The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood Part 34

One hasty glance around satisfied her that McKay's fall had been un.o.bserved. If she gave the alarm at once he might still be saved.

"Not yet!" she hissed between her teeth. "In five minutes it will be too late to help him. The waters have closed over him--let him go down, to the very bottom of the sea."

But she was wise in her fiendish wickedness, and knew that as they had been seen last together she must account for McKay's disappearance. At the end of an interval long enough to make rescue impossible she startled the whole yacht with her screams.

"Help! Help! Mr. McKay! He has fallen overboard!"

They came rushing aft to where she stood once more holding on to the top of the companion, and plied her with questions.

"There! there! make haste!" she cried--"for Heaven's sake make haste!"

"A boat could hardly live in this sea," said Captain Trejago, gravely.

"Still, we must make the attempt. Who will go with me?" he asked, and volunteers soon sprang to his side.

It was a service of immense danger, but the boat was lowered, and for more than half-an-hour made such diligent search as was possible in the weather and in the sea.

After that time the boat was brought back to the yacht by its brave but disappointed crew.

"No chance for the poor chap," said Captain Trejago, shaking his head despondingly in reply to Mrs. Wilders's mute but eager appeal.

Soon afterwards they got up the anchor, and the yacht sped southward under a few rags of sail.

CHAPTER XIX.

UNCLE AND NEPHEW.

It will be well to relieve at once the anxiety which the reader must feel--unless I have altogether failed to interest him--in the fate of my hero, Stanislas McKay.

He was not drowned when, through the fiendish intervention of Mrs.

Wilders, he fell from the deck of the _Arcadia_, and was, as it seemed, swallowed up in the all-devouring sea.

He went under, it is true, but only for a moment, and, coming once more to the surface, by a few strong strokes swam to a drifting spar.

To this he clung desperately, hoping against hope that he might yet be picked up from the yacht. Unhappily for him, the waves ran so high that the boat under Trejago's guidance failed to catch sight of him, and, as we know, returned presently to the _Arcadia_, after a fruitless errand, as was thought.

Very shortly the yacht and the half-submerged man parted company. The former was steered for the open sea; the latter drifted and tossed helplessly to and fro, growing hourly weaker and more and more benumbed, but always hanging on with convulsive tenacity to the friendly timber that buoyed him up, and was his last frail chance of life.

All night long he was in the water, and when day dawned it seemed all over with him, so overpowering was his despair. Consciousness had quite abandoned him, and he was almost at the last gasp when he was seen and picked up by a pa.s.sing steamship, the _Burlington Castle_.

"Where am I?" he asked, faintly, on coming to himself. He was in a snug cot, in a small but cosy cabin.

"Where you'd never have been but for the smartness of our look-out man," said a steward at his bedside. "Cast away, I suppose, in the gale?"

"No: washed overboard," replied McKay, "last evening."

"Thunder! and in the water all those hours! But what was your craft?

Who and what are you?"

"I was on board the yacht _Arcadia_. My name is Stanislas McKay. I am an officer of the Royal Picts--aide-de-camp to General Wilders. Where am I?" he repeated.

"You'll learn that fast enough; with friends, anyhow. Doctor said you weren't to talk. But just drink this, while I tell the captain you've come to. He hasn't had sight of you yet; we hauled you aboard while it was his watch below."

Five minutes more and the captain, a jolly English tar, red in face and round in figure, came down, with a loud voice and cheering manner, to welcome his treasure-trove.

"Well, my hearty, so this is how I find you, eh? Soused in brine. Why, I hear they had to hang you up by the heels to let the water run out of your mouth. Come, Stanny, my boy, this won't do."

"Uncle Barto!"

"The same: master of the steamship _Burlington Castle_, deep in deals--timbers for huts--and other sundries, now lying in Balaclava, waiting to be discharged. But, my dearest lad, you've had a narrow squeak. Tell me, how did it happen, and when?"

"I fell overboard, and I've been all night in the water: that's all."

He did not choose as yet to make public his suspicions as to the real origin of his nearly fatal accident.

"I always said you had nine lives, Stanny, only don't go using them up like this. There's not a tom-cat could stand it."

"Were you out in the gale, uncle?"

"Ay; and weathered it. At dawn, after the first puff, I knew we'd have a twister, so I got up steam and regularly worked against it. Made a good offing that way, and when the storm abated came back here. We were close in when we picked you up on a log."

"It was a providential escape," said Stanislas, thankfully. "I thought it was all over with me."

"We'll set you up in no time, never fear. But tell more about yourself. Jove! you are a fine chap, Stanny. Why, you'll die a general yet, if the Russians 'll let you off a little longer, and you're not wanted for the House of Peers."

"What do you mean, uncle?"

"Why, of course, you haven't heard. There's trouble among your fine relations. Lord Essendine has lost all his sons."

"All?"

"Yes; all. Hugo was killed, as you know; Anastasius died at Scutari; and Lord Lydstone, two days later, was found dead in the streets of Stamboul."

"Dead? How? What did he die of, uncle?"

"A stab in the heart. He was murdered."

"And I--"

He understood now the cause of the foul blow struck at him, and the base attempt to get him also out of the way.

"You are now next heir to the peerage, in spite of all they may say.

But you'll find my lord civil enough soon. He'll be wanting you to go straight home."

"And leave the army? Not while there's fighting to be done, Uncle Barto. I may not be much good as I am, but I'll do all I can, trust me. I ought to be getting on sh.o.r.e and back to the front."

"My doctor will have a word to say to that. He won't let you be moved till you're well and strong."