Continue treatment. Vastly amusing. Uncle Hyacinth's magnificent constitution stand anything. Apply mustard. Try red pepper.
The group that met to consider this new development included three passengers, whom the captain had invited to share what he called the fun. They were a Miss Depew, an American girl who was going to Europe to do Red Cross work; and a Mr. and Mrs. Pennyfeather, English residents of Buenos Aires, with whom she was traveling. The message, as they interpreted it, ran as follows:
Unless instructions to sink Hispaniola countermanded, shall inform captain. No alternative. Most important papers my possession.
"Good!" said Captain Abbey. "'E's beginning to show symptoms of blackmail. I'd send this message on, only we're likely to make a bigger bag by keeping quiet. We'll let 'im 'ave the reply to-morrow morning. What shall we do to 'im next?"
"Shoot him," said Miss Depew with complete calm.
"Oh, I want to 'ave a little fun with 'im first," said Captain Abbey. "I'm afraid you 'aven't got much sense of humor, Miss Depew."
"Do you think so?" she said. She was of the purest Gibson type, and never flickered an innocent eyelash or twisted a corner of her red Cupid's bow of a mouth as she drawled: "I think it would be very humorous indeed to shoot him, now that we know he is a German."
"Well, after 'is trying to leave us without warning 'e deserves to be skinned and stuffed. But we're likely to make much more of it if we keep 'im alive for our entertainment. Besides, 'e's going to be useful on the other side. Now, what do you think of this for a scheme?"
The heads of the conspirators drew closer round the table; and Mr. Neilsen, wandering on deck like a lost spirit, pondered on the tragic ironies of life. The thoughtless laughter that rippled up to him from the captain's cabin filled him with no compassion toward any one but himself. It was merely one more proof that only the Germans took life seriously. All the same, if he could possibly help it, he was not going to let them take his own life.
II
There was no radiogram for Mr. Neilsen on the following day; and he was perplexed by a new problem as he walked feverishly up and down the promenade deck.
Even if he received an assurance that the Hispaniola would be spared, how could he know that he was being told the truth? Necessity, as he knew quite well, was the mother of murder. It was very necessary, indeed, that his mouth should be sealed. Besides, he had more than a suspicion that his use was fulfilled in the eyes of the German Government, and that they would not be sorry if they could conveniently get rid of him. He possessed a lot of perilous knowledge; and he wished heartily that he didn't. He was tasting, in fact, the inevitable hell of the criminal, which is not that other people distrust him, but that he can trust nobody else.
He leaned over the side of the ship and watched the white foam veining the black water.
"Curious, isn't it?" said dapper little Mr. Pennyfeather, who stood near him. "Exactly like liquid marble. Makes you think of that philosophic Johnny—What's-his-name—fellow that said 'everything flows,' don't you know. And it does, too, by Jove! Everything! Including one's income! It's curious, Mr. Neilsen, how quickly we've changed all our ideas about the value of human life, isn't it? By Jove, that's flowing too! The other morning I caught myself saying that there was no news in the paper; and then I realized that I'd overlooked the sudden death of about ten thousand men on the Western Front. Well, we've all got to die some day, and perhaps it's best to do it before we deteriorate too far. Don't you think so?"
Mr. Neilsen grunted morosely. He hated to be pestered by these gadflies of the steamer. He particularly disliked this little Englishman with the neat gray beard, not only because he was the head of an obnoxious bank in Buenos Aires, but because he would persist in talking to him with a ghoulish geniality about submarine operations and the subject of death. Also, he was one of those hopeless people who had been led by the wholesale slaughter of the war to thoughts of the possibility of a future life. Apparently Mr. Pennyfeather had no philosophy, and his spiritual being was groping for light through those materialistic fogs which brood over the borderlands of science. His wife was even more irritating; for she, too, was groping, chiefly because of the fashion; and they both insisted on talking to Mr. Neilsen about it. They had quite spoiled his breakfast this morning. He did not resent it on spiritual grounds, for he had none; but he did resent it because it reminded him of his mortality, and also because a professional quack does not like to be bothered by amateurs.
Mrs. Pennyfeather approached him now on the other side. She was a faded lady with hair dyed yellow, and tortoise-shell spectacles.
"Have you ever had your halo read, Mr. Neilsen?" she asked with a sickly smile.
"No. I don't believe in id," he said gruffly.
"But surely you believe in the spectrum," she continued with a ghastly inconsequence that almost curdled the logic in his German brain.
"Certainly," he replied, trying hard to be polite.
"And therefore in specters," she cooed ingratiatingly, as if she were talking to a very small child.
"Nod at all! Nod at all!" he exploded somewhat violently, while Mr. Pennyfeather, on the other side, came to his rescue, sagely repudiating the methods of his wife.
"No, no, my dear! I don't think your train of thought is quite correct there. My wife and I are very much interested in recent occult experiments, Mr. Neilsen. We've been wondering whether you wouldn't join us one night, round the ouija board."
"Id is all nonsense to me," said Mr. Neilsen, gesticulating with both arms.
"Quite so; very natural. But we got some very curious results last night," continued Mr. Pennyfeather. "Most extraordinary. The purser was with us, and he thought it would interest you. I wish you would join us."
"I should regard id as gomplete waste of time," said Mr. Neilsen.
"Surely, nothing can be waste of time that increases our knowledge of the bourne from which no traveler returns," replied the lyric lips of Mrs. Pennyfeather.
"To me the methods are ridiculous," said Mr. Neilsen. "All this furniture removal! Ach!"
"Ah," said Mr. Pennyfeather, "you should read What's-his-name. You know the chap, Susan. Fellow that said it's like a shipwrecked man waving a shirt on a stick to attract attention. Of course it's ridiculous! But what else can you do if you haven't any other way of signaling? Why, man alive! You'd use your trousers, wouldn't you, if you hadn't anything else? And the alternative—drowning—remember—drowning beneath what Thingumbob calls 'the unplumbed salt, estranging sea.'"
"Eggscuse me," said Mr. Neilsen; "I have some important business with the captain. I must go."
Mr. Neilsen had been trying hard to make up his mind, despite these irrelevant interruptions. He had received no assurance by wireless, and he had convinced himself that even if he did receive one it would be wiser to inform the captain. But there were many difficulties in the way. He had taken great care never to do anything that might lead to the death penalty—that is to say, among nations less civilized than his own. But there was that affair of the code. It might make things very unpleasant. A dozen other suspicious circumstances would have to be explained away. A dozen times he had hesitated, as he did this morning. He met the captain at the foot of the bridge.
"Ah, Mr. Neilsen," said Captain Abbey with great cordiality, "you're the very man I want to see. We're 'aving a little concert to-night in the first-class dining room on behalf of the wives and children of the British mine sweepers and the auxiliary patrols. You see, though this is a neutral ship, we depend