CHAPTER TEN · Part 1

CHAPTER TEN

Bristow and the Professor had been waiting at the stage door for only a few minutes when men and women, singly or in twos or threes, began to dribble through the gates and lose themselves in the homeward-bound crowds.

“Miss Lee will be out here in a minute now, Professor,” observed the reporter. “See if you can pick her out. If you can, it will be a sort of a test as to her resemblance to Olga. If you can’t, I’ll show you.”

The Professor nodded. Years seemed to have fallen from his shoulders. “Very well,” he agreed cheerfully.

No misgivings as to the girl’s acceptance of his offer troubled him. His idea was to offer her a trip to Europe, abundant fine clothes, reasonable money, and the chance to play lady for a few months among cultured people, and to ask in return only that she should pass as his daughter. Concerning the risks of the trip, he intended to say nothing, feeling confident that there would be no risk for her. Even if the worst came to the worst and he himself went to a Russian prison--which seemed unlikely--he could not conceive how she could come to harm, his desire to leave Olga behind being based on very different reasons. Offering everything, and asking only a service that was in itself a pleasure, Professor Shishkin could not see how any girl could hesitate. All of which shows that he was not familiar with certain temptations which every handsome working girl and especially every actress in the great city had long been schooled to resist.

At last she came, and he picked her out instantly. The likeness to Olga was striking, though the differences were so great that no one who really knew either girl would be at all likely to mistake her for the other. With Bristow at his side, he started forward.

Miss Lee might fairly be called a type. From her high-ratted pompadour, past her exaggerated straight-front, to the flare at the bottom of her cheap skirt, she was dressed in the style. Neat as a cherry blossom, she carried herself with a dash that the Professor found himself mentally approving. A spot of red burned in either cheek, and her eyes snapped as she stepped upon the street. A student of the sex would have declared that she was in a royal rage.

The Professor was not a connoisseur in women, however, and he did not suspect that Miss Lee had just been “called down” by the stage manager for being late in answering her call, and had been told in no uncertain terms that if she was late again she could stay away for good. Miss Lee had glared at the stage manager, but had not answered back. Twelve dollars a week may not be much to some people, but when it is one’s sole support, one is likely to think twice before casting it away. Having held her tongue, Miss Lee was in the condition of an engine on which the safety valve is tied down. She trembled on the verge of an explosion.

Ignorant of this, the Professor and Bristow stepped in the girl’s way and raised their hats.

“How do you do, Miss Lee?” remarked the latter. “I want to introduce to you my friend, Professor Shishkin. He wants to talk to you on a very important subject.”

If the girl was startled, she did not show it. “Gee!” she exclaimed, with pretended lightness, glancing at the Professor’s venerable aspect. “What’s broke loose? Has me long lost uncle cashed in and left his money to his darling brother’s offspring?”

The Professor did not quite follow. “No-o,” he quavered slowly. “I wanted to see you on a personal matter. I have been studying your appearance, and I----”

“Oh! Ain’t you ashamed? And you so old, too! Fade away!”

“My dear young lady!” The Professor did not understand what the girl meant, but he gathered that she was reproving him. “My dear young lady! It is because I am so old that I venture to address you. As I say, I have been studying your appearance, and I want to talk with you quietly. If you will go with me to----”

Miss Lee flushed. “Ain’t you the frisky grandpop!” she demanded scornfully. “Back to the bald-headed row for yours. You mashers make me tired. Gee! I’ll have to take to eating onions to keep you off. I take it right hard that you should let me in for this, Mr. Bristow. You know I ain’t that sort.”

Bristow had been listening in secret amusement, but at the girl’s protest he started forward. “It’s all right, Miss Lee!” he said. “The Professor really wants to talk to you on business. He is to be my father-in-law, and I wouldn’t think of encouraging him in any capers. He’s no masher.”

“Masher!” At last the Professor understood. “Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “Do you take me for one of those vapid fools that exhibit themselves on the street corners? I should have thought my white hair would have shielded me from such an imputation. After all, however, it may be natural enough. I suppose I began wrong. But I am not that kind. Without denying your evident attractions, young lady, I assure you that I have sought you for a very different reason. This is strictly business. I can’t talk here. Perhaps”--an idea struck the Professor--“perhaps you will do me the honor of dining with me at some place near here--any place you like to name!”

For some moments the girl stared at him shrewdly. After all, perhaps---- “I guess I made a mistake,” she said at last, slowly. “It’s hard to guess sometimes. I’ll take dinner with you and hear what you’ve got to say. But you take my tip and don’t try any funny business, or I’ll call a cop. See?”

The Professor nodded.

“All right, then,” declared the girl. “There’s a spaghetti emporium right back of here on Sixth Avenue. We’ll go there.”

A few moments later the trio were sitting in a huge plate-glass restaurant, and Miss Lee, at the Professor’s request, was ordering a somewhat elaborate dinner. Then, while she awaited its coming, she leaned forward across the table. “Well!” she began, ignoring Bristow, who plainly desired to remain in the background. “Well, now’s the time to spring the story of your life in thirteen chapters and tell what led up to this thrilling moment--unless you’d rather wait till after the tooth-picks. You ain’t going to spring an Arabian Nights fable on me, are you?”

“Perhaps I may.”

“Really! Well, all right. I’m willing. Go ahead.”

The waiter brought the soup, and the girl began to eat with elaborate interest. The Professor noted that her table manners were good and would arouse no suspicion. Her slangy way of speaking gave him some misgivings, but he put them aside.

“My name,” he began, “is Shishkin.”

“What!” The girl laid down her spoon and regarded him severely. “Well, you’re original, any way,” she laughed. “Sure it ain’t Jones?”

“No--Shishkin. I am a Russian, but I have been living in this country for twenty years. Will you tell me something about yourself?”

“Cert. Florence Lee. Twenty years old. From Missouri. Been working in New York three years. Live in Brooklyn. Anything else? Want to see my vaccination certificate?”

“No, what you have said is sufficient for the present. I only wanted something to go on. I am a scientist. My work is chiefly in connection with the ocean. I am about to start for Europe on what will undoubtedly be my last trip. Ordinarily, my daughter would go with me, but she desires to get married. I must have some one in her place.”

Miss Lee paused in the act of raising an olive to her lips. “I ain’t a trained nurse,” she objected tentatively.

“I don’t want a trained nurse,” returned the Professor, with a show of spirit. “I have sought you out because you look very much like my daughter. What I want you to do is to take her place and her name; to pretend to be she; and to go to Europe with me. We may be gone six months. You shall have everything my daughter would have had and be treated exactly as she would be treated. Will you go?”

But Miss Lee was past speech. With mouth agape, she stared at the old man. Anything can happen in New York, but this went beyond her experience.

“Well, if that ain’t the limit!” she murmured, at last. “Say, when did you come out of Bellevue?”

“Bellevue?”

“The psychopathic ward. Gee! it must be a lovely world you live in--till the pipe goes out.”

Dimly the Professor understood that he was being mocked. “I am not jesting, young lady,” he explained, with dignity. “I may add that when the trip is over I will bring you back to New York and give you a thousand dollars.”

The girl’s eyes burned into his. “I am not for sale,” she answered briefly. “Don’t think it, grandpop. There are plenty that are. Go after them.”

“No one will do so well as you. Didn’t I explain? I am compelled to seem to take my daughter with me on this trip. I don’t want to take her, and she does not want to go. Yet she must go unless I can find some one to pass for her. You look like her. When you dress as she does, you will look very much like her. That is why I have come to you first. With a few days’ training, you will find it easy to pass for Olga, my daughter. No one who is going on this trip has ever met her. And it won’t be unpleasant. You will be treated with all honor and consideration. Will you come?”

