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

had been that banishment was intended, and he had expected to be landed at some Swedish or German port, but a chance remark made by the Captain at breakfast inclined him to believe that there were other prisoners on board not quite so favorably treated as himself. But why should he be sent out of Russia proper, or even removed from St. Petersburg, which, he was well aware, suffered from no lack of gaols. The continued voyage of the steamer through an open sea again aroused the hope that Stockholm was the objective point. If they landed him there it merely meant a little temporary inconvenience, and, once ashore, he hoped to concoct a telegram so apparently innocent that it would win through to his friend, and give Drummond at least the knowledge of his abiding-place. The thought of Drummond aroused all his old fear that the Englishman was to be the real victim, and this enforced voyage was merely a convenient method of getting himself out of the way.

After lunch a dismal drizzle set in that presently increased to a steady downpour, which drove Lermontoff to his cabin, and that room being unprovided with either window or electric light, the Prince struck a match to one of the candles newly placed on the washstand. He pushed the electric button summoning the steward, and, giving him some money, asked if there was such a thing as a piece of stone on board, carried as ballast, or for any other reason. The steward said he would inquire, and finally returned with a sharpening stone used for the knives in the galley. Bolting his door, Lermontoff began an experiment, and at once forgot he was a prisoner. He filled the wash-basin with water, and opening one of the glass-stoppered bottles, took out with the point of his knife a most minute portion of the substance within, which he dissolved in the water with no apparent effect. Standing the whetstone up on end, he filled the glass syringe, and directed a fine, vaporous spray against the stone. It dissolved before his eyes as a sand castle on the shore dissolves at the touch of an incoming tide.

"By St. Peter of Russia!" he cried, "I've got it at last! I must write to Katherine about this."

Summoning the steward again to take away this fluid, and bring him another pailful of fresh water, Lermontoff endeavored to extract some information from the deferential young man.

"Have you ever been in Stockholm?"

"No, Excellency."

"Or in any of the German ports?"

"No, Excellency."

"Do you know where we are making for now?"

"No, Excellency."

"Nor when we shall reach our destination?"

"No, Excellency."

"You have some prisoners aboard?"

"Three drunken sailors, Excellency."

"Yes, that's what the Captain said. But if it meant death for a sailor to be drunk, the commerce of the world would speedily stop."

"This is a government steamer, Excellency, and if a sailor here disobeys orders he is guilty of mutiny. On a merchant vessel they would merely put him in irons."

"I see. Now do you want to earn a few gold pieces?"

"Excellency has been very generous to me already," was the non-committal reply of the steward, whose eyes nevertheless twinkled at the mention of gold.

"Well, here's enough to make a jingle in your pocket, and here are two letters which you are to try to get delivered when you return to St. Petersburg."

"Yes, Excellency."

"You will do your best?"

"Yes, Excellency."

"Well, if you succeed, I'll make your fortune when I'm released."

"Thank you, Excellency."

That night at dinner the Captain opened a bottle of vodka, and conversed genially on many topics, without touching upon the particular subject of liberty. He partook sparingly of the stimulant, and, to Lermontoff's disappointment, it did not in the least loosen his tongue, and thus, still ignorant of his fate, the Prince turned in for the second night aboard the steamer.

When he awoke next morning he found the engines had stopped, and, as the vessel was motionless, surmised it had reached harbor. He heard the intermittent chuck-chuck of a pony engine, and the screech of an imperfectly-oiled crane, and guessed that cargo was being put ashore.

"Now," he said to himself, "if my former sentinel is at the door they are going to take me to prison. If he is absent, I am to be set free."

He jumped up, threw back the bolt, opened the door. There was no one there. In a very few minutes he was on deck, and found that the steamer was lying in the lee of a huge rock, which reminded him of Mont St. Michel in Normandy, except that it was about half again as high, and three times as long, and that there were no buildings of any kind upon it, nor, indeed, the least sign of human habitation.

The morning was fine; in the east the sun had just risen, and was flooding the grim rock with a rosy light. Except this rock, no trace of land was visible as far as the eye could see. Alongside the steamer was moored a sailing-boat with two masts, but provided also with thole-pins, and sweeps for rowing. The sails were furled, and she had evidently been brought to the steamer's side by means of the oars. Into this craft the crane was lowering boxes, bags, and what-not, which three or four men were stowing away. The mate was superintending this transshipment, and the Captain, standing with his back against the deck-house, was handing one by one certain papers, which Lermontoff took to be bills of lading, to a young man who signed in a book for each he received. When this transaction was completed, the young man saluted the Captain, and descended over the ship's side to the sail-boat.

"Good morning, Captain. At anchor, I see," said Lermontoff.

