped on the table for silence. He obtained it easily enough.
"My friends," he began, "where do you think this boat is really going?"
"Marseilles," answered Coldfield.
"Where else?" cried M. Ferraud, as if diversion from that course was something of an improbability.
"Corsica. We can leave you at Marseilles, Mr. Ferraud, if you wish; but I advise you to remain with us. It will be something to tell in your old age."
Cathewe glanced across to Fitzgerald, as if to ask: "Do you know anything about this?" Fitzgerald, catching the sense of this mute inquiry, nodded affirmatively.
"Corsica is a beautiful place," said Hildegarde. "I spent a spring in
Ajaccio."
"Well, that is our port," confessed the admiral, laying his precious documents on the table. "The fact is, we are going to dig up a treasure," with a flourish.
Laughter and incredulous exclamations followed this statement.
"Pirates?" cried Coldfield, with a good-natured jeer. He had cruised with the admiral before. "Where's the cutlass and jolly-roger? Yo-ho! and a bottle o' rum!"
"Yes. And where's the other ship following at our heels, as they always do in treasure hunts, the rival pirates who will cut our throats when we have dug up the treasure?"—from Cathewe.
"Treasures!" mumbled M. Ferraud from behind his pineapple. Carefully he avoided Fitzgerald's gaze, but he noted the expression on Breitmann's face. It was not pleasant.
"Just a moment," the admiral requested patiently. "I know it smells fishy. Laura, go ahead and read the documents to the unbelieving giaours. Mr. Fitzgerald knows and so does Mr. Breitmann."
"Tell us about it, Laura. No joking, now," said Coldfield, surrendering his incredulity with some hesitance. "And if the treasure involves no fighting or diplomatic tangle, count me in. Think of it, Jane," turning to his wife; "two old church-goers like you and me, a-going after a pirate's treasure! Doesn't it make you laugh?"
Laura unfolded the story, and when she came to the end, the excitement was hot and Babylonic. Napoleon! What a word! A treasure put together to rescue him from St. Helena! Gold, French gold, English gold, Spanish and Austrian gold, all mildewing in a rotting chest somewhere back of Ajaccio! It was unbelievable, fantastic as one of those cinematograph pictures, running backward.
"But what are you going to do with it when you find it?"
"Findings is keepings," quoted the admiral. "Perhaps divide it, perhaps turn it over to France, providing France agrees to use it for charitable purposes."
"A fine plan, is it not, Mr. Breitmann?" said M. Ferraud.
"Findings is keepings," repeated Breitmann, with a pale smile.
The eyes of Hildegarde von Mitter burned and burned. Could she but read what lay behind that impassive face! And he took it all with a smile! What would he do? what would he do now? kept recurring in her mind. She knew the man, or at least she thought she did; and she was aware that there existed in his soul dark caverns which she had never dared to explore. Yes, what would he do now? How would he put his hand upon this gold? She trembled with apprehension.
And later, when she found the courage to put the question boldly, he answered with a laugh, so low and yet so wild with fury that she drew away from him in dumb terror.
CHAPTER XIX
BREITMANN MAKES HIS FIRST BLUNDER
The secretary nerved himself and waited; and yet he knew what her reply would be, even before she framed it, knew it with that indescribable certainty which prescience occasionally grants in the space of a moment. Before he had spoken there had been hope to stand upon, for she had always been gentle and kindly toward him, not a whit less than she had been to the others.
"Mr. Breitmann, I am sorry. I never dreamed of this;" nor had she. She had forgotten Europeans seldom understand the American girl as she is or believe that the natural buoyancy of spirit is as free from purpose or intent as the play of a child. But in this moment she remembered her little and perfectly inconsequent attentions toward this man, and seeing them from his viewpoint she readily forgave him. Abroad, she was always on guard; but here, among her own compatriots who accepted her as she was, she had excusably forgotten. "I am sorry if you have misunderstood me in any way."
"I could no more help loving you than that those stars should cease to shine to-night," his voice heavy with emotion.
"I am sorry," she could only repeat. Men had spoken to her like this before, and always had the speech been new to her and always had a great and tender pity charged her heart. And perhaps her pity for this one was greater than any she had previously known; he seemed so lonely.
"Sorry, sorry! Does that mean there is no hope?"
"None, Mr. Breitmann, none."