“Come!” Miss Lee had gone back to her dinner and was discussing it with much gusto. “Look here, grandpop! Do you mean to tell me that all this is on the level?”

“Certainly.” The Professor did not speak slang, but he understood it to some extent.

Florence stared at him once more. She did not believe that he was speaking the truth, or, rather--for she had been trained in a hard school--she did not believe that he was speaking the whole truth. She felt sure that there was something behind--as, indeed, there was. Still, she was tempted. A yacht, a trip to Europe, a masquerade, and a thousand dollars! It all sounded very fascinating to a girl who realized that she might be thrown out of work at any moment, with only a week’s salary between her and starvation. Of course it might be a trap. Florence was handsome, and she knew it; and she had heard of traps for handsome girls. This might be one, but if so, it was very elaborately baited. Besides, she felt supreme confidence in her ability to defend herself if need be. Still, she hesitated.

“How’m I to know?” she questioned. “The men are always springing something new, and a girl’s got to be mighty careful. I ain’t for sale; anyhow, I ain’t on the bargain table; before I go off I’ve got to be sure that the man’s on the level and can do more than make a noise like a tin bank. If you ain’t stringing me--if you ain’t escaped from the crazy house--prove it. It oughtn’t to be hard.”

Professor Shishkin considered. “My friend and future son-in-law, Mr. Bristow, will endorse everything I say,” he declared. “Further, I should be glad to have you talk with my daughter, whose place you will take. Do you know East Orange?”

“New Jersey? Sure!”

“Very well. Come down there early to-morrow. Ask any one to show you where Professor Shishkin lives. You’ll find a pretty, vine-clad cottage. Nothing at all to make you afraid. Come in and you’ll find Olga and me waiting for you. I think we can make you believe. Only”--the Professor’s voice grew serious--“only please wear a veil, and don’t tell any one what I have told you. I’d much rather you would refuse outright than have you talk. I want you to pass as my daughter. The moment the truth gets out, you cease to be of use to me, and I get into grave danger. So you must be secret. Now, on that understanding, will you come?”

Miss Lee reached her hand across the table. “I’ll come,” she promised. “I’ll see the thing through. If it ain’t straight, you’re the biggest---- Well, never mind, I’ll see it through.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Put not your faith in princes.”

Baron Demidroff, chief of the third section of the Russian police, the dreaded secret police, pondered this sentiment as he sat in the office of his immediate superior, the Minister of the Interior. The Baron had been thirty years in the police service, and for fifteen years he had been its chief. In those years he had weathered many a storm that had bade fair to sweep him from place and power, but never a one of them had seemed so menacing as that which he was confronting.

“‘Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king,’” he quoted, “‘he would not leave me naked to my enemies.’ You think the case is desperate, then?”

The Minister flung out his hands. “Judge for yourself, Baron,” he said. “Count Strogoff demanded your immediate dismissal. He was striking at me over your shoulders, of course. Your retirement meant mine, for I cannot afford to have one of Strogoff’s men in your place. The Emperor knew it, and that is the only reason you still hold your post. I did what I could, and will do what I can. But the most I could win was three months’ delay, and to get that I had to talk vaguely of great discoveries you had in train. You will have to make them, my friend, or it is good-by to power for both of us.”

The Baron considered. He was a vigorous young-old man, with a hawk-like face, crowned by beautiful white hair. His mustache and imperial were the pink of military exquisiteness. In his eyes slumbered a consuming fire.

“Humph!” he said slowly. “What discoveries would your excellency suggest?”

The other laughed shortly, but with no merriment in his tones. “First and best,” he answered, “find the _Orkney_ and recover her gold. Its loss is Strogoff’s strongest card against you and me. I wish I had never recommended borrowing that money on the Princess Napraxine’s estates. To take it out of Strogoff’s control was like snatching a bone from a hungry dog.”

“Russia needed it,” hazarded the other.

“Of course Russia needed it. There was neither justice nor expediency in longer holding an estate for the benefit of a girl who had been missing twenty years, and who is certainly dead. The Emperor only anticipated when he decided to escheat part of it. But Strogoff had controlled it as trustee for ten years. It was madness to suppose that he would not seek revenge when forced to give it up.”

“You counted on his enmity when you recommended the escheatal.”

“Of course”--impatiently. “But I did not count on the money being lost. That was your fault, Baron. You were much to blame.”

The Baron’s face showed that he did not agree with his superior’s assertion, but he offered nothing in rebuttal. The Minister knew all the circumstances, and if he chose to blame his subordinate, that subordinate could gain nothing by demonstrating the unjustness of the accusation.

“If I recover the gold even at this late day, how then?” he questioned.

“It would help! It would help! It would gain us time, and time fights for us. Find the gold, and we can baffle Strogoff for a year or two longer; but as long as he controls the vast remaining estates of the Princess Napraxine, he will be dangerous.”

“Ah!” Baron Demidroff tugged at his mustache thoughtfully. “Failing recovery of gold,” he suggested, “is there anything else your excellency can recommend as likely to rehabilitate my position?”

“Nothing! Except, of course, the impossible. Find the Princess Napraxine, and let her take the control of her property out of Strogoff’s hands, and he will be crippled permanently. But that is moonshine.”

“Perhaps not!” The Baron smiled cheerfully at the Minister. “Stranger things have happened. As a matter of fact, I came here to-day to inform your excellency that I have good hopes of recovering the _Orkney’s_ gold, and that I believe I have found the Princess Napraxine.”

The Minister did not start. Instead he sat and stared at the Baron as if he would read the other’s very soul. “Humph!” he grunted. “Humph! Humph! Humph!” Then after a moment: “The proofs will have to be very strong, Baron!”

“They will be indisputable.”

The other mused a moment. “The girl will have to be carefully coached,” he suggested, “and she will have to be a strong character to carry the thing through. Strogoff is a hard man to deceive. And detection would be serious!”

The Baron did not resent the clear imputation that the other’s words conveyed. He seemed to take distrust as a matter of course. “Your excellency is mistaken,” he replied suavely. “This is no case of imposition. I have really found the Princess.”

“After twenty years?”

“After twenty years! The proofs are not completed, but the evidence is already morally conclusive. If I can recover the gold, as I believe I can, I should be ready even now to submit them to the Emperor, confident that he would consider them satisfactory.”

The Minister settled back in his chair with a long breath. The thing was too good, and came too pat to the moment, to be true. It seemed incredible that the Princess Napraxine, stolen at the age of three, should be found twenty years later and restored to her rightful position. Still, Demidroff was a wonderful man, and could be relied on not to undertake anything unless he had good prospects of carrying it through. If he brought forward a claimant, that claimant would be well fortified with proofs. And if she won the estates, the victory would be so overwhelming that it was worth taking some risks to win it.

“Tell me as much of the story as you think best, Baron,” he ordered.

The Baron obeyed. “As your excellency knows,” he began, “I have agents in terrorist circles--practically as many as they have in ours. Most things that they do reach me in the course of time, though usually too late to be of much value. Some months ago I began to realize Strogoff’s power, and it seemed to me that it might be well to find the Princess. It occurred to me to make investigations through one of my agents into the records of the Brotherhood dating back to the time of the abduction. In consequence I learned that the Princess had been stolen by Count Lladislas, a Pole, who had been committed to the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul three years before, at the behest of the Grand Duke Ivan, who admired the Countess Lladislas. After Lladislas was reported dead, the Countess married the Grand Duke morganatically.

