FOR once the humorous expression had vanished from Captain Kempt’s face, and that good-natured man sat in the dainty drawing-room of the flat a picture of perplexity. Dorothy had told him the story of the Nihilist, saying she intended to purchase the yacht, and outlining what she proposed to do with it when it was her own. Now she sat silent opposite the genial Captain, while Katherine stood by the window, and talked enough for two, sometimes waxing indignant, and occasionally giving, in terse language, an opinion of her father, as is the blessed privilege of every girl born in the land of the free, while the father took the censure with the unprotesting mildness of his nature.

“My dear girls, you really must listen to reason. What you propose to do is so absurd that it doesn’t even admit of argument. Why, it’s a filibustering expedition, that’s what it is. You girls are as crazy as Walker of Nicaragua. Do you imagine that a retired Captain of the United States Navy is going to take command of a pirate craft of far less legal standing than the ‘Alabama,’ for then we were at war, but now we are at peace. Do you actually propose to attack the domain of a friendly country! Oh!” cried the Captain, with a mighty explosion of breath, for at this point his supply of language entirely gave out.

“No one would know anything about it,” persisted Katherine.

“Not know about it? With a crew of men picked up here in New York, and coming back to New York? Not know about it? Bless my soul, the papers would be full of it before your men were an hour on shore. In the first place, you’d never find the rock.”

“Then what’s the harm of going in search of it?” demanded his daughter. “Besides that, Johnson knows exactly where it is.”

“Johnson, Johnson! You’re surely not silly enough to believe Johnson’s cock-and-bull story?”

“I believe every syllable he uttered. The man’s face showed that he was speaking the truth.”

“But, my dear Kate, you didn’t see him at all, as I understand the yarn. He was here alone with you, was he not, Dorothy?”

Dorothy smiled sadly.

“I told Kate all about it, and gave my own impression of the man’s appearance.”

“You are too sensible a girl to place any credit in what he said, surely?”

“I did believe him, nevertheless,” replied Dorothy.

“Why, look you here. False in one thing, false in all. I’ll just take a single point. He speaks of a spring sending water through the cells up there in the rock. Now, that is an impossibility. Wherever a spring exists, it comes from a source higher than itself.”

“There are lots of springs up in the mountains,” interrupted Katherine. “I know one on Mount Washington that is ten times as high as the rock in the Baltic.”

“Quite so, Katherine, quite so, but nevertheless there is a lake, subterraneous or above ground, which feeds your White Mountain spring, and such a lake must be situated higher than the spring is. Why, girl, you ought to study hydrometeorology as well as chemistry. Here is a rock jutting up in midocean—”

“It’s in the Baltic, near the Russian coast,” snapped Kate, “and I’ve no doubt there are mountains in Finland that contain the lake which feeds the spring.”

“How far is that rock from the Finnish coast, then?”

“Two miles and a half,” said Kate, quick as an arrow speeding from a bow.

“Captain, we don’t know how far it is from the coast,” amended Dorothy.

“I’ll never believe the thing exists at all.”

“Why, yes it does, father. How can you speak like that? Don’t you know Lieutenant Drummond fired at it?”

“How do you know it was the same rock?”

“Because the rock fired back at him. There can’t be two like that in the Baltic.”

“No, nor one either,” said the Captain, nearing the end of his patience.

“Captain Kempt,” said Dorothy very soothingly, as if she desired to quell the rising storm, “you take the allegation about the spring of water to prove that Johnson was telling untruths. I expect him here within an hour, and I will arrange that you have an opportunity, privately, of cross-examining him. I think when you see the man, and listen to him, you will believe. What makes me so sure that he is telling the truth is the fact that he mentioned the foreign vessel firing at this rock, which I knew to be true, and which he could not possibly have learned anything about.”

“He might very well have learned all particulars from the papers, Dorothy. They were full enough of the subject at the time, and, remembering this, he thought to strengthen his story by—”

Katherine interrupted with great scorn.

“By adding verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.”

“Quite so, Kate; exactly what I was going to say myself. But to come back to the project itself. Granting the existence of the rock, granting the truth of Johnson’s story, granting everything, granting even that the young men are imprisoned there, of which we have not the slightest proof, we could no more succeed in capturing that place from a frail pleasure yacht—”

“It’s built like a cruiser,” said Katherine.

