A Rock in the Baltic by Robert Barr (free romance novels TXT) 📖

the loaf outside, and when he returned. I asked him what had happened. He answered in a surly fashion that my American warship had fired at the rock, and that the rock had struck back, whereupon she sailed away, crippled."

Dorothy, who had been listening intently to this discourse, here interrupted with:

"It was an English war-ship that fired the shell, and the Russian shot did not come within half a mile of her."

The sailor stared at her in wide-eyed surprise.

"You see, I have been making inquiries," she explained. "Please go on."

"I never heard that it was an English ship. The gaoler sneered at me, and said he was going to send me after the American vessel, as I suppose he thought it was. I feared by his taking away of the bread that it was intended to starve me to death, and was sorry I had not eaten more at my last meal. I lay down on the shelf of rock, and soon fell asleep. I was awakened by the water lapping around me. The cell was intensely still. Up to this I had always enjoyed the company of a little brook that ran along the side of the cell farthest from the door. Its music had now ceased, and when I sprang up I found myself to the waist in very cold water. I guessed at once the use of the levers outside the cell in the passage which I had noticed in the light of the lantern on the day I entered the place, and I knew now why it was that the prison door was not pierced by one of those gratings which enable the gaoler in the passage to look into the cell any time of night or day. Prisoners have told me that the uncertainty of an inmate who never knew when he might be spied upon added to the horror of the situation, but the water-tight doors of the Trogzmondoff are free from this feature, and for a very sinister reason.

"The channel in the floor through which the water runs when the cell is empty, and the tunnel at the ceiling through which the water flows when the cell is full, give plenty of ventilation, no matter how tightly the door may he closed. The water rose very gradually until it reached the top outlet, then its level remained stationary. I floated on the top quite easily, with as little exertion as was necessary to keep me in that position. If I raised my head, my brow struck the ceiling. The next cell to mine, lower down, was possibly empty. I heard the water pour into it like a little cataract. The next cell above, and indeed all the cells in that direction were flooded like my own. Of course it was no trouble for me to keep afloat; my only danger was that the intense coldness of the water would numb my body beyond recovery. Still, I had been accustomed to hardships of that kind before now, in the frozen North. At last the gentle roar of the waterfall ceased, and I realized my cell was emptying itself. When I reached my shelf again, I stretched my limbs back and forth as strenuously as I could, and as silently, for I wished no sound to give any hint that I was still alive, if, indeed, sound could penetrate to the passage, which is unlikely. Even before the last of the water had run away from the cell, I lay stretched out at full length on the floor, hoping I might have steadiness enough to remain death-quiet when the men came in with the lantern. I need have had no fear. The door was opened, one of the men picked me up by the heels, and, using my legs as if they were the shafts of a wheelbarrow, dragged me down the passage to the place where the stream emerged from the last cell, and into this torrent he flung me. There was one swift, brief moment of darkness, then I shot, feet first, into space, and dropped down, down, down through the air like a plummet, into the arms of my mother."

"Into what?" cried Dorothy, white and breathless, thinking the recital of these agonies had turned the man's brain.

"The Baltic, Madam, is the Finlander's mother. It feeds him in life, carries him whither he wishes to go, and every true Finlander hopes to die in her arms. The Baltic seemed almost warm after what I had been through, and the taste of the salt on my lips was good. It was a beautiful starlight night in May, and I floated around the rock, for I knew that in a cove on the eastern side, concealed from all view of the sea, lay a Finland fishing-boat, a craft that will weather any storm, and here in the water was a man who knew how to handle it. Prisoners are landed on the eastern side, and such advantage is taken of the natural conformation of this precipitous rock, that a man climbing the steep zigzag stairway which leads to the inhabited portion is hidden from sight of any craft upon the water even four or five hundred yards away. Nothing seen from the outside gives any token of habitation. The fishing-boat, I suppose, is kept for cases of emergency, that the Governor may communicate with the shore if necessary. I feared it might be moored so securely that I could not unfasten it. Security had made them careless, and the boat was tied merely by lines to rings in the rock, the object being to keep her from bruising her sides against the stone, rather than to prevent any one taking her away. I pushed her out into the open, got quietly inside, and floated with the swift tide, not caring to raise a sail until I was well out of gunshot distance. Once clear of the rock I spread canvas, and by daybreak was long out of sight of land. I made for Stockholm, and there being no mark or name on the boat to denote that it belonged to the Russian Government, I had little difficulty in selling it. I told the authorities what was perfectly true: that I was a Finland sailor escaping from the tyrant of my country, and anxious to get to America. As such events are happening practically every week along the Swedish coast I was not interfered with, and got enough money from the sale of the boat to enable me to dress myself well, and take passage to England, and from there first-class to New York on a regular liner.