“Lladislas escaped and stole the child. Possibly he had been misinformed and thought he was stealing his own child; I am not certain as to this. At all events, he passed her off as such. He took her to America, changed his name to Shishkin, and became professor in one of the small colleges. He still lives, and I think can be made to testify. I learned this only yesterday, and am still considering how to go about the matter.

“So much for the Princess. Now for the gold. I learned recently, through the same agent who gave me the first information in the matter of the Princess, that the Brotherhood had obtained a clue to the _Orkney’s_ gold. My information was fragmentary, but I learned that it had dispatched an agent to New York to see a Mr. Ashton Caruth, to whom had been sent a letter which was supposed to tell something about the gold. I cabled Struve, our consul-general at New York, to get that letter at all hazards. He tried, but he bungled somewhere. His men killed a valet of Caruth’s, but did not get the letter. He does not know who did, but he believes it is now in the hands of a woman calling herself Marie Fitzhugh, who was in Caruth’s apartments that night, and who is probably the agent of the Brotherhood. She has not been identified yet, but she will be soon. Struve is keeping a close watch on her, and thinks that sooner or later she will lead us to the gold.

“So the case stands. I am awaiting developments. Any day--any hour--news may come. Did I speak too strongly when I said I had hopes?”

The Minister sprang to his feet and thrust out his hand enthusiastically. Naturally optimistic, he was already certain of triumph. “Hopes!” he cried. “Hopes! They are more than hopes, my dear Baron; they spell triumph.”

“I think so.” The Baron rose. “I have three months’ time,” he added. “Much may be done in three months.”

“Much indeed! Keep me advised.”

The Baron went out, but in ten minutes he was back with a paper in his hand.

“I found this on my desk,” he cried. “It came in half an hour ago. Read it.”

The message ran as follows:

NEW YORK.--Shishkin announces departure to dredge in Baltic for scientific purposes. Goes on yacht of Ashton Caruth. Takes daughter with him.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The _Sea Spume_, with its curiously assorted passengers, sailed from New York on Saturday.

Besides Caruth, it carried Marie Fitzhugh, Professor Shishkin, his pretended daughter, Thomas Wilkins, and several bewhiskered individuals whose names ended in _ski_ or _vitch_. They were the divers whom Miss Fitzhugh had selected and Professor Shishkin had brought along ostensibly to explore the bottom of the Baltic for proofs of his theory of rising sea-floors. Caruth felt sure that they were nihilists and suspected them of having bombs on their persons, but it was too late to balk at that.

The yacht was swift and the weather fine, and the miles fell behind with gratifying regularity. The sun shone bright by day, and the moon cast silvery gleams by night. In short, the astronomy of the trip was all that could be desired.

As soon as the yacht was out of sight of land, the Professor, who was a born sailor, took occasion to explain matters a little more fully to Miss Lee, who likewise seemed not to feel the motion of the vessel. He explained them not because he wanted to do so, but because he could not help himself. The girl was altogether too clever not to suspect that something was being kept back. In any event, she must very soon find out that the yacht was going to dredge for something besides sea creatures. Unless told enough to satisfy her, she would surely ask questions that might show her ignorance of matters concerning which Olga could scarcely be supposed to be ignorant. It was better to tell her something of the objects of the trip rather than to risk the possible effects of her inquisitiveness.

He told her that the _Sea Spume_ was going to search for a vessel that had been wrecked a year or two before, with a large sum in gold on her. He admitted frankly that he himself had come in order that by his scientific reputation he might conceal the true object of the trip.

He meant to go so far and no farther. But he had not reckoned on Miss Lee. She heard him out; then she turned questioner.

“These heart-to-heart talks are all right,” she remarked, “if they are all right. But if they ain’t, they’re punk. I’m from Missouri, y’know, and I’ve got to be shown. Why d’ye want to hide the object of your trip? Who owns this gold you’re after?”

The Professor hesitated. “My friends own it,” he answered at last.

“Then why don’t they go after it openly? A man’s got a right to his own, ain’t he? What’s the need of all this masquerading?”

The Professor squirmed. The question, though natural, was not what he had expected.

Pitilessly the girl went on: “Who are you afraid of? Who’s likely to interfere with you?”

“Well!” Professor Shishkin was desperate. “Well!” he admitted. “I might as well tell you that our title to the gold is disputed, and we are likely to have trouble if it is known that we are after it. It is really ours, but our enemies are unscrupulous and dangerous, and they could make things very unpleasant for us. They would have gotten the gold long ago if they had known just where it was.”

“Humph! Then you do know just where it is?”

“We think we do.”

Miss Lee considered a while. “It ain’t good enough,” she remarked. “I’ve studied geography, and I’ve been looking up the Baltic lately. There’s too much Russovitsky about this game. I’ll bet a box of taffy there’s a nihilist plot mixed in it somewhere.”

“Sh!” The Professor’s face had changed, and he held up his hand warningly. “There’ll be suspicion enough on that point before long, I fear,” he whispered. “Don’t start it any sooner than it can be helped.”

“But is it true?”

“I can’t tell you. You must draw your own conclusions. If it is true, would you draw back? The cause of the revolution is the cause of freedom.”

“Humph! Maybe so. I’ll think about it. But--I want to know. What’ll the Czarski do to us if he catches us?”

“Nothing. We’ll lose the gold, but nothing more. We are American citizens on an American vessel on the high seas. No one will dare to touch us.”

“Well, where do I come in? What’s my part in the melodrama?”

“You?” The Professor was amazed. “Why, my dear young lady, my daughter wanted to marry and didn’t want to come. I told you all this.”

“Ye-es. You told me why she didn’t want to come. But you ain’t told me why you want everybody to think she did come.”

The Professor hesitated, and the girl put her finger on the weak spot. “You didn’t bring her because you thought it was too dangerous,” she remarked shrewdly; “and you didn’t want others to know how risky you thought it was. And you picked me for the goat. Ain’t that it?”

The Professor leaned forward. “Not exactly,” he explained. “It _would_ be very dangerous for her to visit Russia. Being what she is and who she is, it would be _very_ dangerous. For you, it is not so. Danger may threaten you, but you can always escape by declaring who you are. With her it is different. Besides”--he spoke slowly and impressively--“I have reasons--reasons that I assure you are crucial--for having it thought that she is with us. I implore you to keep the secret. It might and probably would cost her her life if certain persons on board suspected the truth. You will keep faith?”

“Oh, sure! I’ll keep faith. You needn’t worry about that. Especially if that stuck-up Fitzhugh woman is one of the ‘certain persons.’”

The Professor said nothing more. He was by no means satisfied with the situation; but, then, he had been dissatisfied with it from the first. It was a mere choice of evils, and, he told himself despondently, in trying to better matters he was only too likely to make them worse. Nothing but the absolute necessity of keeping the real Olga out of Russia would have ever driven him to such a desperate scheme as this.

It was really more desperate than he knew, though not more so than he might have guessed had he known of the relations that were developing between Miss Lee and Thomas Wilkins.

These two had drawn very close together during the trip. While neither would have endured for a moment any intimation that they were not as good as any one breathing, still neither could help feeling more or less out of place in their new surroundings. The girl saw this more clearly and felt it more sharply than the man. She recognized the fact that these people were lucky enough to possess what she had longed for all her life--money and social position--and concluded that their ways must be correct ways. Therefore she set herself to study them and to mould herself by their standards. The conditions were peculiar, and perhaps she might grasp the money and the position if she once fitted herself for them.