“Even if it were built like a battleship we would have no chance whatever. Why, that rock might defy a regular fleet. Our venture would simply be a marine Jameson Raid which would set the whole world laughing when people came to hear of it.”

“Johnson said he could take it with half a dozen men.”

“No, Kate,” corrected Dorothy, “he said the very reverse; that two or three determined men on the rock with repeating rifles could defeat a host. It was I who suggested that we should throw a shell, and then rush the entrance in the confusion.”

Captain Kempt threw up his hands in a gesture of despair.

“Great heavens, Dorothy Amhurst, whom I have always regarded as the mildest, sweetest and most charming of girls; to hear you calmly propose to throw a shell among a lot of innocent men defending their own territory against a perfectly unauthorized invasion! Throw a shell, say you, as if you were talking of tossing a copper to a beggar! Oh, Lord, I’m growing old. What will become of this younger generation? Well, I give it up. Dorothy, my dear, whatever will happen to those unfortunate Russians, I shall never recover from the shock of your shell. The thing is absolutely impossible. Can’t you see that the moment you get down to details? How are you going to procure your shells, or your shell-firing gun? They are not to be bought at the first hardware store you come to on Sixth Avenue.”

“Johnson says he can get them,” proclaimed Kate with finality.

“Oh, damn Johnson! Dorothy, I beg your pardon, but really, this daughter of mine, combined with that Johnson of yours, is just a little more than I can bear.”

“Then what are we to do?” demanded his daughter. “Sit here with folded hands?”

“That would be a great deal better than what you propose. You should do something sane. You mustn’t involve a pair of friendly countries in war. Of course the United States would utterly disclaim your act, and discredit me if I were lunatic enough to undertake such a wild goose chase, which I’m not; but, on the other hand, if two of our girls undertook such an expedition, no man can predict the public clamor that might arise. Why, when the newspapers get hold of a question, you never know where they will end it. Undoubtedly you two girls should be sent to prison, and, with equal undoubtedness, the American people wouldn’t permit it.”

“You bet they wouldn’t,” said Katherine, dropping into slang.

“Well, then, if they wouldn’t, there’s war.”

“One moment, Captain Kempt,” said Dorothy, again in her mildest tones, for voices had again begun to run high, “you spoke of doing something sane. You understand the situation. What should you counsel us to do?”

The Captain drew a long breath, and leaned back in his chair.

“There, Dad, it’s up to you,” said Katherine. “Let us hear your proposal, and then you’ll learn how easy it is to criticise.”

“Well,” said the Captain hesitatingly, “there’s our diplomatic service—”

“Utterly useless: one man is a Russian, and the other an Englishman. Diplomacy not only can do nothing, but won’t even try,” cried Kate triumphantly.

“Yet,” said the Captain, with little confidence, “although the two men are foreigners, the two girls are Americans.”

“We don’t count: we’ve no votes,” said Kate. “Besides, Dorothy tried the diplomatic service, and could not even get accurate information from it. Now, father, third time and out.”

“Four balls are out, Kate, and I’ve only fanned the air twice. Now, girls, I’ll tell you what I’d do. You two come with me to Washington. We will seek a private interview with the President. He will get into communication with the Czar, also privately, and outside of all regular channels. The Czar will put machinery in motion that is sure to produce those two young men much more effectually and speedily than any cutthroat expedition on a yacht.”

“I think,” said Dorothy, “that is an excellent plan.”

“Of course it is,” cried the Captain enthusiastically. “Don’t you see the pull the President will have? Why, they’ve put an Englishman into ‘the jug,’ and when the President communicates this fact to the Czar he will be afraid to refuse, knowing that the next appeal may be from America to England, and when you add a couple of American girls to that political mix-up, why, what chance has the Czar?”

“The point you raise, Captain,” said Dorothy, “is one I wish to say a few words about. The President cannot get Mr. Drummond released, because the Czar and all his government will be compelled to deny that they know anything of him. Even the President couldn’t guarantee that the Englishman would keep silence if he were set at liberty. The Czar would know that, but your plan would undoubtedly produce Prince Ivan Lermontoff. All the president has to do is to tell the Czar that the Prince is engaged to an American girl, and Lermontoff will be allowed to go.”

