The Harbor of Doubt Part 28

Before he could move, Code's hard, strong hands closed upon his arms in a grip that brought a bellow of pain. In deadly fear of his life, he babbled protests, apologies, and pleadings in an incoherent medley that would have satisfied the most toughened skeptic. Code released him, laughing.

"Well, I guess you're real, all right," he said. "Now if you're in earnest about all this, draw that bath _quick_. Then I'll believe you."

Half an hour later Code, bathed, shaved, and feeling like a different man, was luxuriating in fresh linen and a comfortable suit.

"Look here, Martin," he said to the valet, "of course I know that this is no more the gunboat _Albatross_ than I am. The Canadian government isn't in the habit of treating prisoners in exactly this manner. What boat is this?"

Martin coughed a little before answering. In all his experience he had never before been asked to dress the skipper of a fishing vessel.

"I was told to say, sir, in case you asked, that you are aboard the mystery schooner, sir."

"What! The mystery schooner that led the steamer that chase?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, by the great trawl hook! And I didn't know it!"

"No, sir. Remember we came up behind the _Nettie B._, and when you were transferred you were made to sit facing away from this ship so you would not recognize her."

"Then all the guns were fakes, and the whole business of a man-of-war as well?" cried Code, astonished almost out of his wits by this latest development in his fortunes.

"Yes, sir. The appearances were false, but as for seamanship, sir, this vessel could not do what she does were it not for the strict training aboard her, sir. I'll wager our lads can out-maneuver and outsail any schooner of her tonnage on the seas, Gloucestermen included. The navy is easy compared to our discipline."

"But what holds the men to it if it's so hard?"

"Double wages and loyalty to the captain."

"Captain Foraker?"

"Yes, sir. There, sir, that tie is beautiful. Now the waistcoat and coat. If you will permit me, sir, you look, as I might say, 'andsome, begging your pardon."

Code flushed and looked into the gla.s.s that hung against the wall of his cabin. He barely recognized the clean-shaven, clear-eyed, broad shouldered youth he saw there as the rough, salty skipper of the schooner _Charming La.s.s_. He wondered with a chuckle what Pete Ellinwood would say if he could see him.

"And now, sir, if you're ready, just come with me, sir. Dinner is at seven, and it is now a quarter to the hour."

Stunned by the wonders already experienced, and vaguely hoping that the dream would last forever, Code followed the bewhiskered valet down a narrow pa.s.sage carpeted with a stuff so thick that it permitted no sound.

Martin pa.s.sed several doors--the pa.s.sage was lighted by small electrics--and finally paused before one on the right-hand side. Here he knocked, and apparently receiving an answer, peered into the room for a moment. Withdrawing his head, he swung the door open and turned to Schofield.

"Go right in, sir," he said, and Code, eager for new wonders, stepped past him.

The room was a small sitting-room, lighted softly by inverted bowl-shaped globes of gla.s.s so colored as to bring out the full value of the pink velours and satin brocades with which the room was hung and the furniture covered.

For a moment he stared without seeing anything, and then a slight rustling in a far corner diverted his attention. He looked sharply and saw a woman rise from a lounge and come toward him with outstretched hands.

She was Elsa Mallaby!

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SIREN

He saw the glad smile on her lips, the light in her great, l.u.s.trous, dark eyes, and the beauty of her faultless body, and yet they all faded to nothing beside the astounding and inexplicable fact that she was in the mystery schooner.

"You here!" he gasped, taking her hands in his big rough ones and gripping them tight. The impulse to draw her to him in an embrace was almost irresistible, for not only was she lovely in the extreme, but she was from Freekirk Head and home, and his soul had been starved with loneliness and the ceaseless repet.i.tion of his own thoughts.

"Yes," she replied in her gentle voice, "I am here. You are surprised?"

"That hardly expresses it," he returned. "So many things have happened to-day that I expect anything now."

"Come, let us go in," she said, and led him through a doorway that connected with an adjoining room. In the center of it was a small table laid with linen and furnished with glittering silver and gla.s.s.

"Are you hungry?" she asked.

"You know fishermen well enough not to ask that," he laughed, and they sat down. Elsa did not make any tax upon his conversational powers. It was Code himself who first put a pertinent question.

"I take for granted your being here and your living like this," he said; "but I am bursting with curiosity. How do you happen to be in this schooner?"

"It is my schooner; why shouldn't I be in it?" she smiled.

"Yours?" He was mystified. "But why should you have a vessel like this? You never used one before that I know of."

"True, Code; but I have always loved the sea, and--it amuses me. You remember that sometimes I have been away from Freekirk Head for a month at a time. I have been cruising in this schooner. Once I went nearly as far as Iceland; but that took longer. A woman in my position must do something. I _can't_ sit up in that great big house alone all the time."

The intensity with which she said this put a decidedly new face on the matter. It was just like her to be lonely without Jim, he thought.

Naturally a woman with all her money must do something.

"But, Elsa," he protested, "your having the schooner for your own use is all right enough; but why has it always turned up to help me when I needed help most? Really, if I had all the money in the world I could never repay the obligations that you have put me under this summer."

"I don't want you to repay me," she said quietly. "Just the fact that I have helped you and that you appreciate it is enough to make me happy."

He looked steadily into her brown eyes for a few moments. Then her gaze dropped and a dull flush mounted from her neck until it suffused her face.

He had never seen her look so beautiful. The wealth of her black hair was coiled about the top of her head like a crown, and held in its depths a silver b.u.t.terfly.

Her gown was Quaker gray in color, and of some soft clinging material that enhanced the lines of her figure. It was an evening gown, and cut just low enough to be at the same time modest and beautiful. Code, without knowing why, admired her taste and told himself that she erred in no particular. Her mode of life was, at the same time, elegant and feminine--exactly suited her.

"You are easily made happy," he remarked, referring to her last sentence.

"No, I'm not," she contradicted him seriously. "I am the hardest woman in the world to make happy."

"And helping me does it?"

"Yes."

"You are a good woman," he said gratefully, "and always seem to be doing for others. No one will ever forget how you offered to stand by the women of Grande Mignon while the men went fishing."