Wilkins, on the other hand, had no yearnings for the social altitudes. It never occurred to him to copy any one else’s manners. He only felt vaguely uncomfortable, more or less seasick, and very much bored. Therefore he welcomed the companionship of the one person among the cabin passengers with whom he somehow felt himself to be on a plane.

As the voyage continued, this intimacy increased. Caruth noticed it and vaguely wondered at it; but then he had wondered from the first at the rather singular manners and conversation of the Professor’s daughter. Miss Fitzhugh noticed it, and did not like it; just why, she scarcely knew. But neither she nor Caruth made any effort to check it. Supposing Miss Lee to be the Professor’s daughter and therefore devoted to his cause, they naturally were glad of anything that tended to bind Wilkins closer to their cause.

So matters ran along till nearly the end of the voyage. Cattegat and Skagerrak had been traversed, Copenhagen was a blur of light on the clouds behind them; the widening sea space before them showed that the broad Baltic lay close at hand.

Miss Lee and Wilkins sat together on the quarter-deck watching the moonlight as it shone white on the wake of the _Sea Spume_. For some time neither had spoken.

At last Wilkins broke the silence. “Lady,” he said, “I s’pose your pa’s told you how I come to be on this here trip?”

Florence nodded. The Professor had not told her, but it seemed unnecessary to admit that fact.

Wilkins went on. “I’ll own right up to you,” he explained, “that when I come I warn’t by no means satisfied that I was gettin’ a square deal; a ten per cent rake-off ain’t very high when you hold the joker and nobody else can get nothin’ unless you helps. Then I wasn’t satisfied about Jim. That Miss Fitzhugh swears her friends didn’t kill him; but, then, she naturally would, you know, and I’ve got my doubts. Still, there didn’t seem nothin’ else for me to do but to come along, and give ’em all the rope they wanted, and watch my chance to find out about Jim and to get a bigger share of the gold. But I want to say now that that’s all to the past. Your friends is my friends, and I’ll stick by ’em. You understand?”

Florence did not understand--how should she? She had never heard of “Jim,” nor of his death; nor did she know that Wilkins held the key to the location of the treasure. She was rapidly finding out things, however; so she held her peace and let the plainsman talk on.

“I promised to show them Bill’s letter as soon as we got into the Baltic,” he continued. “That means to-night. I guess I’d have done it any way, but now I know you, I ain’t hesitatin’ no more.”

Florence found her tongue. “It’s Bill’s letter that tells where the wreck is, isn’t it?” she guessed.

“Sure! The place ain’t much more than a day from here. I’m going to show it to them pretty soon. But first I wanted to say somethin’ to you.”

Florence scarcely heard him. An idea, vague and unformulated, was stirring in her brain. Could any gain accrue to her personally from the fact that Wilkins alone knew the whereabouts of the gold?

While she considered, the man went on. “Lady,” he declared earnestly, “I’m a rough fellow, and I know I ain’t half good enough for you. I know your dad would have a fit if he thought I was makin’ love to you; and your fine friends would think I was crazy. Maybe I am; but it’s for you to say. I’m a sheepman, lady, and many a night when I’ve been bedded down alongside a camp-fire, watching them muttons masticatin’ and baain’ to each other, I’ve thought how nice it would be to go home to find somebody waiting for me. And the minute I see you and hear you talk so bright and clever, says I to myself: ‘That’s the girl for me.’” Wilkins paused for an instant and then went on. “I ain’t no poor man, lady. I’ve got twenty-five thousand baa-baas in Colorado. I didn’t come on this trip for the money, though half a million ain’t to be snuz at. So you’ll understand that when I gets my share home I’ll be mighty well off. Now can’t you and me frame it up together? Say the word, and I’ll make ’em consent before I gives up the letter telling where the gold is.”

Wilkins paused and waited for an answer. His face was as expressionless as ever, but in spite of himself a tremor crept into his voice. Plainly he was very much in earnest.

Florence, on the other hand, was by no means ready to answer. To keep “him” guessing was one of the cardinal precepts of the school in which she had been trained.

“No,” she answered slowly; “not yet.”

A flush came on the Westerner’s face. “You mean----” he began.

“I mean this ain’t bargain day,” exclaimed the girl impatiently. “I ain’t saying a word against you, but I’ll have to think a long time before I make up my mind. When I do, it won’t be anybody on this yacht that’ll stop me. But I guess I’ll have to leave you on the anxious bench for a while.”

“All right, lady! Take your time.”

“I’m going to. But I’m goin’ to tell you something right now, and that is that I ain’t stuck on this crowd I’m with.”

Wilkins’s jaw dropped. “But your pa----”

“Popper ain’t the man he was. He ain’t nothing but a deuce in this game. He ain’t going to make anything out of it at all. Do you know who is?”

“Them revolutionists, I guess--what ain’t grafted on the way.”

“Well! I’m not in this to help any old revolution. I tell you right now, Mr. Wilkins, that it’s me for the gold if I can get it to Noo York.”

“Ain’t you afraid of them bombovitches?” demanded the man.

“Me! Not in Noo York, I ain’t. In Russia, I ain’t saying.”

A delighted grin came over Wilkins’s face. “Say!” he exclaimed. “You’re all rightski. They tried to scare me with them fellows, and I let ’em think they had, but, Lord sakes, they ain’t troubling me none. If they come to Colorado after me, the Czar’ll have one less to put in his dungeonoffski.”

“Then”--the girl held out her hand--“it’s understood. We’ll stand together. If we get a chance to skiddoo with the gold, we’ll do it. An’ I’ll marry you the day we get it to Noo York.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Black and high, the islands of the Aland Archipelago rise out of the Baltic. All winter long they lie bound about with ice. With the spring, the ice, borne southward by the waking streams of the north, grinds past them, scraping and tearing, rending all that lies in its path. The short summer follows, when the great bowl of the Baltic rocks to the horizon like molten gold; when the black rocks take on a coat of living green; and the sea birds scream as they flash through the surf that breaks against them or tears through the narrow channels between.

On the eastern edge of the archipelago rise two islands, Burndo and Ivono, Siamese twins whose tie has not been wholly severed. The channel between them lies almost east and west and not north and south, and so has been spared the full scour of the annual ice-flood. Cut deep at each seaward end, in the middle it is interrupted by a dike of harder rock that as yet persists against the inevitable and at low tide changes it into two inlets that nearly touch each other.

Into the western inlet, driven by her slowing engines, and urged by waves and tide, the _Orkney_ had sped two years before; had impaled herself upon a sunken rock; and, shuddering backward, had sunk with her crew and her passengers and her million pounds sterling of gold.

No eye had seen her sink. The little fishing village of Burndo, scattered along the western inlet, close to the central neck, had slept soundly, lulled by the roar of the wind. The watchman at the beacon tower on the heights of Ivono Island had dozed, not watching. If cries arose from the sinking ship; if men battled for life in the surf; if the waves hammered and the wind tore, it passed unnoticed. When morning dawned the _Orkney_ lay ten fathoms deep, and the wreckage and bodies belonging to her, caught in the tide, had been swept away toward Copenhagen and the vast Atlantic. Two succeeding winters had torn her masts away and ravished her upper decks of all their superstructure. But the hull lay intact, buried far beneath the green water.