"No, not at anchor. Merely lying here. The sea is too deep, and affords no anchorage at this point."

"Where are all these goods going?"

The Captain nodded his head at the rock, and Lermontoff gazed at it again, running his eyes from top to bottom without seeing any vestige of civilization.

"Then you lie to the lee of this rock, and the small boat takes the supplies ashore?"

"Exactly," said the Captain.

"The settlement, I take it, is on the other side. What is it-- a lighthouse?"

"There's no lighthouse," said the Captain.

"Sort of coastguard, then?"

"Yes, in a way. They keep a lookout. And now, Highness, I see your overcoat is on your back. Have you left anything in your room?"

The Prince laughed.

"No, Captain, I forgot to bring a portmanteau with me."

"Then I must say farewell to you here."

"What, you are not going to maroon me on this pebble in the ocean?"

"You will be well taken care of, Highness."

"What place is this?"

"It is called the Trogzmondoff, Highness, and the water surrounding you is the Baltic."

"Is it Russian territory?"

"Very, very Russian," returned the Captain drawing a deep breath. "This way, if your Highness pleases. There is a rope ladder, which is sometimes a little unsteady for a landsman, so be careful."

"Oh, I'm accustomed to rope ladders. Hyvasti, Captain."

"Hyvasti, your Highness."

And with this mutual good-by in Finnish, the Prince went down the swaying ladder.


CHAPTER XV


"A HOME ON THE ROLLING DEEP"

FOR once the humorous expression had vanished from Captain Kempt's face, and that good-natured man sat in the dainty drawing-room of the flat a picture of perplexity. Dorothy had told him the story of the Nihilist, saying she intended to purchase the yacht, and outlining what she proposed to do with it when it was her own. Now she sat silent opposite the genial Captain, while Katherine stood by the window, and talked enough for two, sometimes waxing indignant, and occasionally giving, in terse language, an opinion of her father, as is the blessed privilege of every girl born in the land of the free, while the father took the censure with the unprotesting mildness of his nature.

"My dear girls, you really must listen to reason. What you propose to do is so absurd that it doesn't even admit of argument. Why, it's a filibustering expedition, that's what it is. You girls are as crazy as Walker of Nicaragua. Do you imagine that a retired Captain of the United States Navy is going to take command of a pirate craft of far less legal standing than the 'Alabama,' for then we were at war, but now we are at peace. Do you actually propose to attack the domain of a friendly country! Oh!" cried the Captain, with a mighty explosion of breath, for at this point his supply of language entirely gave out.

"No one would know anything about it," persisted Katherine.

"Not know about it? With a crew of men picked up here in New York, and coming back to New York? Not know about it? Bless my soul, the papers would be full of it before your men were an hour on shore. In the first place, you'd never find the rock."

"Then what's the harm of going in search of it?" demanded his daughter. "Besides that, Johnson knows exactly where it is."

"Johnson, Johnson! You're surely not silly enough to believe Johnson's cock-and-bull story?"

"I believe every syllable he uttered. The man's face showed that he was speaking the truth."

"But, my dear Kate, you didn't see him at all, as I understand the yarn. He was here alone with you, was he not, Dorothy?"

Dorothy smiled sadly.

"I told Kate all about it, and gave my own impression of the man's appearance."

"You are too sensible a girl to place any credit in what he said, surely?"

"I did believe him, nevertheless," replied Dorothy.

"Why, look you here. False in one thing, false in all. I'll just take a single point. He speaks of a spring sending water through the cells up there in the rock. Now, that is an impossibility. Wherever a spring exists, it comes from a source higher than itself."

"There are lots of springs up in the mountains," interrupted Katherine. "I know one on Mount Washington that is ten times as high as the rock in the Baltic."

"Quite so, Katherine, quite so, but nevertheless there is a lake, subterraneous or above ground, which feeds your White Mountain spring, and such a lake must be situated higher than the spring is. Why, girl, you ought to study hydrometeorology as well as chemistry. Here is a rock jutting up in midocean--"

"It's in the Baltic, near the Russian coast," snapped Kate, "and I've no doubt there are mountains in Finland that contain the lake which feeds the spring."

"How far is that rock from the Finnish coast, then?"

"Two miles and a half," said Kate, quick as an arrow speeding from a bow.

"Captain, we don't know how far it is from the coast," amended Dorothy.

"I'll never believe the thing exists at all."

"Why, yes it does, father. How can you speak like that? Don't you know Lieutenant Drummond fired at it?"

"How do you know it was the same rock?"

"Because the rock fired back at him. There can't be two like that in the Baltic."

"No, nor one either," said the Captain, nearing the end of his patience.

"Captain Kempt," said Dorothy very soothingly, as if she