The World Masters Part 18

"Yes; and a Frenchwoman with a lot to win is playing a game for pretty big dollars. Of course, there may be nothing in it at all, and I may be quite wrong, but I think this punch of hers has come along at the wrong time, and we can't take any risks. There's one thing, she'll have to drink some of it herself, and that old aunt of hers too.

Still, she's pretty useless, and doesn't matter; but if anything does really happen, poppa, you'd better go straight and shake the viscount up. I'll have the steward make some pretty strong coffee to-night for me, and I'll keep it hot and you can give it him; and if the doctor isn't dead, too, with the stuff, get a drop of prussic acid from him.

That'll bring him round."

"It strikes me, Chrysie," said her father, looking down admiringly on her flushed and animated face, "as though you're getting ready to run this ship in case of trouble."

"It's just that, poppa," she said, with an impatient little tap of her foot on the deck; "that is, of course, with you. I don't say it's altogether disinterested, because it isn't; but I'd do that and a lot more to keep to windward of that Frenchwoman, and she knows it. You can work your gun and I can work a Maxim, so if there's only the two of us, we can do something with that Russian ship. And now I guess we'd better go to the other end and show how friendly we can be with our enemies."

"Chrysie," said her father, with a very tender note in a voice which could be as hard as the ring of steel, "I don't want you to be a bit different to what you are, but if you'd been a man you'd have been a great one."

"I'd sooner be a good woman and get what I want than be the biggest man on earth," laughed Chrysie. "When a woman gets all she wants she doesn't want to envy big men anything."

And with that they went aft and subsided into deck-chairs in a sort of irregular circle, in which Lord Orrel was fast asleep, Madame de Bourbon rapidly subsiding, and the marquise and Lady Olive making a pretence of reading with drooping eyelids.

The punch _a le Grand Monarque_ was a great success that evening after dinner. It was delicious; and every one regretted that the president's attack of gastritis and Miss Chrysie's headache prevented them from sharing in its delights.

The marquise brewed a little pot of her aunt's special Russian tea for them, which the president declined with many apologies, and which Miss Chrysie, after accepting a cup from the hands of Felice, emptied out of the port-hole as soon as her ladyship's lady had left the cabin.

Captain Burgess and the chief had taken the president's hint almost as though they expected it, and the Scotsman had said significantly:

"I'm obliged to you, Mr Vandel, though I hope there's nothing in your suspicions; still, this is no time for us to be drinking foreign mixed drinks when I've got to keep my eyes open, looking, as you may say, out of both sides of my head. A drop of good old Scotch whisky is as good nourishment as a man can need. What I'm thinking about is the men. We can't forbid them to take it without either insulting his lordship or telling him all the suspicions, which, you say, can't be told him."

"No," added the captain; "but I'll see they have a pretty good shaking up at four o'clock, and the cook shall have plenty of strong coffee ready in case of accidents."

But for all that, the accident happened, almost, if not quite as well as the originator of it could have hoped. By eleven o'clock everyone who had drunk even a single gla.s.s of the marquise's punch, including herself and Madame de Bourbon, were dead asleep. Even the captain and the chief engineer, who had taken somewhat drastic measures to counteract the possible effects, did not wake until daybreak, and even then, strong as they were, they were both mentally and physically incapable for the time being of attending to the work of the ship. The sailors and engine-room hands, who had indulged rather more freely, were all sleeping like logs when the watch was called at four in the morning, and nothing could wake them until Mr Vernon, the chief officer, who never under any circ.u.mstances drank anything stronger than coffee, and who therefore escaped the general paralysis, with the help of the president and the two quartermasters, who had been forbidden to touch anything in the way of liquor during the night, brought them up on deck and turned the hose on them. This revived the majority of them sufficiently to enable them to drink a copious allowance of strong coffee, after which they were very ill, and then much better.

The captain and the chief engineer were then carried to bathrooms and treated in somewhat the same fashion, after which they were taken back to their rooms and given a good stiff brandy-and-soda.

