"Do you know," he said, "that it is almost midday?"
"Midday—then I must have slept the clock round?"
"I shouldn't wonder. There's no medicine like it—and yet, my dear fellow, sleep is so near death that a man must look twice to tell the difference."
"Well," said I, "you begin with a jolly subject for the time of day. Midday or midnight, how am I to tell the difference down here?"
He raised his eyebrows.
"Down here! Come, that's gratitude. And we have given you the best quarters in the ship."
"The best quarters in the ship? Now you're joking, Osbart."
He smiled again and pointed to the window.
"Ice Haven is becoming as fashionable as Portsmouth, he said. "There's hardly a month in the year when one warship or the other does not cruise hereabouts. So, you see, we prefer deep waters. Black will bring her up when it's safe to do so. But not an hour before, believe me."
"Then she is a submarine?"
He appeared to be surprised that I should put the question.
"What else should she be? If the Captain is to stand against the world once more, will anything but a submarine serve him? We could have built the Nameless Ship anew, but the day for that has gone by. Let a tramp be taken, and the word will go round to every navy in the world. So Black is wise and lies where few will search for him. I'll tell you more. There was an American gunboat at Ice Haven last night when he steamed out. I dare say it wanted a word with your friend, Jo Mitchell. I hope the skipper will like it when he gets it."
He was much moved, and, walking to and fro, he ran on again before I could put in a word.
"Man, don't forget that it was Black they hunted. My God, the fools. To hunt down a man like that in his own seas; to think that he could be trapped at the Haven. They'll pay the price now as many another will know, and pay it before the year has run. You are the lucky one, Strong. You do what you please, and you know it."
I waited until the mood passed and then I asked him a question.
"Is it for my own pleasure, then, that I am caged down here, separated from my friends and carried God knows to what sea? Is it for my pleasure, Osbart?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"That is Black's affair. But for you the great ship would be afloat to-day. If he remembers it when you meet him, God help you. I'll say more: Your friends are lucky people. Don't make any complaint about them. They may thank God the Captain has some humanity in him and remembered your name. You know it, Strong; you know what Black would do for you."
He spoke with some kindliness now—and, indeed, it was an extraordinary thing that this man, who was stark mad ashore, had but to step upon a ship to become the gentlest of creatures so far as his speech judged him. I knew that he was a madman; knew that he had committed crimes at which a man's blood might run cold—and yet to quarrel with him was the most difficult thing in the world.
"Well," said I, in answer to his question, "Black saved my life from his crew as many days as I was on board with him. I shall never forget that—but for the others, why, if it lay in my power, I would sink this devil's craft and all on board her; and that's the solemn truth, Osbart."
He listened cynically and, as though unwilling to argue with me, he turned by another remark.
"You were wondering how the Captain escaped," he put it to me. I said that I must suppose he had been picked up at sea.
"And no writer's marvel about it at all, Strong. When the Nameless Ship went down, our tenders were cruising those latitudes on the look-out for her. The third of them sighted the boat in which Black and you got off and picked him up. He left you where you were, for I don't believe that even he could have saved your life from the men after what happened. But he got safe away to Greenland and then to the Brazils. There he lay in hiding more than nine months; when he faced the music once more, it was to visit his copper mines at Nevada. Your story of his death put the police off the scent and saved his life. He found his partners staunch to him, and I believe he would have given up the piracy then but for the madness of those who hunted down what was left of the old crew. He was in Italy nine months, and then at Brest. It was there that he met the French engineer Guichard, who built this submarine."
"Guichard—Guichard—the man who was so shamefully treated by his own people?"
"The very man, who would have made the French the first naval power in Europe if they had listened to him. But the gutter scum at Brest stoned him out of the town for nigger driving—and Black bought his ship."
"Why should he buy it, Osbart; what does he think he will do with it?"
"What will he do with it? Can you ask? Will he not hunt them down like vermin? It's true, by ——! He will sweep the seas before he has finished. I heard his oath to do it, and I am not thin-skinned. Well, it turned me cold. Black is the longest-armed enemy that ever lived, Strong. Remember that, when you begin to preach to him. And he has his treasure to salve—the treasure you went hunting! Why, the rocks might laugh to think of it."
His taunt stung me, and I answered hotly.
"I did not know that Black lived. Why should I not have gone? The whole world believes him to be dead."
"The whole world! Not so, surely? They were talking of his escape at Paris five months ago. The Government at Washington knows it for certain. I don't believe the English Admiralty is ignorant. And I'll tell you what, Strong. We are in for the prettiest time that ever was known in all this universe. There will not be a warship on any sea which will be out of the game presently. I doubt if we will find safe anchorage from China to Peru. And we can last but ten days afloat—ten days, and then we lie like a log for any gun to smash. That's what Black is doing now. Is there any other man afloat who would take the risk?"
"There certainly should not be. How many weeks do you give him, Osbart?"
He laughed and rose as the sound of an alarm echoed through the ship.
"How many weeks? Perhaps not one. You had better ask him yourself, for we are going up and may breathe again. That's the signal. Come out and see the sun—who knows, we may never see it again!"
And with that he was gone from the cabin; and, full of wonder, my hands a-tremble and my heart beating, I began to dress myself.
Was I not going to meet Captain Black once more?
The dead had risen, I said—and he who had ruled the seas had returned unto his kingdom.
CHAPTER XI
THE BEGINNING OF THE TERROR
I have told you that an alarm bell rang loudly through the ship, and immediately upon it we began to rise from the deep of the sea.
Presently, the water which had flowed over the glass of my port gave place to a rich flood of light as though the sun shone full upon a green wave and gave it a hue as of pure gold. At the same moment a delicious current of cool air flooded the cabin, and was like a breath of new life to all who breathed it. I heard the clanging of steel doors, and then the loud voices of men. The engines of the submarine had ceased to revolve, and we lay in the trough, rolling to a gentle swell and hardly lifting to the wash of it.
I had dressed myself by this time and was ready to go on deck. Notwithstanding Osbart's threat, I had no fear of Black, nor of his vengeance; while his men had never been more than a menace to me