"Is there another?" his throat swelling. But before she could answer: "Pardon me; I did not mean that. I have no right to ask such a question."
"And I should not have answered it to any but my father, Mr. Breitmann." She extended her hand. "Let us forget that you have spoken. I should like you for a friend."
Without a word he took the hand and kissed it. He made no effort to hold it, and it slipped from his clasp easily.
"Goodnight."
"Good night." And he never lost sight of her till she entered the salon-cabin. He saw a star fall out of nothing into nothing. She was sorry! The moment brewed a thousand wild suggestions. To abduct her, to carry her away into the mountains, to cast his dream to the four winds, to take her in spite of herself. He laid his hand on the teak railing, wondering at the sudden wracking pain, a pain which unlinked coherent thought and left his mind stagnant and inert. For the first time he realized that his pain was a recurrence of former ones similar. Why? He did not know. He only remembered that he had had the pain at the back of his head and that it was generally followed by a burning fury, a rage to rend and destroy things. What was the matter?
The damp rail was cool and refreshing, and after a spell the pain diminished. He shook himself free and stood straight, his jaws hard and his eyes, absorbing what light there was from the stars, chatoyant. Sorry! So be it. To have humbled himself before this American girl and to be snubbed for his pains! But, patience! Two million francs and his friends awaiting the word from him. She was sorry! He laughed, and the laughter was not unlike that which a few nights gone had startled the ears of the other woman to whom he had once appealed in passionate tones and not without success.
"Karl!"
The sight of Hildegarde at this moment neither angered nor pleased him.
He permitted her hand to lay upon his arm.
"My head aches," he said, as if replying to the unspoken question in her eyes.
"Karl, why not give it up?" she pleaded.
"Give it up? What! when I have come this far, when I have gone through what I have? Oh, no! Do not think so little of me as that."
"But it is a dream!"
He shook off her hand angrily. "If there is to be any reckoning I shall pay, never fear. But it will not, shall not fail!"
She would have liked to weep for him. "I would gladly give you my eyes, Karl, if you might see it all as I see it. Ruin, ruin! Can you touch this money without violence? Ah, my God, what has blinded you to the real issues?"
"I have not asked you to share the difficulties."
"No. You have not been that kind to me."
To-night there were no places in his armor for any sentiment but his own. "I want nothing but revenge."
"I think I can read," her own bitterness getting the better of her tongue. "Miss Killigrew has declined."
"You have been listening?" with a snarl.
"It has not been necessary to listen; I needed only to watch."
"Well, what is it to you?"
"Take care, Karl! You can not talk to me like that."
"Don't drive me, then. Oh," with a sudden turn of mind, "I am sorry that you can not understand."
"If I hadn't I should never have given you my promise not to speak. There was a time when you had right on your side, but that time ceased to be when you lied to me. How little you understood me! Had you spoken frankly and generously at the start, God knows I shouldn't have refused you. But you set out to walk over my heart to get that miserable slip of paper. Ah! had I but known! I say to you, you will fail utterly and miserably. You are either blind or mad!"
Without a word in reply to this prophecy he turned and left her; and as soon as he had vanished she kissed the spot on the rail where his hand had rested and laid her own there. When at last she raised it, the rail was no longer merely damp, it was wet.
"Now there," began Fitzgerald, taking M. Ferraud firmly by the sleeve, "I have come to the end of my patience. What has Breitmann to do with all this business?"
"Will you permit me to polish my spectacles?" mildly asked M. Ferraud.
"It's the deuce of a job to get you into a corner," Fitzgerald declared. "But I have your promise, and you should recollect that I know things which might interest Mr. Breitmann."
"Croyez-vous qu'il pleuve? Il fait bien du vent," adjusting his spectacles and viewing the clear sky and the serene bosom of the Mediterranean. Then M. Ferraud turned round with: "Ah, Mr. Fitzgerald, this man Breitmann is what you call 'poor devil,' is it not? At dinner to-night I shall tell a story, at once marvelous past belief and pathetic. I shall tell this story against my best convictions because I wish him no harm, because I should like to save him from black ruin. But, attend me; my efforts shall be as wind blowing upon stone; and I shall not save him. An alienist would tell you better than I can. Listen. You have watched him, have you not? To you he seems like any other man? Yes? Keen-witted, gifted, a bit of a musician, a good deal of a scholar? Well, had I found that paper first, there would have been no treasure hunt. I should have torn it into one thousand pieces; I should have saved him in spite of himself and have done my duty also. He is mad, mad as a whirlwind, as a tempest, as a fire, as a sandstorm."
