The Chauffeur and the Chaperon Part 57

"This hammer and chisel will gnaw our way out," he answered. "The game isn't up yet. Good-by. I've got to work in Davy Jones's workshop."

Drawing a deep breath, he dropped down under water, which hid him from sight like a roof of thick gray gla.s.s. Then, in a few seconds, we heard a knocking, m.u.f.fled, mysterious, somewhere below that gla.s.s roof.

After a time which seemed long to every one, and an age to me, up came Alb's head, wet, black, and glittering.

"Wish I had a diver's helmet," he said, when he had breathed; and promptly dipped out of sight again.

Once more the knocking came. Alb was working hard and loyally for my interests, and against his own, I couldn't help remembering; but meanwhile we were floating idly, losing precious time, while the pirate gained upon us. Fifteen minutes more of this inaction, and he would be on our backs. I almost wished that he were a true pirate, and that it might be a war of knives and cutla.s.ses, instead of wits and tongues. I could be brave enough then; but as a fraudulent nephew detected with his false aunt, so to speak, in his mouth, what wonder if I felt my heart turn to water?

Twice more Alb came up to breathe, and dived again. The last time all was still underneath the water, and a fear came over me that Alb had knocked his head against something, or got a cramp. But he appeared, spluttering, and announced that he had been cutting the wire through with the chisel. There it was in his hand, a thick, ugly coil, dangerous as an octopus.

"Start the motor, Hendrik," he called, even before he had clambered on deck. "Now, ladies, unless you go below you may get a shower bath, for we're going to have a race with the motor-boat that's coming along--just for the fun of the thing, you know--and I can't trust the wheel to any one while I run down and change."

"We shan't mind a wetting," said Nell, whose eyes were shining with something very like admiration. "We want to see the race."

"I would rather you saw it from the cabin windows," said Brederode; and I guessed at once that he had more than one object in hustling the women of the party below. The L.C.P. guessed also, and headed a reluctant procession.

Now the pursuing Vengeance was not five hundred yards behind, and if we had ever doubted that she was "Wilhelmina," we doubted no longer. I could distinctly see a man's figure in the bow, and would have felt safe in staking any sum that it was Sir Alec's.

Alb, dripping like a fountain-statue, stood at the wheel, and as I had never seen him look more attractive, perhaps it was as well for me that Nell had gone below.

"They'll think me a madman when we come to a lock," said he; "but who cares? I'm bound to get you out of this sc.r.a.pe if I can."

Never was sound more melodious in my ears than the quickening throb of the motor. I felt intimate and at home with it, as with the beating of my own heart. On we went, pounding along at recovered speed, and were well into the channel between North and South Beveland, but there also was "Wilhelmina." Oh, for some small side ca.n.a.l into which we could slip and somehow disappear!

As my eyes searched the waste of green water and the low coasts of Beveland, all unexpectedly to me we rounded a point, and there was a half-hidden town, one graceful spire seeming to beckon where safety lay.

"It's Veere," said Alb. "You're sure to have heard of it: all artists have. But the thing of importance to us now is the ca.n.a.l which begins here, crosses the island of Walcheren and goes to Middelburg and Vlissingen. If only we can get in, and shut 'Wilhelmina' out!"

"Can we?" I gasped.

"Look!" he answered. "What luck!"

I looked, and saw from afar two great sea-gates of a monster lock standing open, while into its jaws poured a train of barges, sailing-boats and small steamers, which had been biding their time outside.

"Joy!" I cried. "We're saved."

"Not yet," said Alb, as we dashed on, full speed ahead, going as we had never gone yet. "We may be too late. Quick, run for'rad, haul down the stars and stripes, and hoist the Club flag instead.

That'll carry more power even than the whole Navy of the United States, and I mean to use it for all it's worth, right or no right."

I darted to the bow and changed the flags, fumbling in my haste; then, when the talisman was floating bravely, I hurried back to Alb, who was imperiously clanging our bell with one hand, and steering with the other.

I stood ready with the long boat-hook, not daring to look back and see what speed "Wilhelmina" might be making. Toon was alert on "Waterspin,"

with a coiled rope in his hand. All the boats were in the lock now, and the sound of our bell, and the colors of the Club flag alone kept the lock-keeper from closing the great gate-jaws. Time was up: we must make a spurt for it if we were not to exhaust his patience. We could see him beckoning eagerly, and with a rush we were at the gates, in the tail of the long procession. It was only as I knew they were slowly, inexorably closing behind us that I could bring myself to look back. There was "Wilhelmina" just coming into sight round the point, Alec MacNairne gesticulating wildly, a figurehead "come alive," and furious.

x.x.xV

"Great Scott, but that was a narrow shave!" I sighed in ecstasy. "He's out of it now."