"Of course I could have shipped as a sailor from Stockholm easy enough, but I was tired of being a common sailor, and expected, if I was respectably clothed, to get a better position than would otherwise be the case. This proved true, for crossing the ocean I became acquainted with Mr. Stockwell, and he engaged me as mate of his yacht. That's how I escaped from the Trogzmondoff, Madam, and I think no one but a Finlander could have done it."

"I quite agree with you," said Dorothy. "You think these two men I have been making inquiry about have been sent to the Trogzmondoff?"

"The Russian may not be there, Madam, but the Englishman is sure to be there."

"Is the cannon on the western side of the rock?"

"I don't know, Madam. I never saw the western side by daylight. I noticed nothing on the eastern side as I was climbing the steps, to show that any cannon was on the Trogzmondoff at all."

"I suppose you had no opportunity of finding out how many men garrison the rock?"

"No, Madam. I don't think the garrison is large. The place is so secure that it doesn't need many men to guard it. Prisoners are never taken out for exercise, and, as I told you, they are fed but once in four days."

"How large a crew can 'The Walrus' carry?"

"Oh, as many as you like, Madam. The yacht is practically an ocean liner."

"Is there any landing stage on the eastern side of the rock?"

"Practically none, Madam. The steamer stood out, and I was landed in the cove I spoke of at the foot of the stairway."

"It wouldn't be possible to bring a steamer like 'The Walrus' alongside the rock, then?"

"It would be possible in calm weather, but very dangerous even then."

"Could you find that rock if you were in command of a ship sailing the Baltic?"

"Oh, yes, Madam."

"If twenty or thirty determined men were landed on the stairway, do you think they could capture the garrison?"

"Yes, if they were landed secretly, but one or two soldiers at the top with repeating rifles might hold the stairway against an army, while their ammunition lasted."

"But if a shell were fired from the steamer, might not the attacking company get inside during the confusion among the defenders?"

"That is possible, Madam, but a private steamer firing shells, or, indeed, landing a hostile company, runs danger of meeting the fate of a pirate."

"You would not care to try it, then?"

"I? Oh, I should be delighted to try it, if you allow me to select the crew. I can easily get aboard the small arms and ammunition necessary, but I am not so sure about the cannon."

"Very good. I need not warn you to be extremely cautious regarding those you take into your confidence. Meanwhile, I wish you to communicate with the official who is authorized to sell the yacht. I am expecting a gentleman to-morrow in whose name the vessel will probably be bought, and I am hoping he will accept the captaincy of it."

"Is he capable of filling that position, Madam? Is he a sailor?"

"He was for many years captain in the United States Navy. I offer you the position of mate, but I will give you captain's pay, and a large bonus in addition if you faithfully carry out my plans, whether they prove successful or not. I wish you to come here at this hour to-morrow, with whoever is authorized to sell or charter the steamer. You may say I am undecided whether to buy or charter. I must consult Captain Kempt on that point."

"Thank you, Madam, I shall be here this time to-morrow."


CHAPTER XIII


ENTRAPPED

PRINCE IVAN LERMONTOFF came to consider the explosion one of the luckiest things that had ever occurred in his workshop. Its happening so soon after he reached St. Petersburg he looked upon as particularly fortunate, because this gave him time to follow the new trend of thought along which his mind had been deflected by such knowledge as the unexpected outcome of his experiment had disclosed to him. The material he had used as a catalytic agent was a new substance which he had read of in a scientific review, and he had purchased a small quantity of it in London. If such a minute portion produced results so tremendous, he began to see that a man with an apparently innocent material in his waistcoat pocket might probably be able to destroy a naval harbor, so long as water and stone were in conjunction. There was also a possibility that a small quantity of ozak, as the stuff was called, mixed with pure water, would form a reducing agent for limestone, and perhaps for other minerals, which would work much quicker than if the liquid was merely impregnated with carbonic acid gas. He endeavored to purchase some ozak from Mr. Kruger, the chemist on the English