“Let me see your eyes.”
She closed them tightly. A warm tear splashed upon his hand.
Count Poltavo was very white, but he smiled.
“Do you weep,” he said softly, “because you have given yourself to me? Or because you do not love me?”
The tears fell faster.
He took both her hands. “Dear lady,” he said, “let our hearts speak only true words to-day. You have already chosen a mate — is it not true?”
She sat mute, but a burning flush betrayed her.
The count rose suddenly to his feet, and made his way blindly to the rail. When he returned, a few moments later, his face was tranquil and serene. “I have put my question,” he said lightly, “and you have answered it — with a blush! Let us drop the poor unfortunate subject into oblivion.”
She took a long deep breath, as if throwing off the weight of a weary burden. “I am free?” she whispered.
He laughed somewhat harshly. “As free as a bird,” he retorted, “to fly whither you will.”
She did not answer, but unthreaded the ring, with trembling fingers, and handed it to him without a word.
He drew back, shaking his head. “Will you honour me by keeping it as a memento of your — ah! — freedom? To think upon, in happier days?”
“I will keep it,” she said softly, “in memory of a man whom I could wish to love!” A silence fell between them, which the girl presently broke.
“You also had something to tell me?” she said.
He roused himself. “It is true — I had almost forgot!” He stopped and looked about them, as if to reassure himself that they were quite alone.
“Your father is very ill,” he began, “too ill to receive proper attention aboard this ship. I have decided, therefore,” — he lowered his voice to a whisper,—” to transfer him, as soon as he is able, to the first steamer we meet. It can be arranged, quite simply, with assumed names. You will take him to some quiet place, and, when he is quite restored, return with him to America.”
The light of a great hope shone in her eyes.
Impulsively, she bent down, and touched his hand with her lips. “I can never, never repay you!” she murmured.
He rose smiling. From where he stood, the man in the mainmast was visible. He was shouting to somebody on the bridge, and pointing northward.
The count deftly interposed himself between the girl and the sea.
“You can repay me,” he said slowly, “by returning at once with me to your father’s stateroom, and promising to remain there until I come or send some one for you.”
She looked up at him, startled, and the blood ebbed from her cheeks, leaving them ashen, but she asked no question, and he escorted her gravely to her father’s cabin.
When he came again on deck, Baggin pointed triumphantly toward the north. “We make our final appeal to the world!” he cried.
It came reluctantly into view, a big grey-painted steamer with red-and-black funnels, a great, lumbering ocean beast.
Through their glasses the three men watched her, a puzzled frown upon the captain’s face.
“I do not recognise her,” he said, “but she looks like a gigantic cargo steamer.”
“Her decks are crowded with passengers,” said Baggin. “I can see women’s hats and men in white; what is that structure forward?” He indicated a long superstructure before the steamer’s bridge.
“There goes her flag.”
A little ball crept up to the mainmast.
“We will show her ours,” said the captain pleasantly, and pushed a button.
Instantly, with a crash that shook the ship, the forward gun of the Maria Braganza sent a shell whizzing through the air.
It fell short and wide of the steamer. The captain turned to Poltavo, as for instructions.
“Sink her,” said the count briefly.
But the steamer was never sunk.
The little ball that hung at the main suddenly broke, and out to the breeze there floated not the red ensign of the merchant service, but the Stars and Stripes of America — more, on the little flagstaff at the bow of the ship fluttered a tiny blue flag spangled with stars.
Livid of face, Captain Lombrosa sprang to the wheel.
“It’s a Yankee man-o’-war!” he cried, and his voice was cracked. “We’ve—”
As he spoke the superstructure on the “intermediate,” which had excited the count’s curiosity, fell apart like a house of canvas — as it was — and the long slim barrel of a nine-inch gun swung round.
“Bang!”
The shell carried away a boat and a part of the wireless cabin.
“Every gun!” yelled Lombrosa, frantically pressing the buttons on the bridge before him.
“We must run for it!”
Instantly, with an ear-splitting succession of crashes, the guns of the Maria Braganza came into action.
To the last, fortune was with the Nine, for the second or third shot sent the American over with a list to starboard.
Round swung the Maria Braganza like a frightened hare; the water foamed under her bows as, running under every ounce of steam, she made her retreat.
“We must drop all idea of picking up Zillier,” said Baggin, white to the lips; “this damned warship is probably in wireless communication with a fleet; can you tap her messages?”
Poltavo shook his head.
“The first shell smashed our apparatus,” he said. “What is that ahead?”
Lombrosa, with his telescope glued to his eye, was scanning the horizon.
“It looks like a sea fog.”
But the captain made no reply.
Over the edge of the ocean hung a thin red haze. He put the glass down, and turned a troubled face to the two men.
“In other latitudes I should say that it was a gathering typhoon,” he said. He took another long look, put down the telescope, closed it mechanically, and hung it in the rack.
“Smoke,” he said briefly. “We are running into a fleet.”
He brought the Maria Braganza’s bows northward, but the smoke haze was there, too. East, north, south,
