I remember that the sea was decked out with ships at this time, their red and green lanterns shining prettily in the lagoons of shadow.
Some of them passed us so closely that we could have tossed a biscuit aboard. One great liner in particular, a German, I think, bore down upon us menacingly, and was a very fortress of light and movement. From her decks there came the lilt of a sonorous orchestra, playing, I remember, a waltz of Strauss's, as only Germans can. This ship saluted us, and was answered back with all the precision and ceremony you would have found upon a Government vessel. When she was gone we passed some herring boats from Shoreham, and then a timber hulk, with three masts, sagging heavily to the swell. A little while after this some one cried out that a distant light was that of Newhaven, and very shortly we sighted Beachy Head, and knew that the real danger of our voyage was but beginning.
Often have I wondered what would have been said aboard those passing vessels had they been told that the shadow upon the hither sea was that of Black's ship, and that he himself was aboard her. What panic and terror would have followed that alarm! What a race for a haven! What a wild speeding of the news! But so it is ever in life that reality passes by us in the shadows which our self-assurance casts. All the world rang then with the story of Vares and the great Captain's death, yet here he was at the very mouth of the Thames, saluted by those who should have taken him, and honoured, I doubt not, for the flag he flew. And to-morrow the world would say, "If we had known; if—if!"
We sighted the Nore light on the fourth day after leaving the island, at three bells in the middle watch, and went below immediately, as I had expected we should do. Whatever brazen courage might win for us on the open waters of the Channel, assuredly it could win nothing here. Now there must begin a threading of the sands and the banks of the estuary, which was perilous beyond all imagination. Let us be detected but for one instant by any boat, either the launch of the Customs or of the medical officers, and that must be the end of us. Such a plain fact sent Black to the Thames in the watches of the night, and kept him below for many hours together. When the signal rang out for us to ascend I learned, not without surprise, that a morning fog had come down upon the river, and, going out to the platform, I found that I could hardly see my hand before my face. Nor did I discover immediately that the Captain walked the deck with me, and that we were alone.
Depict a world of white and rolling vapour, above which there hovered so still an air that a man might have been afraid to whisper. Far away beyond that veil of fog lay the heights of London, the ramparts of the mighty city then waking to the life of the new day. As in the echoes of a dream I heard the voice of London calling to me through the black silence of the swirling waters, and the devouring fog, and the rumour of ships. More than once my heart leaped as a siren's hoot burst upon my ear, to wax loud and bellicose and diminish again until it became but a murmur of soft sounds. I heard the sound of a railway whistle, and it seemed to say that I had been summoned from the lonely sea to this water-gate of England, there to be mocked and tortured by false hope as man has rarely been in all the years. I saw the shadows of vast steamers thrown upon the curtain of the mists, and could have cried aloud to them to deliver me from this prison, for such was the impulse born of the discovery. Yesterday I had been content to be the passive spectator of the mad life; but this call from my own land reached me in clarion tones, and nothing but the sudden coming of the Captain held me to that place or saved me from myself.
I see his majestic figure now, great and terrible and menacing, as he emerged from the dripping cloud of fog, and stood at my side to question me. Very thoughtful, harassed, and weary, he asked me what I knew of the Thames and how far I judged us to be from the shore. When I told him a quarter of a mile at a hazard, he seemed to agree with me and to be pleased that he could do so.
"Aye," he said, "the young ears want no tuning. Yon's Canvey Island, and you hear the trains to London. Well, my lad, we'll be there to-night, though it's little of that same city I may show you. Let me tell you so right now and have done with it."
I was surprised to hear this, for he had as good as promised me my liberty in London; and so I told him. His rejoinder was not a little callous, and it cut me to the quick.
"The men won't have it," he said, with a shrug. "There's not one of them would sail with me while a mouthpiece ashore was telling of their doings. So, my lad, for better or worse, it's the Zero while I command her. Maybe it won't be for long. Should yon city give me what I am seeking, I go to play a new part in the world, and the sea will know me no more. When that day comes, you and I will say a long good-bye. Ask, then, that it may be soon, for your own sake."
I saw that he was deeply moved, and perchance, but for the ship's need, some word of mine would have broken so harsh a resolution. But it befell that Jack-o'-Lantern came up at the moment to take soundings, and Black turned from me with an anxiety even his iron will could not conceal. A quarter of an hour later we were almost at the bottom of the river again; and so, creeping from bank to bank all that long morning, we came at length to anchor at about three bells in the afternoon watch, and lay for many hours with the swift current drumming upon our windows.
I must tell you that Black shut me from the conning-tower during this voyage down the Thames, and so I learned little either of the means whereby the ship was steered or of the exceeding skill which brought her at last to a safe anchorage. Concerning the latter, a brief talk to Osbart at the luncheon table led me to imagine that the Captain had purchased an ancient wharf situated upon one of the creeks near Tilbury, and that a private dock would harbour the Zero during her brief stay in the river. More the Doctor would not say, nor did I press him to do so, for it was clear that a premonition of ill sat heavily upon him, and that it now afflicted the crew so sorely that a word ill spoken would have brought them head-long upon me. Already there were ominous mutterings and whispered threats among them, and so hostile was their attitude as the day went on that I shut myself in my cabin, and there waited for any fortune that might come to me. An hour later I discovered that I was alone upon the ship, and, running out to the saloon, I think that I fell senseless, so overwhelming was the terror of it.
Alone upon the Zero! Alone in the depths of the black river, the prisoner of the swift-running water! Who shall wonder that my very soul was withered, my reason shaken to its depths by that dread discovery I They had left me aboard the ship to perish miserably, and this was the way of their vengeance.
Running hither and thither, beating my hands upon the steel roof above me, crying out to them to have pity, I strove blindly with the fate that threatened me. Visions of death, horrible and revolting, crowded upon me, and would not be thrust back. I saw myself perishing miserably of hunger, living unnamable days of agony, dying alone in the most terrible prison the wit of man has devised. And at that I think the last thread of my courage went snap, and I lay for many hours afraid to look fate in the face.
They say that there is mercy in this human capacity of suffering; that the mind is alert to impressions of pain and fear to a certain degree; but, when that is passed, stupor follows. I would bear witness that so it befell upon the Zero in that awful hour. A delirium of terror was followed by an hour almost of languorous indifference. Methodically and with brain benumbed, I went again from cabin to cabin of the Zero to be sure that none of the crew remained aboard and that I was indeed alone. The thing proved and my situation exposed beyond all doubt, I returned to my cabin and sat down to reckon with the situation, as a man to a chess-board where the figures are human.
They had left me and gone ashore, I said. Fearing me for the first time since I had been his prisoner, Black held me captive here while he pursued his scheme and sent the men to those debaucheries with which their perils were rewarded.
Should all go well with him, I did not doubt that he would soon return to give me my liberty; but, should ill befall him, what then? I asked. Would the crew dare to return to the Zero if the Captain were