and now we must return for a space to the pirate cruiser, the shadow. although bessie harlan did not faint when the pirate chief seized her and bore her aboard of his own craft, from the deck of the yacht, she was in reality so near to doing so that she was rendered as helpless as a babe in the arms of the man who carried her.
she was conscious only that she was borne from the deck of one vessel to the other, and that then her abductor carried her down a short flight of steps into the interior of the boat. she heard him open a door, and she was conscious then that she was in a lighted room, although she could not have opened her eyes to save her life, it seemed to her.
they traversed this room, or cabin—she did not see what it was—and presently passed through a second door. inside this second apartment the air was cool and sweet. she could hear the bur-r-r of an electric fan and could feel the draft it created.
but still she did not open her eyes. then she realized that her captor was putting her down, and he did it so quietly and so tenderly that she decided he must believe that she had fainted, and, in order not to undeceive him, she kept her eyes closed.
her only thought now was to escape from his arms—to[138] liberate herself from his immediate grasp—to get away from him, from his touch; to be out of his reach.
for she still held max kane’s revolver in her grasp, and she closed her fingers even more tightly around the butt of it, in order that it might not drop out of her reach, and she pushed it even farther among the folds of her dress in order that he might not by any possibility discover that she had it.
and then he put her down. she felt that she was resting upon an upholstered chair, and that the pirate was bending over her, studying her features.
she permitted herself to breathe a little—just enough to reassure him so that he would not resort to extreme measures to bring her back to consciousness. she only hoped that he would go away and leave her until she could have time to recover her senses fully—until she might think over the awful thing that had happened, and decide what to do.
she even thought calmly about the expedient of putting a bullet through her own heart the moment the pirate should leave her alone, and she regarded the idea quite calmly, as something which was not at all impracticable. he touched her hands with the tips of his own fingers, having drawn off his gauntleted gloves in order to do so. then he touched her brow in the same manner, and she shuddered almost, lest he should use his lips.
but, if he thought of it, he did not attempt to do it.
she heard him sigh. then she knew that he had straightened up and drawn away from her. it seemed to her that he stood there a long time, watching her, before he made a move to go away; but at last he did so.
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her sense of hearing was so acute that she could almost hear him as he breathed. she knew when he began to move away from her, and she could feel the increasing distance between them, as he went nearer to the door by which they had entered.
then she heard the clicking of the latch, and she permitted the lids of her eyes to rise ever so little—just enough so that she could see through her drooping lashes the figure of the pirate chieftain standing on the threshold.
the mask still covered his face; evidently he had forgotten it. he was looking back upon her with an expression she could not fathom, for the reason that she could not see through the mask; but his attitude was kindly, if one can see kindness in the mere figure of a person.
then he went out and closed the door softly behind him. for one, two, three, four, five seconds of time bessie did not move. she counted them in order that she might make no mistake; and she waited that length of time lest the man might repent of his hasty departure and decide to return.
then, at the end of the five seconds, she raised the revolver from under the folds of her dress and leveled it at the closed door.
she maintained that position while she counted ten more, and if the rover had opened the door during that time she would have shot him. she did not know that, when arrayed in the costume he was then wearing, he wore a steel breastplate under his shirt which would have[140] turned her bullet just as it turned kane’s, earlier in the evening.
but now fifteen seconds had elapsed since the pirate left her. a full quarter of a minute, and she leaped to her feet and darted toward the door. there was no ordinary lock upon it, but there was a chain-bolt, and this she at once slipped into place.
that done, she breathed a sigh of relief; and then, with an added shiver, she looked hastily around to discover if there were other means of entrance to the palatial cabin in which she was now a prisoner.
farther aft there were portières over a doorway, and she hurried to it, but only to discover that it was the means of communication with a passage from which four staterooms opened.
there was no other way out of the cabin save through the door used by the pirate; bessie convinced herself of that at once, and with untold relief. then she peered into the staterooms, one after another, and she discovered with alarm that one of them was all too plainly the abode of the corsair.
and then, when she would have made further investigation, she heard the rattle of the chain on the door she had fastened, and she tiptoed her way across the cabin until she stood almost against it, listening. the pirate had returned. she knew he was there, although, from the position she occupied almost behind the door, she could not see him. after a moment, during which she knew that he turned and gave a low-toned order to some[141] person who was standing near him, he called her by name.
