THEIR FRIENDS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2556, 17 July 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

THEIR FRIENDS.

(Owen. Oliver, in “Harper’s Weekly.’’) There was wind with the fog, and all day long the mist swooped upon us in towering bergs swallowed our big steam-yacht;, and spat it out again; all •day Long We dio-ve through the think mist and the thin mist at fourteen knots, and sounded no horn or bell. At five o’clock we were .sitting in the 100 of the smoking-room—Vera Royd, her lover’s brother, Darrell, Joynder, Richardson, and I. The old captain walked slowly tip to us, saluted, and jerked his left shoulder, as was his way before speech. “According to reckoning,’’ he announced, “we’re about fifty miles from the island. I couldn’t take the sun properly to-day, and may be a bit out.” “Oh, Captain!’’ cried Vera. “Oh, Captain! You aren’t afraid of missing it?” She laid her hand entre-itingly on his arm- He had been on the yacht since .she was a child in short frocks, and she called him her “sea-father.” “I’m more afraid of hitting it,” he said, grimly. “I think the course, is pretty right. It’s the distance I’m doubtful about. I can’t tell to twenty or thirty miles. I’-ll take soundings, of course; but if we find the shallows at this speed-—!” He jerked his shoulder again. “But if we are thirty miles out the other way, and you slow down,” she said, “we shahi’t bo in time. Just think.” “I’ve done a lot of thinking,” he told her. “And it’s you I’ve' been thinking about Missie. We’re men and don’t matter; but I don’t like gambling with your life.” Vera looked at him and at us. “I ought not to reckon,” she said; “‘but you—l ought to reckon the risk to you.” “We came to take the risk,” I said. Darrell, Joynder, and Richardson nodded and laughed. “It’s half the fuu,” Richardson 'remarked, The captain jerked his shoulder and nodded too. “Not that I make a jest of it,” ho protested: Her lover’s brother neither nodded nor laughed. “Then you may gamble with my liTe,” Vera, said; “and—and thank 70*.” The captain gave another jerk of his shoulder, saluted, and went to the bridge; and Vera turned to us. “Oh!” she cried. “Thank you all! Not Rupert, of course, because he is hhs brother, and he was bound to; and as for me—my life is his. But you no I will not • thank you. You are his friends.” “We are his friends,” I said, “and could do no less.” Her lover lay in prison at the island. I will not name it. Some years have passed; but they have a long memory in that fierce country of his. It was a political offence. He had followed his brother, and they had failed. His brother had escaped, and the secret police had caught our Frank. To-morrow at sunrise he would die, unless we rescued him. It was a mad idea this rescue. His brother had called it impossible when ifc was proposed by the little pale man who came from over the sea. But the little pal© man had gone to Vera; and she had brought them to 11s, the friends of the Prince —well, I did not mean to write him down that; hut it is down, and it can stay—the friends of the Prince and of her; the grey qld friend, myself, once liis tutor, and the throe young friends who had learned with him. “Let us go in my yacht,” she had pleaded, “and try to save. him. It is worth risking our lives.” “It isn’t the risk of a useless old lifo that I mind,” I told her. “It’s the uselessness of the risk. It can’t be done, girlie. It can’t be done.” “This gentleman has a way,” sho declared. “He is his friend.” And the little pale man had shrugged himself and extended his hands. “It is simple,” he asserted. “So simple! I will go to the. island, as I have gone once before. It was to arrange for the. escape of—someone who died too soon. It was fever they said. T was a priest then, and I shall be a priest again. They will let me see the Prince. I shall be bis confessor and .sit with him on the last night. I know the cell. It is in the end of the narrow corridor on the top of the castle; seven rooms to the right, from, the tower with the flagstaff. I will show you on a iplan. One window looks out upon the courtyard where they will put up the scaffold. The other looks down the cliff to the sea —a little window with big iron bars. It is ninety metres —a hundred of your feet—to the beach, straight down; but half-way there is a ledge. I know —how I know! There is a crevice on the ledge and a rope ladder is hidden in thp crevice. I know who put.it there. .Ho smiled and made a .sweep with Ins hands. “You are used to risking your life? " I suggested. “It is what our lives are for! I shall take tools under my priest’s robe that night; and a ladder of cord; only cord, but strong. It will be fifty feet. I can hide no greater. It is enough. It will reach the ledge. We shall remove a bar . with my .tools, and fix the ladder to the other bar. Then we shall • go down to the ledge. It is so simple. He smiled.at us with his head on one side. “From the lodge we shall go down by the other ladder to the foot oh,the sea. If there we .should find a boat? And if the boat should find a big ship? ■ Then— poof !” He blew and shrugged. “It is done. “There will be a patrol at the foot of the cliff.”