"About what?"
"To-night, to-night!"
And the wiry little man released himself and bustled away to his chair where he became buried in rugs and magazines.
CHAPTER XX
AN OLD SCANDAL
"Corsica to-morrow," said the admiral.
"Napoleon," said Laura.
"Romance," said Cathewe.
"Treasures," said M. Ferraud.
Hildegarde felt uneasy. Breitmann toyed with the bread crumbs. He was inattentive besides.
"Napoleon. There is an old scandal," mused M. Ferraud. "I don't think that any of you have heard it."
"That will interest me," Fitzgerald cried. "Tell it."
M. Ferraud cleared his throat with a sharp ahem and proceeded to burnish his crystals. Specks and motes were ever adhering to them. He held them up to the light and pretended to look through them: he saw nothing but the secretary's abstraction.
"We were talking about treasures the other night," began the Frenchman, "and I came near telling it then. It is a story of Napoleon."
"Never a better moment to tell it," said the admiral, rubbing his hands in pleasurable anticipation.
"I say to you at once that the tale is known to few, and has never had any publicity, and must never have any. Remember that, if you please, Mr. Fitzgerald, and you also, Mr. Breitmann."
"I beg your pardon," said Breitmann. "I was not listening."
M. Ferraud repeated his request clearly.
"I am no longer a newspaper writer," Breitmann affirmed, clearing the fog out of his head. "A story about Napoleon; will it be true?"
"Every word of it." M. Ferraud folded his arms and sat back.
During the pause Hildegarde shivered. Something made her desire madly to thrust a hand out and cover M. Ferraud's mouth.
"We have all read much about Napoleon. I can not recall how many lives range shoulder to shoulder on the booksellers' shelves. There have been letters and memoirs, anecdotes by celebrated men and women who were his contemporaries. But there is one thing upon which we shall all agree, and that is that the emperor was in private life something of a beast. As a soldier he was the peer of all the Caesars; as a husband he was vastly inferior to any of them. This story does not concern him as emperor. If in my narrative there occurs anything offensive, correct me instantly. I speak English fluently, but there are still some idioms I trip on."
"I'll trust you to steer straight enough," said the admiral.
"Thank you. Well, then, once upon a time Napoleon was in Bavaria. The country was at that time his ablest ally. There was a pretty peasant girl."
A knife clattered to the floor. "Pardon!" whispered Hildegarde to
Cathewe. "I am clumsy." She was as white as the linen.
Breitmann went on with his crumbs.
"I believe," continued M. Ferraud, "that it was in the year 1813 that the emperor received a peculiar letter. It begged that a title be conferred upon a pretty little peasant boy. The emperor was a grim humorist, I may say in passing; and for this infant he created a baronetcy, threw in a parcel of land, and a purse. That was the end of it, as far as it related to the emperor. Waterloo came and with it vanished the empire; and it would be a long time before a baron of the empire returned to any degree of popularity. For years the matter was forgotten. The documents in the case, the letters of patent, the deeds and titles to the land, and a single Napoleonic scrawl, these gathered dust in the loft. When I heard this tale the thing which appealed to me most keenly was the thought that over in Bavaria there exists the only real direct strain of Napoleonic blood: a Teuton, one of those who had brought about the downfall of the empire."
"You say exists?" interjected Cathewe.
"Exists," laconically.
"You have proofs?" demanded Fitzgerald.
"The very best in the world. I have not only seen those patents, but I have seen the man."
"Very interesting," agreed Breitmann, brushing the crumbs into his hand and dropping them on his plate. "But, go on."
"What a man!" breathed Fitzgerald, who began to see the drift of things.
"I proceed, then. Two generations passed. I doubt if the third generation of this family has ever heard of the affair. One day the last of his race, in clearing up the salable things in his house—for he had decided to lease it—stumbled on the scant history of his forebears. He was at school then; a promising youngster, brave, cheerful, full of adventure and curiosity. Contrary to the natural sequence of events, he chose the navy, where he did very well. But in some way Germany found out what France already knew. Here was a fine chance for a stroke of politics. France had always watched; without fear, however, but with half-formed wonder. Germany considered the case: why not turn this young fellow loose on France, to worry and to harry her? So, quietly Germany bore on the youth in that cold-blooded, Teutonic way she has, and forced him out of the navy.
