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

struck the rock on the other side, Captain. I think your remark is unkind, especially as I've just been praising the watermanship of your men."

"Now, are you boys tired of this summer resort?" asked Captain Kempt. "Is your baggage checked, and are you ready to go? Most seaside places are deserted this time of year."

"We'll be ready in a moment, captain," cried his future son-in-law. "I must run up and get the Governor. We've put a number of men in prison here, and they'll starve if not released. The Governor's a good old chap, though he played it low down on me a few days ago," and with that Jack disappeared up the stairway once more.

"Had a gaol-delivery here?" asked the Captain.

"Well, something by way of that. The Prince drilled a hole in the rock, and we got out. We've put the garrison in pawn, so to speak, but I've been mighty anxious these last few days because the sail-boat they had here, and two of the garrison, escaped to the mainland with the news. We were anxiously watching your yacht, fearing it was Russian. Jack thought it was the Czar's yacht. How came you by such a craft, Captain? Splendid-looking boat that."

"Oh, yes, I bought her a few days before I left New York. One likes to travel comfortably, you know. Very well fitted up she is."

Jack shouted from the doorway:

"Drummond, come up here and fling overboard these loaded rifles. We can't take any more chances. I'm going to lock up the ammunition room and take the key with me as a souvenir."

"Excuse me, Captain," said Drummond, who followed his friend, and presently bundles of rifles came clattering down the side of the precipice, plunging into the sea. The two then descended the steps, Jack in front, Drummond following with the Governor between them.

"Now, Governor," said Jack, "for the second time I am to bid you farewell. Here are the keys. If you accept them you must give me your word of honor that the boat will not be fired upon. If you do not promise that, I'll drop the bunch into the sea, and on your gray head be the consequences."

"I give you my word of honor that you shall not be fired upon."

"Very well, Governor. Here are the keys, and good-by."

In the flurry of excitement over the yacht's appearance, both Jack and Drummond had temporarily forgotten the existence of the tramp steamer the former had seen beating toward the rock.

Now Lamont suddenly recalled it.

"By the way, Governor," he said, "the relief boat you so thoughtfully sent for is on her way here. She should reach the rock at almost any minute now. In fact, I fancy we've little time to waste if we want to avoid a brush. It would be a pity to be nabbed now at the eleventh hour. Good-by, once more."

But the Governor had stepped between him and the boat.

"I-- I am an old man," he said, speaking with manifest embarrassment. "I was sent to take charge of this prison as punishment for refusing to join a Jew massacre plot. Governorship here means no more nor less than a life imprisonment. My wife and children are on a little estate of mine in Sweden. It is twelve years since I have seen them. I--"

"If this story is a ruse to detain us--"

"No! No!" protested the Governor, and there was no mistaking his pathetic, eager sincerity. "But-- but I shall be shot-- or locked in one of the cells and the water turned on-- for letting you escape. Won't you take me with you? I will work my passage. Take me as far as Stockholm. I shall be free there-- free to join my wife and to live forever out of reach of the Grand Dukes. Take me--"

"Jump in!" ordered Jack, coming to a sudden resolution. "Heaven knows I would not condemn my worst enemy to a perpetual life on this rock. And you've been pretty decent to us, according to your lights. Jump aboard, we've no time to waste."

Nor did the Governor waste time in obeying. The others followed, and the boat shoved off. But scarcely had the oars caught the water when around the promontory came a large man-o'-war's launch, a rapid-fire gun mounted on her bows. She was manned by about twenty men in Russian police uniform.

"From the 'tramp,'" commented Alan excitedly. "And her gun is trained on us."

"Get down to work!" shouted Jack to the straining oarsmen.

"No use!" groaned Kempt. "She'll cross within a hundred yards of us. There's no missing at such close range and on such a quiet sea. What a fool I was to--"

The launch was, indeed, bearing down on them despite the rowers' best efforts, and must unquestionably cut them off before they could reach the yacht.

Alan drew his revolver.

"We've no earthly show against her," he remarked quietly, "and it seems hard to 'go down in sight of port.' But let's do what we can."

"Put up that pop-gun," ordered Kempt. "She will sink us long before you're in range for revolver work. I'll run up my handkerchief for a white flag."

"To surrender?"

"What else can we do?"

"And be lugged back to the rock, all of us? Not I, for one!"

The launch was now within hailing distance, and every man aboard her was glaring at the helpless little yacht-gig.

"Wait!"

It was the Governor who spoke. Rising from his seat in the stern, he hailed the officer who was sighting the rapid-fire gun.

"Lieutenant Tschersky!" he called.

At sight of the old man's lean, uniformed figure, rising from among the rest, there was visible excitement and surprise aboard the launch. The officer saluted and ordered the engine stopped that he might hear more plainly.