“But,” objected the Captain, “as the Prince knows the Englishman is in prison, how could they be sure of John keeping quiet when Drummond is his best friend?”

“He cannot know that, because the Prince was arrested several days before Drummond was.

“They have probably chucked them both into the same cell,” said the Captain, but Dorothy shook her head.

“If they had intended to do that, they would doubtless have arrested them together. I am sure that one does not know the fate of the other, therefore the Czar can quite readily let Lermontoff go, and he is certain to do that at a word from the President. Besides this, I am as confident that Jack is not in the Trogzmondoff, as I am sure that Drummond is. Johnson said it was a prison for foreigners.”

“Oh, Dorothy,” cried the Captain, with a deep sigh, “if we’ve got back again to Johnson—” He waved his hand and shook his head.

The maid opened the door and said, looking at Dorothy:

“Mr. Paterson and Mr. Johnson.”

“Just show them into the morning room,” said Dorothy, rising. “Captain Kempt, it is awfully good of you to have listened so patiently to a scheme of which you couldn’t possibly approve.”

“Patiently!” sniffed the daughter.

“Now I want you to do me another kindness.”

She went to the desk and picked up a piece of paper.

“Here is a check I have signed—a blank check. I wish you to buy the yacht ‘Walrus’ just as she stands, and make the best bargain you can for me. A man is so much better at this kind of negotiation than a woman.”

“But surely, my dear Dorothy, you won’t persist in buying this yacht?”

“It’s her own money, father,” put in Katherine.

“Keep quiet,” said the Captain, rising, for the first time speaking with real severity, whereupon Katherine, in spite of the fact that she was older than twenty-one, was wise enough to obey.

“Yes, I am quite determined, Captain,” said Dorothy sweetly.

“But, my dear woman, don’t you see how you’ve been hoodwinked by this man Johnson? He is shy of a job. He has already swindled you out of twenty thousand dollars.”

“No, he asked for ten only, Captain Kempt, and I voluntarily doubled the amount.”

“Nevertheless, he has worked you up to believe that these young men are in that rock. He has done this for a very crafty purpose, and his purpose seems likely to succeed. He knows he will be well paid, and you have promised him a bonus besides. If he, with his Captain Kidd crew, gets you on that yacht, you will only step ashore by giving him every penny you possess. That’s his object. He knows you are starting out to commit a crime—that’s the word, Dorothy, there’s no use in our mincing matters—you will be perfectly helpless in his hands. Of course, I could not allow my daughter Kate to go on such an expedition.”

“I am over twenty-one years old,” cried Kate, the light of rebellion in her eyes.

“I do not intend that either of you shall go, Katherine.”

“Dorothy, I’ll not submit to that,” cried Katherine, with a rising tremor of anger in her voice, “I shall not be set aside like a child. Who has more at stake than I? And as for capturing the rock, I’ll dynamite it myself, and bring home as large a specimen of it as the yacht will carry, and set it up on Bedloe’s Island beside the Goddess and say, ‘There’s your statue of Liberty, and there’s your statue of Tyranny!’”

“Katherine,” chided her father, “I never before believed that a child of mine could talk such driveling nonsense.”

“Paternal heredity, father,” retorted Kate.

“Your Presidential plan, Captain Kempt,” interposed Dorothy, “is excellent so far as Prince Lermontoff is concerned, but it cannot rescue Lieutenant Drummond. Now, there are two things you can do for me that will make me always your debtor, as, indeed, I am already, and the first is to purchase for me the yacht. The second is to form your own judgment of the man Johnson, and if you distrust him, then engage for me one-half the crew, and see that they are picked Americans.”

“First sane idea I have heard since I came into this flat,” growled the Captain.

“The Americans won’t let the Finlander hold me for ransom, you may depend upon that.”

It was a woe-begone look the gallant Captain cast on the demure and determined maiden, then, feeling his daughter’s eye upon him, he turned toward her.

“I’m going, father,” she said, with a firmness quite equal to his own, and he on his part recognized when his daughter had toed the danger line. He indulged in a laugh that had little of mirth in it.