For five days the _Sea Spume_ had lain moored close to the head of the channel, within sight of the village, while the divers searched the bottom hour after hour until the last ray of daylight vanished. One of them was really a scientific assistant, and to him was allotted the task of making such observations and collecting such specimens as would naturally have been desired by Professor Shishkin, had the object of the expedition actually been that which it purported to be. Indeed, so far as the Professor was concerned, the work was conducted in good faith, the researches planned really being in exact line with his long-cherished ambitions.

The other two divers, under direction of Captain Wilson, commander of the _Sea Spume_, who had necessarily been taken into confidence some time before, lost no time in setting about their search for the wreck. In less than half an hour after the _Sea Spume_ was in position, they were hard at work at the bottom of the inlet.

It was not to be expected that the search would be brief. The inlet (or high-tide channel), though comparatively small, was large as compared with the _Orkney_. Its bottom was rocky, with irregular humps and unexpected holes, making search slow and difficult. Even if the unlucky steamer had run upon the beach itself, it must have slipped back and been carried by the current to a greater or less distance--just how far no one could predict. The divers might chance on it at their first descent, or might not discover it for a week or more. And after it was found would come the toilsome task of salvaging the gold. Five million dollars would weigh about ten tons, and, even lightened as it would be by being in the water, it would not be the work of a day to move it, even if it could be readily come at, which was improbable.

The adventurers had laid their plans with a full knowledge of these facts. Had there been any chance of speedy work, they might have tried to conceal their presence, but under the circumstances this would be impossible. Therefore they had resolved to proclaim their presence and even to welcome visitors if any should appear, up to the moment before the gold began to be brought aboard.

Besides the advisability of making their presence known to the authorities, there was always the off-chance that careful watch as the launch sped to and fro in the inlet might disclose the _Orkney_ lying like a dark shadow beneath the water. The fisher boats, of course, had not discovered it, but this argued little, because the boats generally used the other, or eastern, outlet, rather than the western; and further, perhaps, because the fishermen were not looking for anything of the kind.

So soon as possible after the divers had gone below the water, Caruth ordered out a steam launch to make the quarter-mile trip to the head of the inlet and visit the village which he knew lay there, though screened from view of the yacht by a turn in the channel.

Caruth had intended to go to the village alone on the first trip, leaving Marie Fitzhugh (who thought it best not to show herself) and Captain Wilson to superintend affairs on board the yacht and deal with any emergencies that might arise. It was no part of his plan to take Wilkins along, but when that individual joined him, evidently intending to go, he did not quite know how to refuse.

So far, he had no reason to question the plainsman’s good faith. Wilkins had produced his brother’s letter at the time promised, and it had proved to be all that he had claimed for it. Caruth could not risk exciting any animosity by showing unwillingness to trust the man on shore.

Suddenly, in the midst of his hesitation, he recalled the westerner’s marked liking for the pretended Olga Shishkin, and at once sought out that young woman and invited her to go on the trip to the village.

“You’ll be doing us all a favor if you’ll come, Miss Shishkin,” he urged. “Of course we are all loyal and all that, but”--he dropped his voice--“none of us know very much about Wilkins, and it would make things a good deal safer for your father and the rest of us if you’d go along and keep an eye on him. He’s all right, you know, but----”

“But you’re on the anxious bench all the same. I know how it is myself. Sure! I’ll go with pleasure, Mr. Caruth.”

The run up to the village was brief, and soon the launch grated against a little wooden pier and disembarked her passengers, who started toward the cluster of buildings that seemed to constitute the village.

“There’s the church and the store and the post-office and the mayor’s house,” explained Caruth, pointing out the several edifices. “There’s no mistaking any of them, once you know the type. I’ll have to go to the mayor first, to report my arrival, and give him a chance to inform St. Petersburg. You needn’t come in unless you like. It will take only a few minutes, and then we can see the town.”

By the time the party had reached the village, quite a little crowd had collected. Visitors are few on Burndo Island, and the news of their coming spread apace. Curious faces appeared at doors and windows, and gaping children lined the way.

Caruth vanished into the house of the mayor, where he found that his business would take a much longer time than he had expected. The mayor, a stupid and suspicious peasant, spoke no English, and Caruth spoke no Russian, and there was a delay until an interpreter could be found.

This interpreter proved to be a slim fellow, whose appearance, despite the fact that his features were hidden by a profusion of beard, nevertheless impressed Caruth with a vague sense of familiarity. For an instant, indeed, the young fellow was sure that he had seen the man before; the next moment, however, he dismissed the idea as preposterous.

But he quickly adverted to his former feeling when the interpreter addressed him in very good American.

“Mornin’, Cap’n,” he said, with a nod. “This old son of a gun wants to know who you are and what you want here, anyhow.”

Caruth gave his name and explained the object of his trip; then added: “Who are you? You talk like an American.”

“American! Well, I guess yes! Me for the starry banner every time. I’m from little old Noo York; I am. But wait a minute till I tell his pie-face what you say.”

He turned and translated what Caruth had said into halting Russian, and then appeared to render into English something that the Mayor said in return.

“He says you are a liar or crazy,” he translated cheerfully. “He puts it kinder easier, but that’s what it means all right. Say, that yarn you told me about hunting things at the bottom of the bay is straight, I suppose.”

“Of course it’s straight.”

“Well, I’ll try to sneeze it to him again, though I ain’t much on the Russian. It tastes too much like it sounds, and that’s enough. Say! I suppose you belong to the safety vault crowd and have barrels of simoleons at home!”

Caruth flushed; then laughed. The man’s impudence was refreshing. “Well,” he admitted, “I’ve got enough to keep me going.”

“I guessed so. Wait a minute. I must keep the old geezer satisfied.” He turned and for a moment the language of the Czar held the floor. Finally the man resumed.

“It’s that touch of yours about rising sea bottoms that gets him,” he explained. “He says he’s lived here all his life and never saw the sea-bottom rise yet, ’cept when the tide goes out. It’s a tough sort of a gag to spring on one of these two-by-four government officers what rank somewhere between jack high and a bobtail flush and is intelligenced according. Not but what I reckon it’s true enough. But about this here question of wealth. If you’ve got it to burn, I don’t reckon you’d care to pyramid it a million or so, would you?”

Caruth was startled, his unquiet conscience making him suspect that everything any one said to him had reference to his true errand.

“I don’t know,” he answered cautiously. “What have you got? A gold mine?”

The man laughed shortly. “A gold mine!” he echoed. “A gold mine! Well, I guess you might call it that. What I want to know is, do you care to go in on it? Or if you don’t, will you help out an American marooned on this durned holeski?”

Caruth nodded uneasily. “Oh, I suppose so,” he answered slowly. “I’m always willing to help a fellow countryman. But you’ll have to explain.” The man nodded. “I’ll explain all right,” he promised. “But you’ve got to answer all the questions on this sheet of paper first or you’ll have the Czarski in your hairski.”

The questions were long and tedious, and when they were finished Caruth rose with a sigh of relief.

The interpreter rose also. “I’ve told his joblots that you want me to show you round the mud puddle,” he explained. “That’ll give me a chance to spiel. Come along.”

The two walked to the door. As they walked out, Wilkins met them. “Miss Shishkin’s looking at the church,” he explained. “She’s----”

He broke off and his face grew red, then white, as his eyes fell on the interpreter. Once or twice he swallowed; then coughed. “D---- that Russian tobacco!” he exclaimed. “It’s been strangling me ever since I sniffed it half an hour ago.”