"Lieutenant," repeated the Governor, "I am summoned aboard His Highness the Grand Duke Vladimir's yacht. You will proceed to the harbor and await my return to the rock. There has been a mutiny among the garrison, but I have quelled it."

The officer saluted again, gave an order, and the launch's nose pointed for the rock.

"Governor," observed Lamont, as the old man sank again into his seat, "you've earned your passage to Stockholm. You need not work for it."


CHAPTER XXI


THE ELOPEMENT

THE girls on the yacht had no expectation that Captain Kempt would come back with the two young men. But when, through their powerful binoculars, the girls became aware that Drummond and the Prince were in the small boat, they both fled to the chief saloon, and sat there holding one another's hands. Even the exuberant Kate for once had nothing to say. She heard the voice of her father on deck, giving command to the mate.

"Make for Stockholm, Johnson. Take my men-o'-war's men-- see that no one else touches the ammunition-- and fling the shells overboard. Heave the gun after them, and then clear out the rifles and ammunition the same way. When we reach Stockholm to-morrow morning, there must not be a gun on board this ship, and the ridiculous rumor that got abroad among your men that we were going to attack something or other, you will see is entirely unfounded. You impress that on them, Johnson."

"Oh, Dorothy," whispered Katherine, drawing a deep breath. "If you are as frightened as I am, get behind me."

"I think I will," answered Dorothy, and each squeezed the other's hand.

"I tell you what it is, Captain," sounded the confident voice of the Prince. "This vessel is a beauty. You have done yourself fine. I had no idea you were such a sybarite. Why, I've been aboard the Czar's yacht, and I tell you it's nothing-- Great heavens! Katherine!" he shouted, in a voice that made the ceiling ring.

She was now standing up and advanced toward him with both hands held out, a welcoming smile on her pretty lips, but he swooped down on her, flung his arms round her like a cabman beating warmth into his hands, kissed her on the brow, the two cheeks and the lips, swaying her back and forward as if about to fling her upstairs.

"Stop, stop," she cried. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Before my father, too! You great Russian bear!" and, breathless, she put her open palm against his face, and shoved his head away from her.

"Don't bother about me, Kate," said her father. "That's nothing to the way we acted when I was young. Come on, boys, to the smoking-room, and I'll mix you something good: real Kentucky, twenty-seven years in barrel, and I've got all the other materials for a Manhattan."

"Jack, I am glad to see you," panted Katherine, all in disarray, which she endeavored to set right by an agitated touch here and there. "Now, Jack, I'm going to take you to the smoking-room, but you'll have to behave yourself as you walk along the deck. I won't be made a spectacle of before the crew."

"Come along, Drummond," said the Captain, "and bring Miss Dorothy with you."

But Drummond stood in front of Dorothy Amhurst, and held out his hand.

"You haven't forgotten me, Miss Amhurst, I hope?"

"Oh, no," she replied, with a very faint smile, taking his hand.

"It seems incredible that you are here," he began. "What a lucky man I am. Captain Kempt takes his yacht to rescue his son-in-law that is to be, and incidentally rescues me as well, and then to find you here! I suppose you came because your friend Miss Kempt was aboard?"

"Yes, we are all but inseparable."

"I wrote you a letter, Miss Amhurst, the last night I was in St. Petersburg in the summer."

"Yes, I received it."

"No, not this one. It was the night I was captured, and I never got a chance to post it. It was an important letter-- for me."

"I thought it important-- for me," replied Dorothy, now smiling quite openly. "The Nihilists got it, searching your room after you had been arrested. It was sent on to New York, and given to me."

"Is that possible? How did they know it was for you?"

"I had been making inquiries through the Nihilists."

"I wrote you a proposal of marriage, Dorothy."

"It certainly read like it, but you see it wasn't signed, and you can't be held to it."

He reached across the table, and grasped her two hands.

"Dorothy, Dorothy," he cried, "do you mean you would have cabled 'Yes'?"

"No."

"You would not?"

"Of course not. I should have cabled 'Undecided.' One gets more for one's money in sending a long word. Then I should have written--" she paused, and he cried eagerly:

"What?"

"What do you think?" she asked.

"Well, do you know, Dorothy, I am beginning to think my incredible luck will hold, and that you'd have written 'Yes.'"

"I don't know about the luck: that would have been the answer."

He sprang up, bent over her, and she, quite unaffectedly raised her face to his.

"Oh, Dorothy," he cried.

"Oh, Alan," she replied, with quivering voice, "I never thought to see you again. You cannot imagine the long agony of this voyage, and not knowing what had happened."

"It's a blessing, Dorothy, you had learned nothing about the Trogzmondoff."

"Ah, but I did: that's what frightened me. We have a man