For an instant, and an instant only, her courage failed her, and, burying her face in her hands, she wept like a child. Herein I think she gave expression to that pent-up anguish she had so long supported silently and alone. I did not seek to comfort her, did not answer a word to her piteous entreaty. The circumstances of her rescue must, in the end, be their own answer to her fears, I thought.
“We will not speak of it, Joan,” I said gently. “It was a clever thought to hide yourself in the boat, and I wonder it occurred to you. Of course I should have been disappointed if I had been wrong. Directly they told me that you were not on the ship, I guessed that you had jumped down into one of the neglected boats, and that Okyada would find you there. That is a fellow who reads my mind more clearly than I can read it myself. He is the true wizard. We must keep Okyada always with us when we go back to the old home in England, Joan. I would not lose him for all the riches on your Diamond Ship and more. Yes, indeed, we must never part with Okyada.”
This was said with some meaning, and Joan Fordibras would have been unworthy of the cleverness with which I credited her had the intent of it failed. She understood me instantly—I knew that it would be so.
“I must go to Paris,” she rejoined with a dignity inseparable from such an answer. “General Fordibras will be waiting for me there. I must go to him, Dr. Ean. It was never his intention to send me on the ship—no, I will do him the justice to say that. They tricked me into going—Mr. Imroth and those with him. My father would have taken me back to America. He promised me that the day I went to Valley House. I believe that he was in earnest—he has never told me a lie.”
“A point in his favour and one of the best. Then it was the Jew who took you away that night my friends saved me! I should have thought of that. I should have guessed as much.”
Insensibly, you will see, I had been leading her to tell me the whole story of her life since we had been separated at Valley House. Her determination to go to Paris I found worthy of her attitude since the beginning; her loyalty to this arch-villain, Fordibras, remained amazing in its consistency. After all, I remembered, this man had shown her some kindness, and, in a sense, had acted a father’s part toward her. I did not believe that he had intended deliberately to brand her with the crimes his agents had committed. That had been the Jew’s work—the work of a man who was the very keystone of this stupendous conspiracy. I could not blame Joan because she had the wit to see it.
“You will remember that it was after dinner, Dr. Ean, and I had gone up to my room,” she said, replying to my question. “I had been there perhaps half an hour when the old servant, who used to wait on me, came up and said that my father was waiting for me in the gardens. I ran down at once, and followed her to the mountain gate, which the General alone made use of. There I met the negro, who said that I must accompany him to the observatory which is on the cliffs, as you know. I did not suspect anything; why should I? My father was often at the observatory with Mr. Imroth, and I imagined that they had some good news for me. That was a child’s thought, but I am not ashamed of it. No sooner had we passed the tunnel than two of the sailors ran up from the cliff road and told us that the General had gone on board the yacht, and that I must follow him. It was a trick, of course. The yacht was waiting for me, but the General was not on board her. I was helpless in their hands, and we sailed that night to join the Ellida——”
“The Ellida! So that is the name of their ship. The Hebrew is a bit of a sage, it appears. Was not the Ellida the ship of Frithjof in the fable, and did not it understand every word he spoke? A clever hit. They would name him for a Norwegian and neglect to be suspicious. I see the point of it, and admit his sagacity. He took you with him, not meaning any harm to you, but principally to frighten me. Well, Joan, I should not have been frightened, but it would be untrue to tell you that I have so much sense. There are hours when most men lose their courage. I lost mine entirely upon the night when they signalled a message concerning you. If I had been somebody else, I should have seen at once that it was mere sound and fury, signifying nothing. You, I suppose, were comfortably in your cabin sleeping meanwhile. That is generally the story—one of two in a frenzy of anxiety, and the other quietly sleeping. Let us say no more about it. The circumstances will never recur, I trust, if we live for a thousand years—an unnecessary piece of emphasis, young as my Joan is.”
I had brought a smile to her face now, and she began to tell me many things about the Jew’s ship which, otherwise, I am convinced, would never have been told at all. There were thirty-two so-called passengers on board, she said, eleven of them women—and a crew, as she heard, of fifty hands. The smallness of this did not surprise me. Here was a ship which rarely went into port, a great hulk floating in the waste of the Atlantic—what need had she of men? The fellows idled about the deck all day, as Joan confessed, and at night there were scenes passing all words to describe.
“We lived as you live in the great hotels in London. Ships came to us frequently from England and America, and supplied us with all that was necessary. Mr. Imroth rarely saw anyone, but the others played cards all day, and when they did not play cards they quarrelled. Then at night all the cabins would be lighted up, and there would be dancing and singing and dreadful scenes until daybreak. While Mr. Imroth was on the ship I saw very little of it all. He made me keep my cabin, and he was right to do so. When he left us, it was very different. I remember that a young Russian fell in love with me the first day I went on deck—there were others of whom I cannot speak, and moments I shall never forget. Mr. Ross was very kind, but he had not Mr. Imroth’s influence with the men. When he came on board, Mr. Imroth sailed for the Brazils, and the mutiny began. Some of the men wished to go ashore; there were others who would have waited for their companions who were coming out from Europe on a relief ship. Then one night the alarm was given that your yacht had arrived and was watching us. Mr. Imroth had told the men all about you, and when you were sighted, I believe they thought that there were other ships with you, and that their end had come. From that night it was one long scene of terror and bloodshed. I lived—I cannot tell you of it, Dr. Ean; you would never believe what I have seen and heard.”
I told her that I could well understand what had happened. When rogues fall out and there are women among them, then, assuredly, do men lose the image of their humanity, and take upon them that of devils. The scenes upon the ship must have defied all measured description. I could imagine the shrieks of women, the oaths and fury of the beaten criminals, the terror of the seamen, the long nights of drunkenness and debauch, the fury of combat—above all the rage and madness against the man who had contrived all this. What would my life have been worth amongst these men if I had gone aboard them before the battle had been lost or won, or the hour of their extremity had arrived. That little Joan herself had escaped the more awful penalty remained a wonder of the night. I could but be sensible of a gratitude to the providence of Almighty God which had saved her—from what a fate!
“I must teach you to forget it, Joan,” I said; “the homelands of England will help you to blot out these memories. It is too early yet to say exactly what course we must take; we have so much to learn and the time is short. But we are homeward bound now, and never again will there be a home for me where little Joan is not. That is what I have to say to you to-night. There will be sunshine to-morrow, Joan, and we will see the new day together. The world could give me no greater happiness.”
She did not answer me. I knew that she was thinking of the sorrow of her own life, and telling herself that she could never be my wife until the mystery of her birth and infancy were mine to judge. And this was the malice of it—that the men who could solve that mystery were criminals both, fleeing from justice, and as likely to seek a meeting with me as to vaunt before the world the story of their crimes.