Caruth, who had waited smilingly till the plainsman recovered, glanced toward the church. “Shall we go over and join Miss Shishkin?” he suggested. “I’ve got an interpreter here who can---- Hello! what’s become of the fellow?”

The interpreter had vanished. In the few instants that Caruth’s attention was centred on Wilkins, he had slipped away, probably around one of the houses that stood close by. At first Caruth supposed that the disappearance would be but temporary, but as the minutes went by without sign, he was forced to conclude that it was both permanent and intentional.

When at last doubt no longer remained, the young fellow laughed angrily. “Let him go, confound him!” he exclaimed. “He was half crazy, anyhow. Come! Let’s go to the church.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Neither Wilkins nor Florence had waited long for Caruth to return. In fact, that gentleman had scarcely vanished into the mayor’s office when Florence had turned to her companion.

“Gee!” she remarked. “Me for the breakaway. These high-brows gets on me nerves. Let’s see the town--even if it ain’t all to the giddy, it’s better than the old boat. Gee! but it’s slow!” Miss Lee, it will be observed, was glad to pretermit, when opportunity offered, the forms of polite speech that she was rapidly acquiring.

Wilkins looked at her suspiciously. “You ain’t seemed in no ways bored,” he suggested.

“Oh, I got to put up a front, of course,” rejoined the girl indifferently; “but if it wasn’t for you, I guess I’d fade away. This style of life’s all right for those that likes it, I guess, but it’s me for Coney Island every time.”

They had reached the church now and were peering in at the open door. Miss Lee was not impressed; she had seen Russian churches in her beloved New York, and mentally compared them with this one, much to its disadvantage. Wilkins, however, found it all new and interesting. The candles ranged before the icons, the gilt and glass of the altar, the tawdry trappings, all impressed him, and he advanced into the building, studying its details.

[Illustration: “PARDON, MADEMOISELLE! I MUST SPEAK TO YOU SECRETLY”]

Scarcely had he left the girl when a man dressed in the habiliments of a priest stepped to her side, holding out his hat, as if for alms. As Florence stared at him, he muttered swiftly, in excellent English:

“Pardon, mademoiselle! I must speak to you secretly. You have been deceived. You are not Professor Shishkin’s daughter. You are a princess of Russia with a huge fortune. I have come from St. Petersburg to talk with you. Give me a chance, I beg.”

Miss Lee turned away. “Say, Mr. Wilkins,” she called. “I left my jacket in the boat. Would you mind chasin’ down and gettin’ it for me? I’ll wait here for you.”

When the plainsman had gone, Florence turned to the priest. “Make good,” she ordered briefly. “You look like the Caliph of Bagdad, and I guess you can do the magic. If I’m a face-card instead of a two-spot, of course I want to know it.”

The priest did not answer Florence’s speech in words. Turning, he stepped to the door and threw out his hand. “Begone!” he shouted to the curious crowd, and at the word it melted away.

Then he came back. “Will you not be seated, Princess?” he inquired courteously, pointing toward a bench that stood against the wall. “I regret that I have no better accommodation to offer you, but----”

Florence took the seat. “Cut it out,” she advised. “Get on with the fairy tale.”

The priest removed his cap and threw back his vestments, revealing himself as a well-preserved, courtly gentleman of perhaps fifty years of age. Beautiful white hair curled about his brow, while his beard and mustaches were the pink of military perfection. Florence, studying him furtively, found him very good to look upon. To her he represented romance, aristocracy, refinement--all that she had never had in her sordid life. He was too old to play Prince Charming, she concluded, but he was of the type to which she believed Prince Charming belonged.

Meanwhile the priest was seating himself. “No fairy tale. Princess,” he contradicted deferentially--“unless we liken it to Cinderella and transform the beautiful, wronged young lady into the princess. Rather let us call it a masquerade. I am not what I seem. You are not what you seem. Your whole expedition is not what it seems. We are all masked. But the time for unmasking is at hand.”

Florence stared at him languidly. “I suppose you know what you mean,” she remarked insolently. “But I don’t.”

“How should you until I explain? First, Princess, I am not a priest.”

“I knew it. What are you? A wizard?”

“I am Baron Ivan Demidroff, chief of the third section of the Russian police. Perhaps you know what that means. Your yacht has been watched ever since it entered the Baltic, and I am here for the express purpose of meeting you. If I may advise, Princess, it is not well to scoff always. This affair is not one for laughter.”

“Oh, splash! Excuse these tears of regret!” mocked the girl. “Go ahead! I’ll be good.”

For a moment the Baron studied the girl’s face. Then he shrugged his shoulders. Privately he was revising his former opinions about American training and manners. He had not met Florence’s type before.

“You have always supposed yourself the daughter of Professor Shishkin, have you not, Princess?” he questioned.

Florence dodged. “Well, I got a right to,” she answered. “He told me so himself.”

“I know. He did you a grave injustice. Listen, Princess! Twenty years ago, the man you suppose to be your father engaged in a plot to murder my imperial master the Czar. The plot was detected, and its authors were thrown into prison. Three years after, Shishkin escaped. In some way he had gotten the idea that his highness, the Grand Duke Ivan, had been responsible for his arrest. It was not true, but he believed it. So he slipped into the palace of the Grand Duke and stole away his daughter, the Princess Yves Napraxine. He escaped with her to America and passed her off as his daughter. You were that child! You were and are that princess, Yves Napraxine, daughter of the late Grand Duke Ivan, cousin to his imperial majesty the Czar, and heiress to a great fortune. All this would have been yours from birth up had not that wicked old man stolen you away and robbed you of it.”

Florence closed her eyes. She felt faint. Ever since Professor Shishkin had approached her in New York, she had been wondering to what the adventure would lead. Naturally romantic, in spite of her flippancy, she had thought out half a dozen possible terminations, the least of which left her rich and honored. But never in her wildest imaginings had she dreamed of being identified as a princess and a cousin of the Czar.

A delightful excitement raced through her veins. In imagination she was already receiving homage and declining the hands of great nobles. Then, all at once, the “pipe went out.” None of this could be hers. It all belonged to the real Olga, married and settled three thousand miles away. The truth must of course soon appear; all she could do was to get all the pleasure possible out of the situation while it lasted. Perhaps she might manage to feather her nest by that time.

Her thoughts flew to the Professor. So this was the reason why he had wanted to keep the real Olga out of Russia? He had dreaded just such a disclosure as this. Well, she would help him as long as she could--that is, as long as his interests did not clash with hers. When they did, of course----

The Baron had been watching her closely, trying to read her changing face.

“Ah ha!” he exclaimed. “You understand now perhaps some things you could not guess before. Perhaps you remember details of your childhood, almost forgotten. You were three years old when you were stolen, and some recollection sticks in your mind. Is it not so?”

“Yes, some recollection sticks in my mind.” Florence wondered grimly what the Baron would say if he knew what her recollections really were.

“The villain has robbed you of your birthright,” he repeated, with what seemed to be rising wrath. “But now it shall all be restored. Yes!”

Florence nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The situation was too new and strange, and she must move circumspectly. Besides, she was certain the Baron had more to say. She had been taught in a hard school, and was very sure that his actions were not disinterested. So she merely waited.

Baron Demidroff did not delay. “Yes,” he reiterated. “It shall all be restored, and the robber shall be punished. But there is more to tell, Princess. To whom, think you, belongs the gold for which the _Sea Spume_ is seeking?”

“What gold?” Florence looked innocently into the Baron’s eyes. She would admit nothing until compelled to do so.