“All I can say is that I am thankful you haven’t made up your minds to kidnap the Czar. Of course you are going, Kate, So am I.”

CHAPTER XVI —CELL NUMBER NINE

AS the sailing-boat cast off, and was shoved away from the side of the steamer, there were eight men aboard. Six grasped the oars, and the young clerk who had signed for the documents given to him by the Captain took the rudder, motioning Lermontoff to a seat beside him. All the forward part of the boat, and, indeed, the space well back toward the stern, was piled with boxes and bags.

“What is this place called?” asked the Prince, but the young steersman did not reply.

Tying the boat to iron rings at the small landing where the steps began, three of the men shipped their oars. Each threw a bag over his shoulder, walked up half a dozen steps and waited. The clerk motioned Lermontoff to follow, so he stepped on the shelf of rock and looked upward at the rugged stairway cut between the main island and an outstanding perpendicular ledge of rock. The steps were so narrow that the procession had to move up in Indian file; three men with bags, then the Prince and the clerk, followed by three more men with boxes. Lermontoff counted two hundred and thirty-seven steps, which brought him to an elevated platform, projecting from a doorway cut in the living rock, but shielded from all sight of the sea. The eastern sun shone through this doorway, but did not illumine sufficiently the large room whose walls, ceiling and floor were of solid stone. At the farther end a man in uniform sat behind a long table on which burned an oil lamp with a green shade. At his right hand stood a broad, round brazier containing glowing coals, after the Oriental fashion, and the officer was holding his two hands over it, and rubbing them together. The room, nevertheless, struck chill as a cellar, and Lermontoff heard a constant smothered roar of water.

The clerk, stepping forward and saluting, presented to the Governor seated there the papers and envelopes given him by the Captain. The officer selected a blue sheet of paper, and scrutinized it for a moment under the lamp.

“Where are the others?”

“We have landed first the supplies, Governor; then the boat will return for the others.”

The Governor nodded, and struck a bell with his open palm. There entered a big man with a bunch of keys at his belt, followed by another who carried a lighted lantern.

“Number Nine,” said the Governor to the gaolers.

“I beg your pardon, sir, am I a prisoner?” asked Lermontoff.

The Governor gave utterance to a sound that was more like the grunt of a pig than the ejaculation of a man. He did not answer, but looked up at the questioner, and the latter saw that his face, gaunt almost as that of a living skeleton, was pallid as putty.

“Number Nine,” he repeated, whereupon the gaoler and the man with the lantern put a hand each on Lermontoff’s shoulders, and marched him away. They walked together down a long passage, the swaying lantern casting its yellow rays on the iron bolts of door after door, until at last the gaoler stopped, threw back six bolts, inserted a key, unlocked the door, and pushed it ponderously open. The lantern showed it to be built like the door of a safe, but unlike that of a safe it opened inwards. As soon as the door came ajar Lermontoff heard the sound of flowing water, and when the three entered, he noticed a rapid little stream sparkling in the rays of the lantern at the further end of the cell. He saw a shelf of rock and a stone bench before it. The gaoler placed his hands on a black loaf, while the other held up the lantern.

“That will last you four days,” said the gaoler.

“Well, my son, judging from the unappetizing look of it, I think it will last me much longer.”

The gaoler made no reply, but he and the man with the lantern retired, drawing the door heavily after them. Lermontoff heard the bolts thrust into place, and the turn of the key; then silence fell, all but the babbling of the water. He stood still in the center of the cell, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his overcoat, and, in spite of this heavy garment, he shivered a little.

“Jack, my boy,” he muttered, “this is a new deal, as they say in the West. I can imagine a man going crazy here, if it wasn’t for that stream. I never knew what darkness meant before. Well, let’s find out the size of our kingdom.”

He groped for the wall, and stumbling against the stone bench, whose existence he had forgotten, pitched head forward to the table, and sent the four-day loaf rolling on the floor. He made an ineffectual grasp after the loaf, fearing it might fall into the stream and be lost to him, but he could not find it, and now his designs for measuring the cell gave place to the desire of finding that loaf. He got down on his hands and knees, and felt the stone floor inch by inch for half an hour, as he estimated the time, but never once did he touch the bread.

