The Stowaway Girl Part 3

Not having heard a word of Hozier's free speech to the gentlemen of various nationalities at the bottom of the hold, she wondered why he was blushing.

"Shall I show you the way?" asked Philip, finding his tongue.

"No, thank you. I have been on board the _Andromeda_ many times. Ah, Peter, I see you. What is it to-day, scouse or lobscouse?"

"Scouse, miss," said the ship's cook, grinning widely at her recollection of the line drawn by both his patrons and himself between ship's biscuit stewed with fresh meat and the same article flavored with salt junk.

Peter's recognition placed Iris's ident.i.ty beyond doubt. She said nothing more to Hozier, but tripped up the companionway. Soon he saw her paying the man who had carried the portmanteau. She herself seemed to be in no hurry. She walked to the rails beneath the bridge, and found interest in watching the loading operations, which were resumed as soon as the second officer saw that his services were not wanted.

Time was pressing, and a good deal yet remained to be done.

Mr. Watts, the chief officer, who was called ash.o.r.e by urgent business five minutes after the "old man" left the vessel, chose this awkward moment to appear from behind a bonded warehouse. He was walking with unnatural steadiness, so Hozier made some excuse to meet him and whisper that the owner's niece was on board.

"Sun's zhot," remarked Mr. Watts cheerfully.

"Go and lie down for a spell," suggested Hozier, and Mr. Watts thought it was a "shpiffin' idee." When Hozier was free to glance a second time at the cross rail, Iris had vanished. He was annoyed. Evidently she did not wish to encounter any more of the ship's officers that morning.

The hatches were on, and everything was orderly before c.o.ke's squat figure climbed the gangway. Hozier reported the young lady's visit, and the skipper was obviously surprised. As he hoisted himself up the steep ladder to the hurricane deck, the younger man heard him condemning someone under his breath as "a leery old beggar." The phrase was hardly applicable to Iris, but c.o.ke came out of his cabin with an open letter in his hand, and bade a steward stow the portmeanteau in some other more hallowed and less inconvenient place.

And there the incident ended. The _Andromeda_ hauled down the Blue Peter for her long run of over 6,000 miles to Monte Video, and Hozier had routine work in plenty to occupy his mind during the first twenty-four hours at sea without perplexing it with memories of a pretty face. Soon after Holyhead was pa.s.sed, it is true, a sailor reported to the second officer that he had seen a ghost between decks, in the region of the lazarette. It was then near midnight, a quiet hour on board ship, and Hozier told the man sharply to go to his bunk and endeavor to sleep off the effects of the bad beer imbibed earlier in the day.

Now, on this second night of the voyage, while the ship was plodding steadily southward with that fifteen point inclination to the west that would bring her far into the Atlantic soon after daybreak, Philip remembered Mr. Verity's niece, and felt sorry that when she paid those former visits to the _Andromeda_, fate had decreed that he should be serving his time on another vessel. For there was an expression in her eyes that haunted him. Though she addressed him with that absence of restraint which is a heaven-sent attribute of every young woman when circ.u.mstances compel her to speak to a strange young man--though her tone to the more favored cook was kindly, and even sprightly--though Philip himself was red and inclined to stammer--despite all these hindrances to clear judgment, he felt that she was troubled in spirit.

His acquaintance with women was of the slightest, since a youth who is taught his business on the _Conway_, and means to attach himself to one of the great Trans-Atlantic shipping lines, has no time to spare for dalliance in boudoirs. But it gave him a thrill when he heard that this charming girl knew his name, and it seemed to him, for an instant, that she was looking into his very soul, a.n.a.lyzing him, searching for some sign that he was not as others, which meant that there were some whom she had bitter cause to distrust. Of course, that was mere day-dreaming, a nebulous fantasy brought by her gracious presence into a medley of hurrying windla.s.ses, strenuous orders, and sulky, panting men.

At any rate, she had left a memento of her too brief appearance on board in the shape of the bag. He would contrive to take on his own shoulders its mission in Monte Video; then, on returning to Liverpool, he would have an excuse for calling on her. He did not know her name yet. Possibly, Captain c.o.ke would mention that interesting fact when his temper lost its raw edge. As a last resource, the cook might enlighten him.

It was strange that he should be thinking of Iris--far stranger than he could guess--but his thoughts were sub-conscious, and he was in no wise neglecting the safety of the ship. The night was clear but dark, the stars blinked with the subdued radiance that betokens fine weather, and ever and anon their reflection glimmered from the long slope of a wave like the glint of spangles on a dress. But it was a garment of far-flung amplitude, woven on the shadowy loom of night and the sea, and from such mysterious warp and weft is often produced the sable robe of tragedy and death. It was so now, within an ace. At one instance, the restless plain of the ocean seemed to bear no other argosy than the _Andromeda_; in the next, Hozier's quick-moving glance had caught the pallid sheen of some small craft's starboard light. No need to tell him what might happen. A sailing vessel, probably a fishing smack, was crossing the steamer's course. He sprang to the telegraph, and signaled "Slow" to the engine-room. Simultaneously he shouted to the steersman to starboard the helm, and the siren trumpeted a single raucous blast into the silence. With the rattle of the chains and steering-rods in the gear-boxes came a yell from the lookout forward:

"Light on the port bow!"

Hozier repeated the hail, but promised the blear-eyed sentinels in the bows of the ship a lively five minutes when the watch was relieved.