It was his brother who raised t'hc objection. - , / - 1 “With the boat will be four revolvers —.perhaps live, if your Highness should come.” 4 He assumed that we should go—his friends—but he was not sure of his brother. He was a judge of men, I noticed, this little pale man. ’ “The Prince, of course, will come,” said Vera. She looked straight at him but be did not meet her eyes. “Of course,” he said slowly, “I shall come; but I know that it ds madness.”/ “It is madness,” I agreed; but that has nothing to do with the question.” “Nothing at all,” said Darrell and Joynde-r and Richardson. “Then there will be five revolvers for the patrol,” the little pale man concluded. “Six,” said Vera. “Nonsense!” said I. “You can’t come ashore, girlie.” “It is my right to share the risk,” she cried. “Yes,” I agreed; ‘*but not to increase it. You would only handicap us —and him —my dear.” “Five, then,” she sighed. “Seven,” corrected the little grey man; “if all goes well. I shall take arms for our Frank and myself. A priest’s cloak covers many things! It is not the patrol themselves that I fear, but the alarm. They have fast gunboats, and if they pursue your ship. . . • Well, it is a risk that we must run. The hour shall be as near mid-night as may be; and the day that before he is to die. I will cable to you when to come.” “They will watch the cables,” the Prince (protested. “A priest,” said the little pale man, gently, “would only cable to his superior what any one may read. .He may need money or vestments or hooks; or he may ask for Brother Anselm or Brother Clement, or —for a blessing on his work. The superior may cable to a merchant in London; and the merchant may cable to you. There shall be a cvde that I will teach you.” He taught us the code and other .things—the approach, the anchorage the lie of the place, the plans oi hhfortress and especially of the prison, where the ipatrol marched, '-nrt how we could row ashore unseen, under a jutting rock, and where we could, land, and where we could lurk in biding. “And that I may know if you are there,” he said, “you shall make me a signal; for what is the use to risk my old neck, if it will not profit him? His Highneas can make the call of a seagull; one that has young in its nest. Our Frank has told me this of him. Let him make the cry three times, counting five between; slowly—so !” “And if by chance his Highness should not be there?” I asked. “Then his Highness will be dead,” said Richardson; and I thought it not unlikely. W© loved our Frank. “He might be ill,” I explained smoothly. “It is best to provide for all things.” “So!” the little pale man assented. “Learn you, then, to make the sound, if you can. I shall know the difference, but they may not.” “I. will learn,” I promised. “And then,” ho asserted, “we will both 1 come to you if your Frank can come by any help of mine. If he cannot I will como alone, if I can, and you shall judge me, if I have not done my best. For lives shall count for little when we meet again.” He bowed and went. Three weeks later the cablo came. Wo had it one afternoon. There was a margin of barely one day. In the evening we sailed. The Prince was out when we went to fetch him, and he had not left word of his movements, as was agreed, but we found him, and ho came. Perhaps lie feared us. Certainly ho feared Vera, or to be shamed in her eyes. Anyhow, ho came. On the second morning, before it was light, the captain camo to my cabin and roused me, and stood by my bed, jerking his shoulder. There was a traitor aboard, he whispered. He had gone on the bridge at eight bells, which was four o’clock, in the time of sailormen — and he had seen from the stars that the course .was wrong. So he had examined the compass, and found a magnet under the card! By running off the course we had lost some forty miles. He had ordered the officer of the watch to set a man on guard by the compass with a revolver. t “You had better not tell her,” ho suggested, and the shoulder jerked quickly; “only your friends.” “The four of them?” I looked at him. ‘•'The three of them,” he corrected. The next day the engines broke down and lost us fifteen hours. Some of the thinner parts of the machinery had been filed through, the chief engineer reported, so. that they would succumb to the strain of working. • It must have been clone the day before we started, for he had inspected those very parts the clay before that. “By an amateur or by a skilled mechanic ?” I asked. “By a very skilled mechanic,” he stated; “one of the moil who were employed to overhaul the machinery, no doubt. Someone must have bribed him. . - Well, we can put it right, and it won’t occur again. If- anyone tries to bribe any io-f my men, they will fling him among the machinery!” He laughed a short fierce laugh. “If you know anyone who is -likely to try you can warn him.” “I don’t tlijhk we will warn him,” said.the captain. “Thank, you,” Donaldson. The chief went and the captain looked at me. His shoulder jerked furiously.