“miss harlan!” he said. “miss harlan!”
she did not reply. he repeated the summons, somewhat louder than before, but she made no answer.
“won’t you open the door?” he requested. “at least let me know that you hear me, or i will be obliged to break it down in order to assure myself that you are uninjured.”
“yes, i hear you,” she said, then, realizing how simple a matter it would be for him to burst the door open.
“will you not open the door?” he asked her again.
“no,” she replied.
“if i assure you that you will be as free from harm as if you were aboard your brother’s yacht?”
“no.”
“but i wish to talk with you, and this is not a pleasant attitude for conversation.”
she made no reply to this.
“will you open the door?” he asked again.
“no,” she said. “i will not open the door.”
it was stretched, of course, to the utmost limit of the chain, which permitted an aperture of two or three inches.
she still stood behind it, out of his sight, and with the revolver tightly grasped in her right hand; but now, fearing that he might decide to break the door from its fastenings, she drew back one step more, farther into the corner. then she saw something, she did not know what, pass through the opening between the door and the casing and touch against the chain.
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that something was a pair of steel nippers, although she did not know it; and she was dismayed the next moment to see the chain fall loosely away from the catch, and to see that the door was swinging open. with one bound she reached the table in the center of the cabin, and with another she passed around it so that it was between her and the door. then she raised the revolver and pointed it at the pirate.
he came through the doorway and closed it behind him, and then he stood there with his back against it, smiling upon her almost as if he were amused.
“if you make an effort to approach me or to touch me,” she said, and her voice was clear and strong, belying the awful terror that was wringing her heart, “if you come as much as two steps nearer to me than you are now, i will shoot you!”
for a moment he permitted his eyes to dwell upon her face, quizzically, without deigning a reply; it seemed to her that he was weighing what she had said to him, as, indeed, he was doing, though not in the manner she thought.
after a moment he shrugged his shoulders a little and laughed softly.
“very well,” he said, “shoot me. i assure you that i should not greatly care if you did so.”
she made no reply, and presently he added:
“however, for your own sake, i should advise you not to do so. you see, miss harlan, it would greatly add to your present danger if i were to die. i do not express that with exact correctness, for, as a matter of fact, you[143] are now in no danger at all, while if i were to die you might be in considerable.”
“i will not pretend to understand you,” she said scornfully.
“no? suppose i make myself more explicit?”
“as you please,” she retorted.
“must i remain here until i do so?”
“i have already told you that if you attempt to come nearer i will kill you. i did not deceive you when i said that.”
again he shrugged his shoulders, and the ghost of a smile played around his handsome features, for, as the reader has guessed, he no longer wore the mask, nor the hat, nor the wig which went with it. otherwise he was still in the costume of the corsair.
“very good,” he said. “perhaps you will be more lenient when i have explained.”
“if you can explain,” she replied coldly.
“oh, yes, i can explain, miss harlan. there are always explanations for things, you know.”
her reply was a haughty stare. she did not offer him so much as a gesture by way of encouragement.
“has it occurred to you to attempt to explain to yourself why i dared to bring you to this vessel, and into this cabin, by force, and utterly against your will?” he asked.
“no.”
“shall i tell you?”
“if you will tell me the truth about it—yes.”
“i shall tell you nothing but the truth, miss harlan.”
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her lips curled with scorn, but she made no reply.
“do you recall something that i said to you once, on the deck of mr. kane’s yacht?”
“you have said a great many things to me there, count cadillac, if that be your own name, which i doubt.” there was a little frightened catch in her voice, which she strove to conceal by forcing herself to be insolent; but he heard it, and he knew that he had startled her.