"He was poor, and poverty among German officers, in either branch, is a bad thing. Our young friend did not penetrate the cause of this at first; for he had no intention of utilizing his papers, save to dream over them. The blood of his great forebear refused to let him bow under this unjust stroke. He sought a craft, an interesting one. The net again closed in on him. He began to grow desperate, and desperation was what Germany desired. Desperation would make a tool of the young fellow. But our young Napoleon was not without wit. He plotted, but so cleverly and secretly that never a hand could reach out to stay him. Germany finally offered him an immense bribe. He threw it back, for now he hated Germany more than he hated France. You wonder why he hated France? If France had not discarded her empire—I do not refer to the second empire—he would have been a great personage to-day. At least this must be one of his ideas.
"And there you are," abruptly. "Here we have a Napoleon, indeed with all the patience of his great forebear. If Germany had left him alone he would to-day have been a good citizen, who would never have permitted futile dreams to enter his head, and who would have contemplated his greatness with the smile of a philosopher. And who can say where this will end? It is pitiful."
"Pitiful?" repeated Breitmann. "Why that?" calmly.
M. Ferraud repressed the admiration in his eyes. It was a singular duel. "When we see a madman rushing blindly over a precipice it is a human instinct to reach out a hand to save him."
"But how do you know he is rushing blindly?" Breitmann smiled this question.
Hildegarde sent him a terrified glance. But for the stiff back of her chair she must have fallen.
M. Ferraud demolished an olive before he answered the question. "He has allied himself with some of the noblest houses in France; that is to say, with the most heartless spendthrifts in Europe. Napoleon IV? They are laughing behind his back this very minute. They are making a cat's-paw of his really magnificent fight for their own ignoble ends, the Orleanist party. To wreak petty vengeance on France, for which none of them has any love; to embroil the government and the army that they may tell of it in the boudoirs. This is the aim they have in view. What is it to them that they break a strong man's heart? What is it to them if he be given over to perpetual imprisonment? Did a Bourbon ever love France as a country? Has not France always represented to them a purse into which they might thrust their dishonest hands to pay for their base pleasures? Oh, beware of the conspirator whose sole portion in life is that of pleasure! I wish that I could see this young man and tell him all I know. If I could only warn him."
Breitmann brushed his sleeve. "I am really disappointed in your climax, Mr. Ferraud."
"I said nothing about a climax," returned M. Ferraud. "That has yet to be enacted."
"Ah!"
"A descendant of Napoleon, direct! Poor devil!" The admiral was thunderstruck. "Why, the very spirit of Napoleon is dead. Nothing could ever revive it. It would not live even a hundred days."
"Less than that many hours," said M. Ferraud. "He will be arrested the moment he touches a French port."
"Father," cried Laura, with a burst of generosity which not only warmed her heart but her cheeks, "why not find this poor, deluded young man and give him the treasure?"
"What, and ruin him morally as well as politically? No, Laura; with money he might become a menace."
"On the contrary," put in M. Ferraud; "with money he might be made to put away his mad dream. But I'm afraid that my story has made you all gloomy."
"It has made me sad," Laura admitted. "Think of the struggle, the self-denial, and never a soul to tell him he is mad."
The scars faded a little, but Breitmann's eyes never wavered.
"The man hasn't a ghost of a chance." To Fitzgerald it was now no puzzle why Breitmann's resemblance to some one else had haunted him. He was rather bewildered, for he had not expected so large an order upon M. Ferraud's promise. "Fifty years ago. . ."
"Ah! Fifty years ago," interrupted M. Ferraud eagerly, "I should have thrown my little to the cause. Men and times were different then; the world was less sordid and more romantic."
"Well, I shall always hold that we have no right to that treasure."
"Fiddlesticks, Laura! This is no time for sentiment. The questions buzzing in my head are: Does this man know of the treasure's existence? Might he not already have put his hand upon it?"
"Your own papers discredit that supposition," replied Cathewe. "A stunning yarn, and rather hard to believe in these skeptical times. What is it?" he asked softly, noting the dead white on Hildegarde's cheeks.
"Perhaps it is the smoke," she answered with a brave attempt at a smile.