“How helpless a man is in the dark, after all,” he muttered to himself. “I must do this systematically, beginning at the edge of the stream.”

On all fours he reached the margin of the rivulet, and felt his way along the brink till his head struck the opposite wall. He turned round, took up a position that he guessed was three feet nearer the door, and again traversed the room, becoming so eager in the search that he forgot for the moment the horror of his situation, just as, when engaged in a chemical experiment, everything else vanished from his mind, and thus after several journeys back and forth he was again reminded of the existence of the stone bench by butting against it when he knew he was still several feet from the wall. Rubbing his head, he muttered some unfavorable phrases regarding the immovable bench, then crawled round it twice, and resumed his transverse excursions. At last he reached the wall that held the door, and now with breathless eagerness rubbed his shoulder against it till he came to the opposite corner. He knew he had touched with knees and hands practically every square inch of space in the floor, and yet no bread.

“Now, that’s a disaster,” cried he, getting up on his feet, and stretching himself. “Still, a man doesn’t starve in four days. I’ve cast my bread on the waters. It has evidently gone down the stream. Now, what’s to hinder a man escaping by means of that watercourse? Still, if he did, what would be the use? He’d float out into the Baltic Sea, and if able to swim round the rock, would merely be compelled to knock at the front door and beg admission again. No, by Jove, there’s the boat, but they probably guard it night and day, and a man in the water would have no chance against one in the boat. Perhaps there’s gratings between the cells. Of course, there’s bound to be. No one would leave the bed of a stream clear for any one to navigate. Prisoners would visit each other in their cells, and that’s not allowed in any respectable prison. I wonder if there’s any one next door on either side of me. An iron grid won’t keep out the sound. I’ll try,” and going again to the margin of the watercourse, he shouted several times as loudly as he could, but only a sepulchral echo, as if from a vault, replied to him.

“I imagine the adjoining cells are empty. No enjoyable companionship to be expected here. I wonder if they’ve got the other poor devils up from the steamer yet. I’ll sit down on the bench and listen.”

He could have found the bench and shelf almost immediately by groping round the wall, but he determined to exercise his sense of direction, to pit himself against the darkness.

“I need not hurry,” he said, “I may be a long time here.”

In his mind he had a picture of the cell, but now that he listened to the water it seemed to have changed its direction, and he found he had to rearrange this mental picture, and make a different set of calculations to fit the new position. Then he shuffled slowly forward with hands outstretched, but he came to the wall, and not to the bench. Again he mapped out his route, again endeavored, and again failed.

“This is bewildering,” he muttered. “How the darkness baffles a man. For the first time in my life I appreciate to the full the benediction of God’s command, ‘Let there be light.’”

He stood perplexed for a few moments, and, deeply thinking, his hands automatically performed an operation as the servants of habit. They took from his pocket his cigarette case, selected a tube of tobacco, placed it between his lips, searched another pocket, brought out a match-box, and struck a light. The striking of the match startled Lermontoff as if it had been an explosion; then he laughed, holding the match above his head, and there at his feet saw the loaf of black bread. It seemed as if somebody had twisted the room end for end. The door was where he thought the stream was, and thus he learned that sound gives no indication of direction to a man blindfolded. The match began to wane, and feverishly he lit his cigarette.

“Why didn’t I think of the matches, and oh! what a pity I failed to fill my pockets with them that night of the Professor’s dinner party! To think that matches are selling at this moment in Sweden two hundred and fifty for a halfpenny!”

Guided by the spark at the end of his cigarette, he sought the bench and sat down upon it. He was surprised to find himself so little depressed as was actually the case. He did not feel in the least disheartened. Something was going to happen on his behalf; of that he was quite certain. It was perfectly ridiculous that even in Russia a loyal subject, who had never done any illegal act in his life, a nobleman of the empire, and a friend of the Czar, should be incarcerated for long without trial, and even without accusation. He had no enemies that he knew of, and many friends, and yet he experienced a vague uneasiness when he remembered that his own course of life had been such that he would not be missed by his friends. For more than a year he had been in England, at sea, and in America, so much absorbed in his researches that he had written no private letters worth speaking of, and if any friend were asked his whereabouts, he was likely to reply:

“Oh, Lermontoff is in some German university town, or in England, or traveling elsewhere. I haven’t seen him or heard of him for months. Lost in a wilderness or in an experiment, perhaps.”

