The Ghost Breaker Part 9

More jolts, more rolls and bangs, and at last, with muscles wrenched, a swollen forehead and nerves aquiver, there was rest.

"I'm in her cabin at last--and now for a graceful exit!" he told himself, with an enforced jocularity. But this was no easy task. He spent a full half-hour, working and prying with the shears against the lock which imprisoned him with indomitable force from the outside of the iron-and-leathern prison.

Upon the outer deck of the great turbiner, the Princess nervously fought her way through the great throng of voyagers and their friends.

Nita was close by her side. It seemed impossible to capture a steward who was not busy with the bearing of bouquets and wine baskets. In other circ.u.mstances this young personage would have been furious at the lack of respect which she had been educated to expect from the throngs of her own country.

But to-day her only anxiety was to find her elusive quarters for the strange cruise, to learn whether or not her new knight-errant were alive or dead from the rigors of his escape.

At last, with the aid of an extravagant _largesse_, she was conducted to her staterooms.

As she entered the parlor of her luxurious suite, the first sight which caught her eye was the trunk, inverted! The printed sign of direction, "This End up with Care," were upside down!

She gasped, and looked nervously about to note the expression upon the face of Nita. That young woman was busy studying the handsome features of the ingratiating bedroom-steward. So engrossed was she that she stumbled over the elevated sill of the door from the promenade deck.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, miss!" apologized the steward. "Did you hurt yourself? These doors are always troublesome until you get used to them. But they are necessary to keep out the water in rough weather."

The Princess was thinking only of the opportunity to open the fateful trunk.

"You don't antic.i.p.ate a bad pa.s.sage, steward?"

"Rather uncertain, ma'am, at this time of the year," and he busied himself adjusting the hand luggage and arranging the chairs. "But your location is good. You'll find the _Mauretania_ as steady as a parish church. Here is the clothes press, ma'am, and the other rooms are off there. It's quite the finest suite on the boat, ma'am."

The steward looked about ingratiatingly, then he turned toward the door.

"If you want anything, ma'am--there is the telephone.... I'll place your trunk, if you please, ma'am!"

He started to drag the trunk to the side of the cabin, but the Princess intervened.

"That's all right; you may place it later. But you _might_ fix it right side up!"

The steward turned it, as the girl breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'm so sorry, ma'am. I hope the contents are not upset."

"I hope not."

"Anything else, ma'am?"

"No, not now, steward? How soon do we sail?"

"Very soon," and as he spoke there came the stentorian warning: "All ash.o.r.e that's going ash.o.r.e!" The call was repeated four times, and the voice died away in the distance of the long promenade deck.

With a bow, and a significant glance at the attractive maid, the steward finally dragged himself out of the attractive cabin. The Princess sank nervously into a chair.

"That is all, now, Nita. I have the key to the trunk. I will call you when I need you."

"Yes, your Highness. But, will your Highness excuse me if I am mistaken in thinking that I recognized his Excellency the Duke, your exalted cousin, among the pa.s.sengers as we came up the gangplank...?"

Her Highness was distinctly startled, but she showed no trace of her emotion to the servant.

"My cousin--it is impossible. He is at Madrid, where his Majesty the King is holding Court."

"Yes, your Highness," and she went, but her inflection showed that she knew herself to be in the right. Nita was too good a servant to argue with her betters.

"Carlos here? How could he be, I wonder?" and the Princess fumbled with her keys, until she found the right one. She opened the trunk with a trembling hand, and began to raise the cover, a quiver in her voice.

"Are you all right ... Mr. Jarvis?"

It was the voice of a nervous, frightened girl--not of a royal personage--this time.

Just then she heard a knock on the cabin door. There was no time for a response. "Quiet! Be careful!" she cautioned, _sotto voce_.

As she hurried to the door, she pulled her taut nerves together. There on the threshold was her kinsman: Nita had been right as usual, in her sharp way.

Carlos, Duke of Alva, with smiling lips and sinister eyes, greeted her with the suave courtesy which is so characteristic of his race and cla.s.s. He typified the worst of the Spanish folk, even as the young girl did the best. To a keen student of physiognomy the mental att.i.tude of the Duke of Alva would have been an open book. To Maria Theresa, loyal to family and countrymen, he was the symbol of her own strata in Spain--yet, beneath her gracious forgiveness of and enforced indifference to many things, there lurked a latent mistrust, which she had never yet defined in practical, applicable terms.

With white teeth, crisp-curling black hair, and eyes of sparkling coal-shade, the Duke of Alva bowed with that polished grace which had broken many a heart and carried him over many a stretch of thin ice, in the courtly adventuring on the Continent.

"Carlos!" exclaimed the Princess.

"Fair cousin--if I but knew you were as pleased, as you are surprised, at seeing me!" With the words he advanced and kissed her cold finger-tips with Old-World punctiliousness.

"What are you doing on the _Mauretania_? Why did you leave Spain, Carlos?"

As he shut the door he smiled, and now her intuition warned her of the cunning which lurked behind those pleasantly curving lips.

"First tell me that you are glad to see me! I have come many leagues to hear those words, Maria!"

"Why.... Why,... of course, I am always glad to see you, cousin."

He simulated a pathetic irony. "You say you are always glad to see me--and yet, I fear it is not _always_ since my unfortunate quarrel with your brother. Alas, and that has hardened your heart against me."

The Duke was a suitor of the romantic school: each phrase was studied, each att.i.tude as obviously planned as a military campaign. It was a method which had invariably succeeded, until his efforts with the Princess of Aragon. Yet, he was too satisfied with bygone results to abandon the time-tried artistries of former victories.

The Princess dropped her eyes before the undeniable questioning of his burning glances. As she looked away, he a.s.sured himself that he had scored.

"My brother ... what do you know of him, Carlos? When did you see him last? Have you been in Seguro?"

Two long whistles, and the vibration of the great steamship evidenced the beginning of the long voyage. The answer to the questions was still more pathetic in cadence.

"Ah, how I dread telling you!... I was there a few days before leaving for America. I learned, unfortunately, that despite my very friendly advice, he had been prowling about that ridiculous old castle again, in search of the mythical treasure your grandfather is supposed to have secreted there."

He laughed, and the girl instinctively shuddered with a newborn distrust. There was no mirth in the sound.

"You heard nothing more? Was he well and safe when you left the town?"

"He was as well and safe as I would consider any man who was prowling about that castle in a foolhardy way."

She wished to get rid of him: that ominous trunk might contain a dead man, for all she knew.