The admiral in his excitement had lighted a heavy cigar and was consuming it with jerky puffs, a bit of thoughtlessness rather pardonable under the stress of the moment. For he was beginning to entertain doubts. It was not impossible for this Napoleonic chap to have a chart, to know of the treasure's existence. He wished he had heard this story before. He would have left the women at home. Corsica was not wholly civilized, and who could tell what might happen there? Yes, the admiral had his doubts.
"I should like to know the end of the story," said Breitmann musingly.
"There is time," replied M. Ferraud; and of them all, only Fitzgerald caught the sinister undercurrent.
"So, Miss Killigrew, you believe that this treasure should be handed over to its legal owner?" Breitmann looked into her eyes for the first time that evening.
"I have some doubt about the legal ownership, but the sentimental and moral ownership is his. A romance should always have a pleasant ending."
"You are thinking of books," was Cathewe's comment. "In life there is more adventure than romance, and there is seldom anything more incomplete in every-day life than romance."
"That would be my own exposition, Mr. Cathewe," said Breitmann.
The two fenced briefly. They understood each other tolerably well; only, Cathewe as yet did not know the manner of the man with whom he was matched.
The dinner came to an end, or, rather, the diners rose, the dinner having this hour or more been cleared from the table; and each went to his or her state-room mastered by various degrees of astonishment. Fitzgerald moved in a kind of waking sleep. Napoleon IV! That there was a bar sinister did not matter. The dazzle radiated from a single point: a dream of empire! M. Ferraud had not jested; Breitmann was mad, obsessed, a monomaniac. It was grotesque; it troubled the senses as a Harlequin's dance troubles the eyes. A great-grandson of Napoleon, and plotting to enter France! And, good Lord! with what? Two million francs and half a dozen spendthrifts. Never had there been a wilder, more hopeless dreamer than this! Whatever antagonism or anger he had harbored against Breitmann evaporated. Poor devil, indeed!
He understood M. Ferraud now. Breitmann was mad; but till he made a decisive stroke no man could stay him. So many things were clear now. He was after the treasure, and he meant to lay his hands upon it, peacefully if he could, violently if no other way opened. That day in the Invalides, the old days in the field, his unaccountable appearance on the Jersey coast; each of these things squared themselves in what had been a puzzle. But, like the admiral, he wished that there were no women on board. There would be a contest of some order, going forward, where only men would be needed. Pirates! He rolled into his bunk with a dry laugh.
Meantime M. Ferraud walked the deck alone, and finally when Breitmann approached him, it was no more than he had been expecting.
"Among other things," began the secretary, with ominous calm, "I should like to see the impression of your thumb."
"That lock was an ingenious contrivance. It was only by the merest accident I discovered it."
"It must be a vile business."
"Serving one's country? I do not agree with you. Wait a moment, Mr. Breitmann; let us not misunderstand each other. I do not know what fear is; but I do know that I am one of the few living who put above all other things in the world, France: France with her wide and beautiful valleys, her splendid mountains, her present peace and prosperity. And my life is nothing if in giving it I may confer a benefit."
"Why did you not tell the whole story? A Frenchman, and to deny oneself a climax like this?"
M. Ferraud remained silent.
"If you had not meddled! Well, you have, and these others must bear the brunt with you, should anything serious happen."
"Without my permission you will not remain in Ajaccio a single hour. But that would not satisfy me. I wish to prove to you your blindness. I will make you a proposition. Tear up those papers, erase the memory from your mind, and I will place in your hands every franc of those two millions."
Breitmann laughed harshly. "You have said that I am mad; very well, I am. But I know what I know, and I shall go on to the end. You are clever. I do not know who you are nor why you are here with your warnings; but this will I say to you: to-morrow we land, and every hour you are there, death shall lurk at your elbow. Do you understand me?"
"Perfectly. So well, that I shall let you go freely."
"A warning for each, then; only mine has death in it."
"And mine, nothing but good-will and peace."
CHAPTER XXI
CAPTAIN FLANAGAN MEETS A DUKE
The isle of Corsica, for all its fame in romance and history, is yet singularly isolated and unknown. It is an island whose people have stood still for a century, indolent, unobserving, thriftless. No smoke, that ensign of progress, hangs over her towns, which are squalid and unpicturesque, save they lie back among the mountains. But the country itself is wildly and magnificently beautiful: great mountains of granite as varied in colors as the palette of a painter, emerald streams that plunge over porphyry and marble, splendid forests of pine and birch and chestnut.