"Ay, man!" said the chief engineer, as he began to get back his grip on things, "whatever was in that stuff it was deadly. No more of your foreign drinks for me. After that, good Scotch whisky is going to be good enough for me. It's a mercy she didn't poison the whole ship's crew. Captain, if there's any of the men anything like fit for duty you might give them a good strong tot, and let's get to work on that shaft. There's just the bearings and the thrust-blocks to adjust and oil, and then we'll be ready for full speed ahead in three hours."

"I'm afraid that would be a bit too late, sir," said Miss Chrysie, who had been sweeping the eastern horizon with her gla.s.ses. "Look yonder,"

she went on; "there's a steamer down yonder steaming for all she's worth, and I reckon she's a lot more likely to be the _Vlodoya_ than an east-bound liner."

The chief took the gla.s.ses she offered him, and had a long look at the cloud of smoke that was rising from the ship.

"I'm afraid you're right, miss," he said, handing the gla.s.ses back.

"That's no liner; she's not half big enough; she's a yacht. Still, her stern chase is a long one, even if we are like a seal with one flipper, and we may be ready for her even yet."

"I think we shall be able to dodge him, Miss Vandel," said the captain, who had just come out of his room, still looking pale and somewhat dazed. "Put every possible hand on to the shaft, M'Niven.

Steam's up, and we can start the moment you're ready."

"And," added the president, "I'll see to the guns. If that's the _Vlodoya_ they're not going to overtake us before we are ready."

CHAPTER XXII

While the captain and the chief engineer were mustering such men as were in any way fit to work the ship, or to help in getting the port engine into running order, Chrysie and her father paid a visit to the staterooms. Hardress and Lord Orrel were both sleeping as deeply as ever and breathing heavily. The president tried to rouse them, without avail. Their pulses were beating regularly, and, apart from their heavy breathing, there was nothing to show that they were not in a healthy sleep; but they were absolutely insensible to any outside influence; and Chrysie found Lady Olive, Adelaide, and Madame de Bourbon in exactly the same condition. Ma'm'selle Felice was in great distress about her two mistresses, but Chrysie cut her lamentations very short by saying:

"You look after your ladies, Felice, and don't worry about anything else; your place is down here, and don't you come on deck, whatever happens. There's a boat coming up that may be the same one you telegraphed to at Cherbourg from Southampton. If it is, you see this?"

she went on, taking her revolver out of her pocket. "Yes, that'll do; I don't want any theatricals, but you go to your cabin and stop there.

If you're wanted you'll be sent for."

Ma'm'selle Felice shrank away white and trembling, and Miss Chrysie went back on deck to get the Maxims ready for action. She met her father under the bridge, and said:

"I reckon, poppa, they're all pretty dead down there. We'll have to see this thing through on our own hands."

The chief and his men worked like heroes on the shaft, and a good head of steam was by some means kept up, but the other yacht crept rapidly up across the eastern horizon, and by breakfast time it was perfectly plain that she was the _Vlodoya_. Moreover, both Miss Chrysie and the captain from the bridge had been able to make out with their gla.s.ses that she was carrying a Maxim-Nordenfelt gun on her forecastle, and two others which looked like one-pound quick-firers on either side, a little forward of the bridge. She was flying no flags, not even the pennant of the Imperial Yacht Squadron, to which she belonged. The _Nadine_ was flying the Blue Ensign and the pennant of the Royal Yacht Squadron. When the _Vlodoya_ was within about eight miles, heading directly for the _Nadine_, the president sent down to ask Mr M'Niven how long it would be before the port engine could be used, and the answer came back, "A good hour yet, but everything is going all right."

Just at this moment the captain was overtaken with another fit of sickness and dizziness, and had to go down to his room; and Mr Vernon remained in charge of the bridge with Miss Chrysie, who was walking up and down, with a strange look of almost masculine sternness on her pretty face, and the gleam of a distinctly wicked light in her eyes.

For her the minutes of that hour pa.s.sed with terrible slowness as she watched the _Vlodoya_ coming up mile after mile, with torrents of smoke pouring out of her funnels. She was evidently steaming every yard she could make. A quarter, half, and three-quarters of an hour pa.s.sed, and still she kept on, looming up larger and larger astern, and Miss Chrysie looked more and more anxiously at the long gun on deck and the two Maxims on the bridge.