“What gold? _Mon Dieu_, Princess, do you think we police are fools? Every step of the so-called Miss Fitzhugh and of Monsieur Caruth has been known to us. Almost we captured the letter on the fire-escape in New York. But _Monsieur le valet_ was too cunning for us.”

Florence raised her eyes. “So,” she murmured thoughtfully, “it was your agents who murdered Wilkins?”

“Executed him, Princess. He was a robber and a murderer, with a long criminal record. We knew him well. His robbery of Monsieur Caruth was his last crime. My men observed him from the fire-escape and acted summarily. That is all.”

Florence did not understand half of this. She had been told nothing of Wilkins’s murder, her only knowledge being inferred from what his brother had said to her about it three days before. She laid away in her mind the information the Baron so freely imparted, and waited.

“So you let the letter get by you,” she suggested.

The Baron flung up his hands. “Alas, yes, Princess. But we watched and waited, and when Miss Fitzhugh organized her little expedition, we guessed that she had somehow gotten the letter. But, _mademoiselle, revenons à nos moulons_! Do you know whose gold it is they seek?”

Florence shook her head.

“It is yours! Yes, Princess, I swear it. Your illustrious father had never given up the hope of finding you, and when he died, ten years ago, his will directed that his estate should be set aside for you or be spent in seeking for you. When Russia’s needs became great owing to the war with Japan, my imperial master directed that money be borrowed for the government on your English estates. If you were found, he would pay it back; if you were not found, the estate would in time revert to the Crown. That gold was carried by the _Orkney_, wrecked by the nihilists, and is now being stolen from you by your pretended father and his rascally associates. It makes one’s blood boil, Princess!”

For obvious reasons, Florence’s blood did not boil quite so ardently as the Baron’s seemed to do. Plainly he was trying to excite her animosity against the members of her party, for reasons not yet disclosed, but not difficult to guess in a general way. She was sure that he was preparing to ask her to play traitor, and she was debating inwardly whether or not she would find it profitable to do so.

“It’s a real fervent tale,” she remarked encouragingly. “Gee! wouldn’t it make a hit on the ten-twent’-thirt’ circuit. Think of the Czarski doing the hands-across-the-sea act to an American girl! By the way, I forgot how you said you found me!”

Baron Demidroff hesitated. “It is a long story,” he boggled. “We got a hint from a friend of ours in the nihilist councils, and we followed it up. The proofs were completed only after your party sailed from America. The last Unit came by cable a few days ago.”

Florence rose. “Well,” she said, “if it satisfies you, I certainly ain’t got any kick coming. But I guess you’d better get down to brass tacks and be done with it. Do I get this estate and princely rank, or don’t I? Talk business! I’m no ingénue.”

The Baron’s eyes lighted up. At last he thought he understood. He rose. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “You will treat with us! That is well. You will get everything if you help us! We want that gold. The Emperor is responsible to you for it, and he has charged us to recover it. Is it in the Inlet here?”

“You can search me!”

“What?”

“Oh, gee, I don’t know! Nobody knows! They’re hunting for it here, but I don’t think they’re certain it ain’t somewhere else.”

“Didn’t the letter tell?”

“I haven’t seen any letter.”

“Ah!” The Baron was disappointed. “Well, no matter!” he went on. “You can help me nevertheless. Let me know when they find it, and I will do the rest. The moment it is in my hands, I will hand you the proofs that will make you a princess and give you a fortune of forty million rubles--twenty million American dollars. Will you help us?”

Florence shivered with delight. If she were clever, she might coax some of those twenty millions to come her way. But matters were still decidedly vague.

“Why can’t you seize the yacht now?” she asked. “Why do you need my help?”

“My dear young lady!” the Baron exclaimed. “We do not know where the wreck is! We do not know that she is in this inlet at all. It may be for a blind that the yacht comes here. If we seize her before she finds the gold, we know nothing and we get nothing. Mr. Caruth he draw himself up. ‘Ah ha!’ he cries. ‘You insult the American flag!’ The American newspapers raise the--the war-whoop--and we--we can answer nothing. We have no proof. But when the gold is once aboard, we get it and we can catch Mr. Caruth red-handed. He is caught stealing our gold. He can say nothing. If he makes trouble, the American papers are dumb or they take our side. Russia’s friendship with America is not disturbed. It is only a pirate that is caught. Ah, no, no, Princess. We must proceed slowly. We must know our ground before we move. We must wait until the gold is found. Now what say you?”

Florence considered. Clearly, nothing was to be gained by refusing the Baron outright. She must have time to decide on her course of action. If it appeared best to betray the yacht, she would not hesitate to do so; but she had no intention of playing the traitor unless she saw her profit. She must study over the situation. Meanwhile, she would appear to accept.

“All right,” she said briefly. “I’ll go with you. I’ll let you know when the gold is found. How’ll I do it?”

If Baron Demidroff was gratified, he did not show it. He was no longer treating Florence as a girl, but as a woman and a fellow conspirator.

“Your stateroom is the second on the port side, I believe,” he said tersely. “Very well. When the gold is found, hang a small red flag from your port-hole or show a red light there by night. It is understood? Yes? But your friend approaches. _Adieu, Madame la Princesse!_”

As he walked up the aisle toward the altar, Miss Lee rose to greet Wilkins. “Gee!” she exclaimed. “Let’s get back on board. This place is as dead as a puddle duckski!”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Three days after Florence’s adventure at the church, that young woman sat on the quarter-deck of the _Sea Spume_, gazing with unseeing eyes over the lapping water which the descending sun had turned into a golden river stretching away to the west. Upon this yellow flood two boats were moving, and on these Miss Lee’s eyes were fixed.

But her thoughts were far away. Not once since Baron Demidroff had told his amazing tale had its substance been out of her ears. Again and again she had gone over the details, wondering if by any chance she could make the fairy tale come true.

In time she almost persuaded herself that she could. She was sure that she understood at last why the Professor had not wanted to bring his daughter to Russia. He had been afraid of this very thing--afraid lest Olga’s relatives should find her and reclaim her. More than ever now, he would want to keep the substitution secret. And no one else knew of it.

Florence’s heart leaped within her as the possibilities danced before her mind’s eye. Let her only dare to go ahead and she would have money and wealth. Why not?

A princess! Sharply she drew her breath at the thought. A princess! She! Florence Lee! She who had faced beggary a few short weeks before! Princess Yves Napraxine! Princess Yves Napraxine! Again and again she wrote the words on the flyleaf of a book that lay in her lap. Princess Yves Napraxine! If it could be! If it could be!

A step on the deck aroused her. Hastily she closed the book, with its tell-tale writing, and looked up to see Wilkins close at hand.

Rapidly he strode to the rail and gazed toward the boats; then he turned abruptly back and sat down beside the girl.

“They’re getting mighty contiguous,” he declared. “I reckon they’ll oscillate on it to-night. Well, it don’t matter; everything’s ready.”

Curiously Miss Lee gazed at him. “What in the world are you talking about?” she demanded.

Wilkins withdrew his eyes from the dancing water and fixed them on the girl. For a moment he looked her in the face; then he deliberately winked.

Miss Lee struck at him. “Don’t get fresh,” she ordered severely. “I don’t allow gentlemen to wink at me except over a cold bottle. Speak out and quit making signs.”

Wilkins chuckled. “Say! You’re all to the good,” he remarked. “I’m ready if you are.”

“Ready for what?”

“To foreclose on that there promissory note of yourn--that one about the gold. I’m ready to start for New York if you are. Fact is, I’m off to-night!”

