A Rock in the Baltic

“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.