Slowly the _Andromeda_ swung to the west. Even more slowly, or so it appeared to the anxious man on the bridge, a red eye peeped into being alongside the green one. A blacker smear showed up on the black sea, and a hoa.r.s.e voice, presumably situated beneath the smear, expressed a desire for information.

"Arr ye all aslape on board that crimson collier?" it asked in a Waterford brogue.

"Got the hooker's wheel tied, I suppose?" retorted Hozier, for the now visible schooner had not attempted to change her course by half a point. She was now bowling along with every st.i.tch set before a five-knot breeze from the east; the tilt of her sails was such that she practically presented only the outline of her spars when first sighted from the steamer; and her side lights probably had tallow candles in them.

"Bedad, it's aisier in moind we'd be if you were tied to it," shouted the voice, and Hozier felt, like many another Saxon, that an Irishman's last word is often the best one.

The engines resumed their cadence, and the _Andromeda_ crept round again to South 15 West. She was back on her proper line when a heavy step sounded on the iron rungs of the bridge ladder.

"Wot's up?" demanded c.o.ke, who was fully dressed, though Hozier thought he had retired two hours earlier. "Oh, the beer is frothin' up to their eyes, is it?" went on the skipper, after listening to a brief summary of events. "I thought, mebbe, the wheel had jammed. But those lazy swabs want talkin' to. I'll just give 'em a bit of me mind," and he went forward.

Hozier heard him reading the Riot Act to the sh.e.l.l-backs who were supposed to keep a sharp lookout ahead. But the captain did not monopolize the conversation. His deep notes rumbled only at intervals.

The men had something to say. He returned to the bridge.

"One of them scallywags sez 'e 'as seen a ghost," he announced, with the calm air of a man who states that the moon will rise during the next hour.

"I wish he could see less remarkable things, such as schooners, sir,"

said Hozier.

"But 'e swears 'e sawr it twiced."

"Oh, is he the man who reported a ghost outside the lazarette last night?"

"I s'pose so. Did 'e tell you about it? That's where she walks."

"She!"

"That's his yarn--a female ghost, a black 'un, black clo'es anyhow.

He's a dashed fool, but he's no boozer, though his mate's tongue is a bit thick yet. I'll take the forenoon watch, an' you might overhaul the ship for stowaways after breakfast. Never heard of one on this journey--I've routed out as many as twenty at a time w'en I was runnin'

between Wellington an' Sydney--but you never can tell, so 'ave a squint round."

"Yes, sir," said Hozier, and that is how it fell to his lot to discover Iris Yorke, looking very white and miserable, when the hatch of the lazarette was broken open at half-past eight o'clock on Thursday morning!

A tramp steamer is not a complex organism. She is made up of holds, bunkers, boilers and engines, with scanty accommodation for officers and crew grouped round the funnel or stuck in the bows. When the boats were stripped of their tarpaulins, and a few lockers and store-rooms examined, the only available hiding-places were the shaft tunnel, the holds, and the lazarette, a small s.p.a.ce between decks, situated directly above the propeller, where a reserve supply of provisions is generally carried.

But the door of the lazarette was locked, and the key missing, though it ought to be hanging with others, all duly labeled, on a hook in the steward's cabin. A duplicate set of keys in the captain's possession was far from complete. As the steward was certain he had fastened the lazarette himself early on Tuesday morning, there was nothing for it but to force the lock.

Even that would not have been necessary had the carpenter slackened his efforts after the first a.s.sault. Iris cried loudly enough that she would open the door, but the noise of the shaft and the flapping of the screw drowned her voice, and she was compelled to stand clear when the stout planking began to yield.

It was dark in there, and Hozier was undeniably startled by the spectacle of a slim figure, wrapped in a long ulster, standing among the cases and packages. "Now, out you come!" he cried, with a gruffness that was intended only to cover his own amazement; but Iris, despite the horrors of sea-sickness and confinement in the dark, was not minded to suffer what she considered to be impertinence on the part of a second officer.

"I am Miss Yorke," she said, coming forward into the half light of the lower deck. "Any explanation of my presence here will be given to the captain, and to no other person."

That innocent word "person" is capable of many meanings. Hozier felt that its application to himself was distinctly unfavorable. And Iris was quite dignified and self-possessed. She had given a few deft touches to her hair. Her hat was set at the right angle. Her dark gray coat and brown boots looked neat and serviceable.

"Of course I did not know to whom I was speaking," he managed to say, for he now recognized the "ghost," and was more surprised than he had ever been in his life before.

"That is matterless," said Iris frigidly. "Where is Captain c.o.ke?"

"On the bridge," said Philip.

"I will go to him. Please don't come with me. I tried to tell you that I would unlock the door, but you refused to listen. Will you let me pa.s.s?"

He obeyed in silence.

"Well, s'help me!" muttered a sailor, "talk about suffrigettes! Wot price _'er_?"

Iris hurried to the deck. The light seemed to dazzle her, and her steps were so uncertain that Hozier sprang forward and caught her arm.

"Won't you sit down a moment, Miss Yorke?" he said. "If you searched the whole ship, you could not have chosen a worse place to travel in than the lazarette."

"I was driven out twice at night by the rats," she gasped, though she strove desperately to regain control of her trembling limbs.

"Too bad!" he whispered. "But it was your own fault. Why did you do it? At any rate, wait here a few minutes before you meet the captain."

"I am not afraid of meeting him. Why should I be? He knows me."

"I meant only that you are hardly able to walk, but I seem to say the wrong thing every time. There is nothing really to worry about. We are not far from Queenstown. We can put you ash.o.r.e there by losing half a day."