"And otherwise?"
He smiled cruelly, and his eyes danced when he answered—
"Otherwise, you would give all you possessed if I would shoot you now as you sit; but don't let us look at it that way. You must see that your case is utterly hopeless; you will never look again on any civilised city, or see the face of a man you have known. For all purposes you are as dead as though twenty feet of earth covered you. If you would still have life, not altogether under unfavourable conditions, you have but to ask for pen, ink, and paper—and to make yourself one of us."
"That I will never do!"
"Oh, you say that now; but we shall give you some days to think of it. Let me advise you to be a man of common sense, and not to run your head against a stone wall. Believe me, we are a curious company; I don't suppose there is a man aboard us who has not some deaths to his account. I am wanted for a murder in Shropshire; but I am giving your people a little trouble. Ha! ha!"
This was said with such a fearful laugh that I shrank back from the man, who restrained himself with an effort as he rose to go; but as he stood at the door, he said—
"We are now bound on a four-days' voyage. During these four days, you need fear nothing. We should have paid off our score in the Atlantic, and sent you and your fellows to join other intrusive friends of ours, if we had not wished to get this little account of yours. So don't disturb yourself unnecessarily until Captain Black puts the question to you. Then, if you are foolish, you had better feed your courage. I have seen stronger men than you who have cried out for death when we had but put our fingers on them; and we shall do you full honour—in fact, we shall treat you royally."
When he was gone, I thought that he had spoken with truth. To all my friends I was as dead as though twenty feet of earth lay on my body. What hope had I, shut in that grave of steel? What friend could hear me, battened in that prison on the sea? Should I tell the men frankly all I knew, and crave their mercy, or should I seek hope in the pretence that Roderick had information which might yet be fatal to them? I thought the position out, and this was the sum of it. These men had a home somewhere. If I had known where that home was, and had communicated the knowledge to Roderick, then the Governments of Europe could bring the ruffian crew to book with little difficulty. That, without a doubt was the question Black would put to me. He would wish to know all I knew; but, if I refused to tell him, he would proceed to extremes, and I shuddered when I remembered what his extremes had been in the case of Hall. The man undoubtedly had conceived a scheme daring beyond any known in the nineteenth century. The knowledge of his hiding-place was the key to his safety. If Roderick had it, then, indeed, I might have looked for life; but I knew that Hall had never discovered it, and what hope had Roderick where the greater skill had failed?
This consideration led me to one conclusion. I would pretend that I had some knowledge, and that my friends had it too. If that did not save my life, God alone could help me, and the home of Captain Black would be my grave. Nor did I know in any case that I had much expectation of life in such surroundings or in such company.
CHAPTER XVI.
NORTHWARD HO!
During some days I saw no more of the doctor, or of anyone about the ship save an old negro, who became my servant. He was not an unkindly-looking man, being of a great age, and somewhat feeble in his actions; but he never opened his lips when I questioned him, and gave a plain "Yes" or "No" to any demand. Those days would have been monotonous, had it not been for the ever-present sense of coming danger, of a future dark and threatening, likely to be fruitful in trial and in peril. Each morning at an early hour the age-worn black entered my cabin and told me that my bath was ready. When I was dressed, a breakfast, generous in quality and in quantity, was set upon my cabin table. At one o'clock luncheon of like excellence was served; and again at five o'clock and at eight, tea and dinner. Some thought evidently was given to my condition, for on the second morning I found clean linen with a neat suit of blue serge awaiting me in the bathroom, and when I had breakfasted, the black brought a parcel of books to me; I found amongst them, to my satisfaction, several light works by Bret Harte, Mark Twain, and Max Adeler, as well as more solid literary food. The books saved me from much of that foreboding which I should have known wanting them, and after the first fears had passed I spent the hours in reading or looking through the port-hole over the deserted waste of a fretful sea. I had hoped to learn something of our destination from this diligent watching of the waves; but for the first forty hours, at any rate, I saw nothing—not so much as a small ship—though it felt much colder; and again on the third day the lower temperature was yet more marked, so that I welcomed fresh and warmer clothing which the negro brought me for my bed; and observed with satisfaction that there were means within the ship for heating the cabin during the daytime.
It must have been on the fourth day after my capture that the nameless ship, which hitherto had not been speeding at an abnormal pace, began to go very fast, the rush of water from the head of her rising frequently above my port, and permitting but rare views of the distant horizon. The greater speed was sustained during that day until the first dog-watch, when I was disturbed in my reading by the consciousness that the ship had stopped, and that there was great agitation on deck. I looked from my window and observed the cause of the confusion, for there, ahead of us a mile or more, was one of the largest icebergs I have ever seen. The mighty mass, from whose sides the water was rushing as in little cataracts, towered above the sea to a height of four or five hundred feet, rising up in three snow-white pinnacles which caught the crimson light of the sinking sun and gave it back in prismatic hues, all dazzling and beautiful. As a great island of ice, all rich in waving colour and superb majesty, the berg passed on, and the screw of the steamer was heard again. I watched intently, hoping to see other bergs, or, indeed, any ships that should tell me how far we had gone towards the north; but the night fell suddenly, and the negro served dinner, asking me if I had warmth enough? My curt answer seemed to astonish him; but the truth was that I was thinking of the man Paolo's words when sick upon my own ship. He had cried, "Ice, ice," more than once in his delirium; but none of us then had the meaning of his cry. Yet I had it, and with it a notion of the second secret of Captain Black. For surely he was running to hiding; and his hiding-place lay to the north, far above the course even of Canadian-bound vessels, as I knew by the number of days we had been steaming.
This new surmise on strange openings did not in any way combat the terror which visited me so often in that floating prison. Every day, indeed, seemed to take me farther from humanity, from friends, from the lands and the peoples of civilisation. Every day confirmed me in the thought that I was hopelessly in this man's grip, the victim of his mercy, or his rigour; that none would know of my end when that end should come; no man say "God help you!" when at last the fellow should show his teeth. Such dire communings robbed me of my sleep at night; led me to books whose pages passed blurred before me; made me start at every rap upon the cabin door; brought me to fear death even in the very food I ate. Yet during the week I was a prisoner on the ship no harm of any sort befell me. I was treated with the hospitality of a great mansion, served with all I asked, unmolested save for the doctor's threat.
And so the time passed, the weather growing colder day by day, the bergs more frequent about my windows; until on the evening of the seventh day the ship stopped suddenly, and I heard the anchor let go. This was late in the watch, at the time when I was in the habit of going to bed; but hearing great movement and business on the deck I sat still, waiting for what should come; and after the lapse of an hour or more I found that we were moving very slowly again, and with but occasional movements of the screw. I opened my port, and could hear loud shoutings from above, and although there was no light of the moon, I could see enough to conclude that we were passing by a great wall of rock, and so into some harbour or basin.
The work of mooring the ship was not a long one when once we had come to a stand. When all was done the noise ceased, and no one coming to me I went to bed as usual. On the next morning I got up at daybreak, and looked eagerly from my spying place; but I could discern only a blank cliff of rock, the ship being now moored against the very