The password was, is, and ever will be, Napoleon. Speak that name and the native's eye will fire and his patois will rattle forth and tingle the ear like a snare-drum. Though he pays his tithe to France, he is Italian; but unlike the Italian of Italy, his predilection is neither for gardening, nor agriculture, nor horticulture. Nature gave him a few chestnuts, and he considers that sufficient. For the most part he subsists upon chestnut-bread, stringy mutton, sinister cheeses, and a horrid sour wine. As a variety he will shoot small birds and in the winter a wild pig or two; his toil extends no further, for his wife is the day-laborer. Viewing him as he is to-day, it does not seem possible that his ancestors came from Genoa la Superba.
Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, but the blood in his veins was Tuscan, and his mind Florentine.
These days the world takes little or no interest in the island, save for its wool, lumber and an inferior cork. Great ships pass it on the north and south, on the east and west, but only cranky packets and dismal freighters drop anchor in her ports.
The Gulf of Ajaccio lies at the southwest of the island and is half-moon in shape, with reaches of white sands, red crags, and brush covered dunes, and immediately back of these, an embracing range of bald mountains.
A little before sunrise the yacht Laura swam into the gulf. The mountains, their bulks in shadowy gray, their undulating crests threaded with yellow fire, cast their images upon the smooth tideless silver-dulled waters. Forward a blur of white and red marked the town.
"Isn't it glorious?" said Laura, rubbing the dew from the teak rail. "And oh! what a time we people waste in not getting up in the mornings with the sun."
"I don't know," replied Fitzgerald. "Scenery and sleep; of the two I prefer the latter. I have always been routed out at dawn and never allowed to turn in till midnight. You can always find scenery, but sleep is a coy thing."
"There's a drop of commercial blood in your veins somewhere, the blood of the unromantic. But this morning?"
"Oh, sleep doesn't count at all this morning. The scenery is everything."
And as he looked into her clear bright eyes he knew that before this quest came to its end he was going to tell this enchanting girl that he loved her "better than all the world"; and moreover, he intended to tell it to her with the daring hope of winning her, money or no money. Had not some poet written—some worldly wise poet who rather had the hang of things—
"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch
To win or lose it all."
Money wasn't everything; she herself had made that statement the first night out. He had been afraid of Breitmann, but somehow that fear was all gone now. Did she care, if ever so little?
He veered his gaze round and wondered where Breitmann was. Could the man be asleep on a morn so vital as this? No, there he was, on the very bowsprit itself. The crew was busy about him, some getting the motor-boat in trim, others yanking away at pulleys, all the preparations of landing. A sharp order rose now and then; a servant passed, carrying Captain Flanagan's breakfast to the pilot-house. To all this subdued turmoil Breitmann seemed apparently oblivious. What mad dream was working in that brain? Did the poor devil believe in himself; or did he have some ulterior purpose, unknown to any but himself? Fitzgerald determined, once they touched land, never to let him go beyond sight. It would not be human for him to surrender any part of the treasure without making some kind of a fight for it, cunning or desperate. If only the women-folk remained on board!
Breitmann gazed toward the town motionless. It was difficult for Fitzgerald not to tell the great secret then and there; but his caution whispered warningly. There was no knowing what effect it would have upon the impulsive girl at his side. And besides, there might have been a grain of selfishness in the repression. All is fair in love or war; and it would not have been politic to make a hero out of Breitmann.
"You haven't said a word for five minutes," she declared. How boyish he looked for a man of his experience!
"Silence is sometimes good for the soul," sententiously.
"Of what were you thinking?"
His heart struck hard against his breast. What an opening, what a moment in which to declare himself! But he said: "Perhaps I was thinking of breakfast. This getting up early always makes me ravenous. The smell of the captain's coffee may have had something to do with it."
"You were thinking of nothing of the sort," she cried. "I know. It was the treasure and this great-grandson of Napoleon. Sometimes I feel I only dreamed these things. Why? Because, whoever started out on a treasure quest without having thrilling adventures, shots in the dark, footsteps outside the room, villains, and all the rest of the paraphernalia? I never read nor heard of such a thing."