Again a message went down to the engine-room, and the answer came back--"Another twenty minutes." Just then a line of signal flags ran up to the _Vlodoya's_ main truck. The chief officer's gla.s.ses instantly went up to his eyes, but after a long look he shook his head and said to the president:

"That's no regular signal, Mr Vandel; it's evidently a private one, arranged beforehand, I should say."

"Then we won't answer it," said the president, "and we'll see what he'll do next. I guess, if he's what we think him, he'll have to declare himself right away."

They hadn't very long to wait, for about five minutes afterwards a puff of smoke rose from the _Vlodoya's_ forecastle, and a seven-pound sh.e.l.l came screaming and whistling across the water. It was the first time that Miss Chrysie had ever been shot at, but she took it without a shiver. The chief officer begged her to go below at once. But she only shut her teeth tighter, and said:

"No, thanks, Mr Vernon, I'm going to have a hand in this. I'm the only one on deck just now that knows how to run a Maxim, and I can shoot as straight with it as I can with my own little pepper-box; so if you just let Mr Robertson come and see to the serving of the ammunition, I think we'll be able to give our Russian friends just about as good as we get."

"Say, poppa," she went on, leaning over the front of the bridge, "I reckon that shot broke the law of nations, didn't it? How would it be if you raised his bluff? Go him a few pounds of Vandelite better?"

"There's no hurry about that, Chrysie," said the president, who had got his gun loaded, and was squinting every now and then along the sights. "I guess he doesn't want to hit us; we've got too much precious cargo on board. You see, that was a seven-pound sh.e.l.l, and if it got under our water-line--well, we'd just go right down. If our friends are on board, they just want to scare us into surrender, that's all; so I think it would be better for us to wait further developments, and let Mr M'Niven get his work in on that shaft. I can make sc.r.a.p-iron out of the _Vlodoya_ just as soon as ever we want to do it; so don't worry about that."

At this moment another puff of steamy smoke rose from the deck of the Russian yacht, and this time a sh.e.l.l came screaming away over the _Nadine's_ masts. Miss Chrysie shut her teeth a bit harder, and walked towards the Maxim on the port side, the one which she could at any time have brought to bear on the _Vlodoya_. The chief officer meanwhile stood anxiously by the engine-room telegraph. It was also his first experience of being shot at. He was just as cool as Miss Chrysie or her father, but he didn't like it. He had the Englishman's natural longing to be able to shoot back, but he recognised that, trying as it was, the president's strategy was the best. About ten more minutes pa.s.sed, during which the _Vlodoya_ drew up closer and closer, until Chrysie, after a good look through her gla.s.ses, was able to say:

"Why, yes; there's the count and Sophie on the bridge. Poppa, why don't you let 'em have just one little hint that we're not quite harmless?"

The last word had scarcely left her lips before another puff of steamy smoke rose from the fore-quarter of the Russian yacht, and a second or so after, a bright flash of flame blazed out, about fifty yards on the port side of the _Nadine_.

"That's a time sh.e.l.l," said Vernon. "They evidently mean business: I fancy they could hit us if they liked. Don't you think, Mr Vandel, that we might slow round and give them one from that gun of yours?"

"No, sir," said the president, looking up from his gun: "not till we've the legs on her. When Mr M'Niven----"

At this moment the chief came up on to the bridge, black and grimed from head to foot.

"All right, Mr Vernon, you can go full steam ahead now. We've got every bit of grit out, and she'll work as easy as ever she did."

"Then," said the president, "I reckon that's about all that we want.

Full steam ahead, if you please, Mr Vernon; you can let her go both engines."

The chief officer pulled the telegraph handle over to full speed. The next moment two columns of boiling foam leapt out from under the _Nadine's_ counters as she sprang forward from eight knots to sixteen, and then to twenty. Almost at the same instant the Maxim-Nordenfeldt from the _Vlodoya_ forecastle spoke again, and a seven-pound sh.e.l.l, aimed low this time, came hurtling across the water, and missed the _Nadine's_ stern by about ten yards.

"I reckon that means business," said the president. "Full speed ahead, if you please, Mr Vernon, and hard aport."