“miss harlan,” he said rapidly, “this conversation is only the beginning of a very great deal that i have to say to you, and it is my duty to inform you, with all the emphasis at my command, before i attempt to say another word, that as long as you honor this vessel with your presence, with or against your own free will, you shall be treated in every way as an honored guest upon it. there will be no word or act said or done in your presence which can in any way offend your tenderest sensibilities. may i beg that you will believe me?”
there was so much sincerity in his voice that she believed him in spite of herself, and for a moment the conviction that she was free from the nameless horror of her position, which had already almost driven her mad, overcame her.
“then why, why, why did you bring me here at all?” she cried.
she had forgotten the weapon she held in her hand, in that instant, and the muzzle drooped until it touched the table unheeded. it would have been an easy matter for him then, had he wished to do so, to have stepped forward[145] and possessed himself of the weapon before she could have recovered it; but he did not move.
“your question brings us back again to the one i just asked,” he said. “shall i repeat it?”
if she heard him she did not heed, for she made no reply.
“do you remember—don’t you remember that particular something i said to you at the time i refer to, when we were together as guests on mr. kane’s yacht?”
“you said very many things to me, count cadillac. i do not recall anything——”
“i told you that i loved you, miss harlan. i asked you to be my wife; and you did not entirely refuse me.”
she raised her head now, and her eyes were blazing with wrath—righteous wrath, so intense that it made her forget their relative positions.
“you dare to repeat that to me, now, after—after all that has happened since that time?” she demanded.
“miss harlan,” he said calmly, deliberately, but not unkindly, “i have brought you here by force, if you will, in order that i might say it—in order that i might continue saying it, over and over again, day after day. i am an outlaw now. i know it; but i am still a gentleman. i——”
“a gentleman, indeed!” she interrupted him. “thank god that word has a different meaning in america than it does where you were born. a gentleman! say rather an impostor, a swindler, a bogus count, a thief!”
the man winced as if he had received a blow, and his face went deadly white, like the waxen face of a corpse.[146] for a moment even his lips seemed bloodless, and his fingers clinched into the palms of his hands until the manicured nails drew blood where he dug them into his flesh.
but he made no other motion.
he stood like a statue before her. he seemed scarcely to breathe; and for more than a full minute he did not speak.
“i have expected something very like that from you,” he said, at last, in a voice in which the effort to remain calm was plainly apparent. “in a measure i have schooled myself to hear it; but i did not know how hard it would be—how terrible it would sound from your lips. if i had known that, i almost doubt if i would have brought you here at all, miss harlan.
“at least i am not an impostor,” he resumed, after another pause. “i am the count of cadillac, whatever else i may happen to be. my family is among the oldest of anjou. my ancestors count back into the dark ages almost, among the oldest, the best, the bravest, and the most honorable.
“nor am i a swindler, miss harlan. i do not think you thought that, even when you said it.
“nor am i a thief. save your own person, i have never stolen a thing in my life.
“however, i do not expect you to believe all this, at least just at present. i did not suppose that you would do so when i brought you here, but it was in the hope that time would give me an opportunity to convince you of its truth, that i decided on this lawless act.
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“wait; i have not done, nor will i be done, ever, until you consent to listen to me with at least an outward show of interest.
“and i prefer to begin with you frankly. that is why i began this conversation by admitting to you that i have stolen you from your friends, and brought you here by force, because i love you; and because i have a hope, away down in my heart, that i will end by winning your consent to be my wife.”
bessie had permitted her revolver to rest with the muzzle against the table ever since it had dropped there some time before; but now she raised it. he watched her silently, wondering if she intended to use it upon him; and, if the truth be told, caring very little if she did so. but she held it daintily in her hand; and then, with her eyes fixed searchingly upon his face, she said slowly:
“do you see this pistol? rather than become your wife, and rather than live to be forced to confess to my sister and my friends the insults to which you have subjected me, count cadillac, i would a thousand times turn it upon myself—so!”