"'lf the little girlie weren’t aboard, he said, "we should know what to do.” "We shall know what to do,” I told hifrt, "when the time comes.” j We looked at ca-ch other and nodded. 1

We were old men, and did niot waste the breath left to us. “So our margin of time was eaten up, and we came to be driving through the Fog at full speed. We. went on for two hours longer, then we slowed dow r n and took soundings. They could not find bottom, so we went on at" three-quarter speed for three half-liours, sounding after each. Then the. lead touched, and we judged that we were nearing the island, for we knew that the bed of the ocean was higher round it. We steamed’ a littlo farther and lost bottom, and the captain concluded that we were passing the island on our left. We made slowly that way with a man heaving the lead constantly and working toward the shallow water. About ten o’clock the mist thinned a little and the moon shone faintly through. In the dim moonlight we saw' a tall black rock like a sentinel ahead, and turned just in time. The oa-ptain sent a message down to us that he knew the rock; and it was three miles from the smaller harbor under the fortress. There were, other boats on our road, and we steamed very slowly. He dropped anchor at a quarter to eleven. The. lights of the fortress glimmered faintly—very faintly—through the mist silvered by the moon. We carried no lights ourselves, and portholes below were curtained. Darrell and Joynder and Richardsond stood ready by me. The Prince was not there. He had been in fits cabin most of the day. He had neu ralgia, he said. “Perhaps ho is not well enough to come,” said Darrell softly. “He must he well enough to come,” I said. I spoke softly too. “He must bo well enough to come,” Vera repeated. There was a great fear in her eyes. Wo went to his cabin. The door was fastened. We broke it open. He lay on the bed unconscious. Joynder knelt down and examined him. Ho is a doctor. The Prince was drugged, he pronounced, and would be unconscious for many hours. Vera clasped her hands and gave a sharp cry. She was stav.uing behind us in the. doorway. “He must have taken something for his neuralgia,” she said; “and taken too much. He—he must have meant to come.” “He shall come,” I said. I nodded to the. others, and they lifted him and carried him to the boat; and I stood alone with Vera. “Do you think,” I asked, “that, in years to come, if our Frank were lost to us —do you think that you might have married him?” “I think,” she said, “that he might have wanted me to. I think Uncle Fred?” (I am no uncle, but she calls me so.) “You don’t think —? You don’t think?” She caught at my arm. “Some one tampered with the compass on the bridge,” I said. , “Some one tampered with the machinery that broke down. Perhaps someone betrayed our Frank at the beginning, and has betrayed him. now at the end.” “And betrayed you!” “And betrayed us. If we do not come back you will understand.” She turned white and reeled. I took her in my arms and sat her down. “If that is so,” she said, slowly, “you must not go. You were ready to risk your lives to save his. You are his friends, and he would have done the same for you; but to throw them away for nothing—l am the guardian of his honor as well as liis life; and I who lovo him tell you not to go.” “We shall go,” I said. “God bless you, girlie dear. . . . .My dear child The child of a childless man. . . .” She swayed and fainted. I laid her on the bed, kissed her forehead, and left her there. “If we do not come back,” I told the captain, “or if you are attacked, you must get away and save her.” “And if ho comes back and you do not 2” ho asked. “He will not,” I said. He nodded and jerked his shoulder and shook my hand, and I went down to the boat. I took the tiller; Richardson sat in the bows; Darrell and Joynder rowed. The Prince lay at my foot. Tho unlit ship grew dim in the mist and disappeared. The lights of the' fortress grew nearer and nearer, and we heard the waves break on the boa.ch. We found tho rock and the ring to tie up our boat, as we had been told by the little pale man. We tied up the Prince’s hands also, and then we landed, and lutfked behind the boulders that we recognised from a drawing that the little pale man had given us. I made the cry three times —the cry of the seagull with young in its nest — counting five between. It was r then nearly twelve. When the clock in 'the fortress had struck I made the cry again. The. patrol passed soon afterward. They were not three yards distant, but they passed on without seeing us, talking and laughing—-four men with rifles on their shoulders. PresentTy .I made the. cry again. Soon afterward a mail came toward us through the mist; only one —the little pale man. We rose, but he motioned us back and joined us behind the boulders. “So!” ho said. “The. Prince has not come. I know by the cry.’’ ’ , “Where is Frank?” Tasked. “Is he aboard?” lie demanded, without answering, me. “The Prince?” “No,” I told him. “Then I. cannot save your Frank,” he said. “Could you have saved him if the Prince were here?” I asked. “'Yes.” He nodded gravely- “I "’ill tell you. You may wonder that I put my life in your hands; but I have never been afraid to put my life in the hands of honorable gentlemen. I will tell you nil. lam of the secret service.' It was I who took your Frank. Wc did not