"Nor I. But there's land yonder," he said, without an answering smile.
"Then," in an awed whisper, "you believe something is going to happen there?"
"One thing I am certain of, but I can not tell you just at this moment."
A bit of color came to her cheeks. As if, reading his eyes, she did not know this thing he was so certain of! Should she let him tell her? Not a real eddy in the current, unless it was his fear of money. If only she could lose her money, temporarily! If only she had an ogre for a parent, now! But she hadn't. He was so dear and so kind and so proud of her that if she told him she was going to be married that morning, his only questions would have been: At what time? Why, this sort of romance was against all accepted rules. She was inordinately happy.
"There is only one thing lacking; this great-grandson himself. He will be yonder somewhere. For the man in the chimney was he or his agent."
"And aren't you afraid?"
"Of what?" proudly.
"It will not be a comedy. It is in the blood of these Napoleons that nothing shall stand in the path of their desires, neither men's lives nor woman's honor."
"I am not afraid. There is the sun at last What a picture! And the shame of it! I am hungry!"
At half after six the yacht let go her anchor a few hundred yards from the quay. Every one was astir by now; but at the breakfast table there was one vacant chair—Breitmann's. M. Ferraud and Fitzgerald exchanged significant glances. In fact, the Frenchman drank his coffee hurriedly and excused himself. Breitmann was not on deck; neither was he in his state-room. The door was open. M. Ferraud, without any unnecessary qualms of conscience, went in. One glance at the trunk was sufficient. The lock hung down, disclosing the secret hollow. For once the little man's suavity forsook him, and he swore like a sailor, but softly. He rushed again to the deck and sought Captain Flanagan, who was enjoying a pipe forward.
"Captain, where is Mr. Breitmann?"
"Breitmann? Oh, he went ashore in one of the fruit-boats. Missed th' motor."
"Did he take any luggage?"
"Baggage?" corrected Captain Flanagan. "Nothin' but his hat, sir.
Anythin' wrong?"
"Oh, no! We missed him at breakfast." M. Ferraud turned about, painfully conscious that he had been careless.
Fitzgerald hove in sight. "Find him?"
"Ashore!" said M. Ferraud, with a violent gesture.
"Isn't it time to make known who he is?"
"Not yet. It would start too many complications. Besides, I doubt if he has the true measurements."
"There was ample time for him to make a copy."
"Perhaps."
"Mr. Ferraud?"
"Well?"
"I've an idea, and I have had it for some time, that you wouldn't feel horribly disappointed if our friend made away with the money."
M. Ferraud shrugged; then he laughed quietly.
"Well, neither would I," Fitzgerald added.
"My son, you are a man after my own heart. I was furious for the moment to think that he had outwitted me the first move. I did not want him to meet his confederates without my eyes on him. And there you have it. It is not the money, which is morally his; it is his friends, his lying, mocking friends."
"Are we fair to the admiral? He has set his heart on this thing."
"And shall we spoil his pleasure? Let him find it out later."
"Do you know Corsica?"
"As the palm of my hand."
"But the women?"
"They will never be in the danger zone. No blood will be spilled, unless it be mine. He has no love for me, and I am his only friend, save one."
"Suppose this persecution of Germany's was only a blind?"
"My admiration for you grows, Mr. Fitzgerald. But I have dug too deeply into that end of it not to be certain that Germany has tossed this bombshell into France without holding a string to it. Did you know that Breitmann had once been hit by a spent bullet? Here," pointing to the side of his head. "He is always conscious of what he does but not of the force that makes him do it. Do you understand me? He is living in a dream, and I must wake him."
The adventurers were now ready to disembark. They took nothing but rugs and hand-bags, for there would be no preening of fine feathers on hotel verandas. With the exception of Hildegarde all were eager and excited. Her breast was heavy with forebodings. Who and what was this man Ferraud? One thing she knew; he was a menace to the man she loved, aye, with every throb of her heart and every thought of her mind.
The admiral was like a boy starting out upon his first fishing-excursion. To him there existed nothing else in the world beyond a chest of money hidden somewhere in the pine forest of Aïtone. He talked and laughed, pinched Laura's ears, shook Fitzgerald's shoulder, prodded Coldfield, and fussed because the motor wasn't sixty-horse power.
"Father," Laura asked suddenly, "where is Mr. Breitmann?"