"He may be out of the lock, but we're not out of the wood," said Alb.

He had slowed down, reversed the engine, and quietly pa.s.sed into a water-lane between some huge barges, looking not a whit disconcerted by the curious gaze of the barge-folk who wondered at his bare feet and soaked overalls.

"Why, what can he do?" I asked. "He'll have to wait an hour before the lock opens again."

"You'll see presently what he can do," said Alb. "At least, you will if he has any sense. It will be time for us to crow by-and-by--if ever."

I burned to ask what he meant by these ominous prognostications; but he began to jabber in Dutch to our staring water-neighbors. Any stranger would have thought him in the pleasantest mood in the world. He had a friendly nod for the brown-faced skipper of a smoking tug, a few words for another, and smiles for every one.

"I'm telling them that I've a wager on, and begging their kind help to win it," he explained to me, as gradually he pushed "Mascotte" and "Waterspin" through, and ahead of, the other craft. "I'm saying nothing about the Club flag; but they can see it, and they all know what it means. But, to save rows, I'm being extra polite, and, you see, it pays.

n.o.body yet has resented our getting ahead, though theirs is the right of precedence."

On we went toward the top of the lock, sneaking, sidling, pushing, here and there thanks to a good-natured, helping hand, here and there thanks to a shout from the lock-keeper to a sulky bargeman. On the lock-keeper the sight of the Club flag had a magic effect, and he evidently intended to make its rights respected, no doubt counting on a five gulden "tip"

at the end.

Ignorant of the perils at which Alb had hinted, the time seemed intolerably long as the water foamed in through the upper sluice-gates, filling the lock inch by inch, and lifting its load of creaking boats and tugs. When we entered the lower gates, we could see only the green and slimy wall of the lock; but by-and-by we found ourselves looking over green fields to a picturesque old town no more than a stone's throw away.

Alb's pleasantries and the might of the Club flag had brought us near to the top of the lock, and I had begun to hope that his dark prophecies were not to be fulfilled, when I jumped at the sound of a shout from sh.o.r.e.

The voice was the voice of Alec MacNairne, and turning my head with a start, I saw his tall figure tearing toward us on the narrow parapet made by the edge of the lock.

"That's what you meant?" I quavered.

"That's what I meant," answered Alb. But his hand was on the starting lever, and the upper gates had begun to swing back.

Alb was looking particularly debonair, and taking pattern by him, I turned away from my aunt's husband, pretending that I had neither seen nor heard him.

"Hi, you there! Starr--Brederode! Scoundrels!" he roared at our backs.

"If he jumps into one of these boats and gets across to us!" I murmured.

"He will if he can, but----"

Before Alb could finish his sentence the first half of my fear was verified. Sir Alec gathered himself for a spring, and leaping across the narrow water-lane between his parapet and the nearest barge, landed with a crash on the gunwale.

At that sound my heart seemed to stop for repairs; for there were two barges in front of us, the biggest in the lock, and we had not been able to pa.s.s them before the doors began to open. Now we could not escape until they had floated out into the ca.n.a.l, and, meanwhile, there might be a little private tragedy in high life on board "Mascotte."

But a Dutchman's lighter is as sacred, Alb has explained to us all, as a Dutchman's house; and when the loud, explosive Scotsman arrived on the gunwale, uninvited and breathing fire, the lighter's owner proceeded also to breathe fire. He swore; his Kees dog yapped; his children cried and his wife vituperated. An understudy took the helm, and before Sir Alec could jump across to another barge, in his pursuit of us, he found himself engaged in an encounter with the skipper of his first choice.

The one could speak no English, the other could speak no Dutch; and in his fury at seeing us slip out through the gates behind the two great barges, he could do nothing but stammer with rage, and try to push past the stout form which strove to detain him for argument.

Naturally, the push made matters worse. Sir Alec does not know Dutchmen, especially lightermen, as well as I have learned to do, or he would have refrained from that extreme--and on the man's own barge. His push was given back with interest, and the last we saw of him, as other boats surged round the scene of the contest, was in a gallant attempt to make a twelve-foot jump, while a stout Dutch skipper and a stout Dutch skipper's stout Dutch wife held on to his coat-tails.

Again I drew a full breath of relief, and I saw by Alb's face that he, too, hoped for the best, for--whatever his private feelings might be--he is too good a sportsman not to feel the spirit of a race.