want to take him, but wo had to. His brother, whom we wanted, escaped And" betrayed him. Perhaps you man guess why P” ■' ■ ; v ; | “W© can guess why,”.. I answered. “Also he betrayed this rescue of yours—not knowing that we knew of it already. He -wrote to the' Emperor himself, and the Emperor, knew the hand, though he tried to- disguise it.” “I suppose,” I said, “there is no doubt about the hand?” “It has been examined by experts. There is no doubt at all; and if it were ndt his hand I should have no doubt that he sent it. There is no doubt in the whole matter. . . . Well, our Emperor is a just man and a good; and what he said .was this. For the sake of the country he must make an example of one of these princes. It should be the older one; and then the foolish, misguided boy need only bo banished. He would marry his English sweetheart, and do no harm. £ Eind me the real culprit,’ said the Emperor, £ and this boy for whom you plead’ —it was I whopleaded for him — £ you may do what you will with him.’ “So I planned this rescue to bring his brother here. If he had come we should have taken him. If he were aboard we should send gunboats and take him. If we had taken him your Frank could go. In any case you would he free to go. You are free to go. I am in your hands, and you can shoot me, if you will. I do not much care. But I cannot save your Frank.” I looked at my comrades and my comrades looked at me. I nodded and they nodded too. “Now,” I said, “it is my turn to tell a story.” I told him hew the Prince had been out of the way when the summons came, and how we had found him; how the compass had been deflected and how the machinery had broken down; how we had found him drugged by himself to avoid coming ashore; how he lay now in the boat, bound and insensible. “Take him,” I said, “and hang, him in the morning.” “We behead,” said the little pale man. “Wo do not hang.” He rubbed his hands. “And now I will summon the patrol and they shall take him and bring your Frank to you; unless you will come and accept hospitality at my hands.” “I should like a drink,” said Richardson. “This has been a creepy business.” “By jove, yes!” said Joynder. He laughed curiously. “I’vo been wondering if I wa3 afraid or wasn’t,” Darrell confessed. “But you are not afraid to trust yourself with mo?” the little pale man suggested. “We have no reason to he afraid to trust ourselves in the hands of an honorable- gentleman,” I told him. And though ho was an agent of the secret service, I knew the little pale man for that. He blew a little whistle and the patrol came swiftly and took the traitor from the boat, and went away with him; and we went with the little pale man. We passed through great iron gates and up stone staircases; and in a largo room as we sat at a table with wine to our hands they brought our Frank' to us. Ho had grown a little less of a careless boy, and a little more of a thoughtful man; but it was the same dear old Frank who loved his friends and whose friends loved him the Frank who was worthy to mate with our Vera. “The- little girlie?” he asked. “The little girlie?” “Aboard the yacht,” I said, “waiting for you.” “God bless her!” he said, and we bowed and said amen. Sometimes 1 think that -women like Vera do not need God’s blessing. They are the blessings that He sends to us. “And—and —P” lie looked at tho little pale man. “And you should forget that you had a brother,” said the little man. “Is there no way of saving him?” he asked, with a shudder. “None,” said the little man. “And if there were, I -would not save him,” I said; “not even for your sake, my dear boy.” “Nor I,” said Darrell and Joynder and Richardson. Then they escorted'us down to our boat, and we got in. Tho mist had cleared and the stars shone in the sky, and the moon made a long track acioss the waters. The ship lay black in the moonlight. At the top of the ladder a girl in white waited. Ho stood up that she might see him sooner, and waved his hand. “Frank!” she cried. “Frank!. . . Are they all safe —our friends? It was like our Vera to rememhci us even then. »