“To-night!”

“Sure thing! It’s me for the broad Atlantic by the light of the moon this very night. Say, don’t you want to shake this gang and come along?”

The girl paled slightly. “Tell me what you mean right away,” she ordered crisply.

Wilkins pointed over the water. “You see that right-hand boat pronouncin’ around yonder?” he questioned. “Well, near’s my specification goes, the _Orkney_ lies just about under her. Unless they’re too terrible promiscuous, they’ll find her mighty soon, and then there’ll be goings on worse’n a locoed bronco.”

“How do you know?” The girl was leaning over him, every muscle tense with excitement. “How do you know where the _Orkney_ is, and why will there be trouble when it is found?” she demanded.

“Because--say, I guess you didn’t see a slim, limpy fellow with a black hirsute adornment on his chin up in the village the day we was up there, did you? Well, that fellow was Bill, my brother Bill, the one that wrote the epizootle that brung us here. He wasn’t drowned in the _Orkney_--Bill wasn’t born to be drowned. Everybody else was, but he got on terra cotta, and he’s been hibernating here ever since, waiting his chance to get away with the gold.”

“The gold!”

“Yes! Bill’s got it. How he done it, I don’t know. But he’s got it. Bill’s a man of his hands, Bill is! He’s got all them nuggets out of the ship and cached ’em ashore. There ain’t a speck of dust left on the _Orkney_. Bill’s got it all!”

Amazement gripped Florence and held her dumb. The gold whose capture was to be the price of proofs of her princesshood had passed into other hands. What was she to do? There was no time to lose. Should she betray Wilkins to Caruth or to the Baron? How could she betray him to the Baron even if she wanted to? Should she grasp at the money and let the visionary rank go. She did not question whether she should be true to Professor Shishkin. Long before, she had decided that question.

Abruptly she spoke. “Well, what are you going to do?” she demanded.

“Going to run the gold off, of course,” returned the plainsman. “Bill’s got a boat of sorts--a schooner or pergola or something--and he’s got the gold on board by now. I’ve staked him to buy provisions, and we’re off to-night. Bill would have gone before, but he’s been crippled up since the wreck, and couldn’t manage the boat alone. But it’s all skeeky now. The scow’s lying up here a ways, just a-waiting for dark and for you and me to join her. If it coincides with your sentiments, we’ll do the fly away act to-night. Will you come?”

Miss Lee considered. Of course it would be delightful to be a princess, but, after all, there might be a string tied to Demidroff’s offer, while there was something substantial about five million dollars in gold. It might be well to pass up the fairy tale and close with Wilkins. She must consider.

“You can’t cross the Atlantic in a sloop,” she objected.

“Ain’t going to try. We’ll just run over the way to Stockholm to a place Bill knows of, and go home from there by steamer. Oh, we’ve got it all diagnosed out proper. It’s a cinch.”

“But”--Florence was thinking aloud--“how are you goin’ to get away from the yacht?”

“That’s fixed, too. Bill will float down under the cabin windows about ten o’clock, just before the moon gets on the job, and we’ll drop in on him.”

“But when they find we’re gone----”

“Let ’em find. What difference does it make? They may aspirate to get this here gold, but that don’t make it theirs. Bill and me’s got it, and I guess we’ll keep it. Why, say, there ain’t one of ’em’ll dare to baa even if they find us, which they won’t. Oh, it’s a cinch.”

“Perhaps! And yet--say, Mr. Wilkins, you’ve been on the level with me, and I’m going to treat you likewise. Don’t you be too sure you’ve got a cinch! There’s others besides the folks on this yacht that’s after that gold.”

Wilkins did not speak, but he looked the girl in the eye and waited for her to go on.

“The Russian cops are onto their jobs all right. They know what we’re after, and they’re watching us all the time. They’re ready to swoop down on us the minute we get the gold on board. I guess they’ve got a dozen boats lying around here.”

Wilkins looked thoughtful. “Humph!” he said. “You’re all to the good, you are. You ain’t been wasting no time, have you? How’d you find out?”

“The priest! That day at the church. He wanted me to help him.”

“And you strung him along, all right, didn’t you? You would, of course!” He paused, then went on. “Well,” he remarked; “I don’t reckon it makes no difference. They won’t be suspecting a fishing schooner of any allusions, and they won’t be aggravatin’ us none. They’ll be keepin’ their optics trained on the yacht circumspectious. We can slip out easy. Is it a go?”

Florence held out her hand. “It’s a go,” she agreed. “More! I’ll help you to get away. I’ll fix things so that the yacht won’t have any time to bother us. Yes, it’s a go. And now----”

Swiftly Florence opened the book that lay in her lap and ripped out the flyleaf with its princely inscription. Swiftly she tore it into tiny fragments and tossed it to the breeze that sang through the rigging. “There!” she cried, as the bits besprinkled the water. “That’s the end of the Princess Yves Napraxine. It’s a go.”

“The Princess which?”

“Somebody you never heard of. A bird in the bush. A dream of the impossible. A romance from the _Chambermaid’s Own_. Let her go. I’ll be ready when you are.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

That night the wreck was found. Seated in the cabin, close beside the telephone that led over the side down to the divers toiling beneath the darkening water, Caruth received the thrilling news.

Instantly hoarse orders rang through the ship, and the crew sprang to their stations. The furnace doors were flung open and brawny stokers hurled coal upon the banked fires until the hiss of steam told that the _Sea Spume_ was ready to race for the open sea the moment the gold was on board.

Below, the divers were picking their way over the sunken hull, seeking the storage place of the treasure.

Above, at the telephones, stood Caruth and Marie Fitzhugh, cheeks flushed and eyes a-sparkle.

“At last! At last!” breathed the girl; and “At last! At last!” echoed Caruth.

His tones penetrated to the girl’s consciousness, and she blushed brightly. In the triumph of her cause, she had forgotten that Caruth’s object and hers were not the same.

She blushed, but she did not draw away. After all, if she were fated to give herself for Russia, to sell herself to Caruth in return for his help in the cause of freedom, the sacrifice would not be so very hard. Indeed, it might not be hard at all. If policy were to govern her mating, this clean-limbed, clean-thinking young American would be a better mate than many a one who had sought her in the past. The Brotherhood must decide; she had sworn herself body and soul to its orders; but she found herself suddenly hoping that the Brotherhood might find Caruth’s claims worthy.

Smilingly she looked into the young man’s eyes. “Not yet,” she murmured. “Not yet. We are not out of the woods yet, and until we are you must remember your promise.”

“My promise?”

“To give all your thoughts to the business in hand. Not to make love to me. Not to----”

“Great Cæsar’s Ghost! You don’t call this making love, do you? With you half a mile away across the cabin, and me with this telephone harness on my head. Just you wait and----” Excitedly he devoured her with his eyes.

Brightly she blushed, and restlessly she moved. Then she pressed a button on the wall. “I am going to send for Mr. Wilkins and Miss Shishkin to come and hear the news with us,” she explained. “We owe Mr. Wilkins an apology for distrusting him.”

When the steward entered, she sent him to find the two and ask them to come to the cabin.

When the man had gone, Caruth looked at her and laughed. “Yes,” he agreed, “I guess I owe Wilkins an apology, but I could make it later just as well as now. I’m inclined to think that Miss Shishkin has had more to do with his good faith than anything else, anyhow. Queer girl, isn’t she, to be the Professor’s daughter. Not the sort I should have expected at all.”