These unhappy meditations were interrupted by the clang of bolts. He thought at first it was his own door that was being opened, but a moment later knew it was the door of the next cell up-stream. The sound, of course, could not penetrate the extremely thick wall, but came through the aperture whose roof arched the watercourse. From the voices he estimated that several prisoners were being put into one cell, and he wondered whether or not he cared for a companion. It would all depend. If fellow-prisoners hated each other, their enforced proximity might prove unpleasant.

“We are hungry,” he heard one say. “Bring us food.”

The gaoler laughed.

“I will give you something to drink first.”

“That’s right,” three voices shouted. “Vodka, vodka!”

Then the door clanged shut again, and he heard the murmur of voices in Russian, but could not make out what was said. One of the new prisoners, groping round, appeared to have struck the stone bench, as he himself had done. The man in the next cell swore coarsely, and Lermontoff, judging from such snatches of their conversation as he could hear that they were persons of a low order, felt no desire to make their more intimate acquaintance, and so did not shout to them, as he had intended to do. And now he missed something that had become familiar; thought it was a cigarette he desired, for the one he had lit had been smoked to his very lips, then he recognized it was the murmur of the stream that had ceased.

“Ah, they can shut it off,” he said. “That’s interesting. I must investigate, and learn whether or no there is communication between the cells. Not very likely, though.”

He crawled on hands and knees until he came to the bed of the stream, which was now damp, but empty. Kneeling down in its course, he worked his way toward the lower cell, and, as he expected, came to stout iron bars. Crouching thus he sacrificed a second match, and estimated that the distance between the two cells was as much as ten feet of solid rock, and saw also that behind the perpendicular iron bars were another horizontal set, then another perpendicular, then a fourth horizontal.

While in this position he was startled by a piercing scream to the rear. He backed out from the tunnel and stood upright once more. He heard the sound of people splashing round in water. The screamer began to jabber like a maniac, punctuating his ravings with shrieks. Another was cursing vehemently, and a third appealing to the saints. Lermontoff quickly knelt down in the watercourse, this time facing the upper cell, and struck his third match. He saw that a steel shield, reminding him of the thin shutter between the lenses of a camera, had been shot across the tunnel behind the second group of cross bars, and as an engineer be could not but admire the skill of the practical expert who had constructed this diabolical device, for in spite of the pressure on the other side, hardly a drop of water oozed through. He tried to reach this shield, but could not. It was just beyond the touch of his fingers, with his arm thrust through the two sets of bars, but if he could have stretched that far, with the first bar retarding his shoulder, he knew his hand would be helpless even if he had some weapon to puncture the steel shield. The men would be drowned before he could accomplish anything unless he was at the lever in the passage outside.

Crawling into his cell again he heard no more of the chatter and cries of the maniac, and he surmised that the other two were fighting for places on bench or shelf, which was amply large enough to have supported both, had they not been too demented with fear to recognize that fact. The cursing man was victorious, and now he stood alone on the shelf, roaring maledictions. Then there was the sound of a plunge, and Lermontoff, standing there, helpless and shivering, heard the prisoner swim round and round his cell like a furious animal, muttering and swearing.

“Don’t exhaust yourself like that,” shouted Lermontoff. “If you want to live, cling to the hole at either of the two upper corners. The water can’t rise above you then, and you can breathe till it subsides.”

The other either did not hear, or did not heed, but tore round and round in his confined tank, thrashing the water like a dying whale.

“Poor devil,” moaned Jack. “What’s the use of telling him what to do. He is doomed in any case. The other two are now better off.”

A moment later the water began to dribble through the upper aperture into Jack’s cell, increasing and increasing until there was the roar of a waterfall, and he felt the cold splashing drops spurt against him. Beyond this there was silence. It was perhaps ten minutes after that the lever was pulled, and the water belched forth from the lower tunnel like a mill race broken loose, temporarily flooding the floor so that Jack was compelled to stand on the bench.

He sunk down shivering on the stone shelf, laid his arms on the stone pillow, and buried his face in them.

“My God, my God!” he groaned.