"Oh, I told him last night to go ashore early, if he would, and arrange for rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Ajaccio. He knows all about the place."
M. Ferraud turned an empty face toward Fitzgerald, who laughed. The great-grandson of Napoleon, applying for hotel accommodations, as a gentleman's gentleman, and within a few blocks of the house in which the self-same historic forebear was born! It had its comic side.
"Are there any brigands?" inquired Mrs. Coldfield. She was beginning to doubt this expedition.
"Brigands? Plenty," said the admiral, "but they are all hotel proprietors these times, those that aren't conveniently buried. From here we go to Carghese, where we spend the night, then on to Evisa, and another night. The next morning we shall be on the ground. Isn't that the itinerary, Fitzgerald?"
"Yes."
"And be sure to take an empty carriage to carry canned food and bottled water," supplemented Cathewe. "The native food is frightful. The first time I took the journey I was ignorant. Happily it was in the autumn, when the chestnuts were ripe. Otherwise I should have starved."
"And you spent a winter or spring here, Hildegarde?" said Mrs.
Coldfield.
"It was lovely then." There was a dream in Hildegarde's eyes.
The hotel omnibus was out of service, and they rode up in carriages. The season was over, and under ordinary circumstances the hotel would have been closed. A certain royal family had not yet left, and this fact made the arrangements possible. It was now very warm. Dust lay everywhere, on the huge palms, on the withered plants, on the chairs and railings, and swam palpable in the air. Breitmann was nowhere to be found, but he had seen the manager of the hotel and secured rooms facing the bay. Later, perhaps two hours after the arrival, he appeared. In this short time he had completed his plans. As he viewed them he could see no flaw.
Now it came about that Captain Flanagan, who had not left the ship once during the journey, found his one foot aching for a touch and feel of the land. So he and Holleran, the chief-engineer, came ashore a little before noon and decided to have a bite of maccaroni under the shade of the palms in the Place des Palmiers. A bottle of warm beer was divided between them. The captain said Faugh! as he drank it.
"Try th' native wine, Capt'n," suggested the chief-engineer.
"I have a picture of Cap'n Flanagan drinkin' the misnamed vinegar. No Dago's bare fut on the top o' mine, when I'm takin' a glass. An' that's th' way they make ut. This Napoleyun wus a fine man. He pushed 'em round some."
"Sure, he had Irish blood in 'im, somewheres," Holleran assented. "But I say," suddenly stretching his lean neck, "will ye look t' see who's comin' along!"
Flanagan stared. "If ut ain't that son-of-a-gun ov a Picard, I'll eat my hat!" The captain grew purple. "An' leavin' th' ship without orders!"
"An' the togs!" murmured Holleran.
"Watch me!" said Flanagan, rising and squaring his peg.
Picard, arrayed in clean white flannels, white shoes, a panama set rakishly on his handsome head, his fingers twirling a cane, came head-on into the storm. The very jauntiness of his stride was as a red rag to the captain. So then, a hand, heavy and charged with righteous anger, descended upon Picard's shoulder.
"Right about face an' back to th' ship, fast as yer legs c'n make ut!"
Picard calmly shook off the hand, and, adding a vigorous push which sent the captain staggering among the little iron-tables, proceeded nonchalantly. Holleran leaped to his feet, but there was a glitter in Picard's eye that did not promise well for any rough-and-tumble fight. Picard's muscular shoulders moved off toward the vanishing point. Holleran turned to the captain, and with the assistance of a waiter, the two righted the old man.
"Do you speak English?" roared the old sailor.
"Yes, sir," respectfully.
"Who wus that?"
The waiter, in reverent tones, declared that the gentleman referred to was well known in Ajaccio, that he had spent the previous winter there, and that he was no less a person than the Duke of—But the waiter never completed the sentence. The title was enough for the irascible Flanagan.
"Th'—hell—he—is!" The captain subsided into the nearest chair, bereft of future speech, which is a deal of emphasis to put on the phrase. Picard, a duke, and only that morning his hands had been yellow with the stains of the donkey-engine oil! And by and by the question set alive his benumbed brain; what was a duke doing on the yacht Laura? "Holleran, we go t' the commodore. The devil's t' pay. What's a dook doin' on th' ship, and we expectin' to dig up gold in yonder mountains? Look alive, man; they's villany afoot!"
Holleran's jaw sagged.