the night is not silent.
the justification of dr. fabos.
i dined with mcshanus at eight o’clock that night and played a little piquet with him afterwards. he had now been admitted to my confidence, and knew a good deal of that which i surmised.
“’tis your opinion, then,” he had said, “that the men on yonder ship are going to receive the diamonds stolen from the mines of africa? man, could ye prove it, ’twould be the sensation of the universe.”
i answered by reminding him of the immense value of the diamonds stolen every year from the mines of kimberley alone. these, in spite of an astute police and a supervision passing all experience, make their way ultimately to europe, and are trafficked in by the less scrupulous dealers. how is this to be accounted for? a similar question would ask how is it possible that stolen jewels, to the value of some millions of money or thereabouts, are hidden successfully from the world’s police every year?
“timothy,” i said, “i have formed the opinion that these jewels are hidden upon the sea. this ship we are following will receive a parcel of stolen diamonds between here and st. helena bay. she will carry them to a larger vessel now afloat upon the atlantic. that greater ship, could you board her, would tell you the story of many a famous robbery, show the contents of many rifled safes, enlighten you as to the whereabouts of many a great jewel now advertised for by the police. i hope that the day will come when i shall step on the deck of that ship, and that you will accompany me, timothy. one thing i have never doubted—it is my friend’s courage.”
he liked the compliment, and banged the cabin table with his fist to emphasise it.
“i’d cross mountains to go aboard her,” he said, with real feeling. “don’t think ill of me if i doubt ’tis a mare’s nest ye are afther and that there may be disappointments. ye said the night would tell us. blame nobody if the night is silent, ean, me bhoy.”
“it will not be silent, timothy. here is captain larry tumbling down the companion to tell us so. he has come to say that there is a message, and that he has heard it. now listen to him.”
honest benjamin larry, true son of portsmouth despite his name, came blundering into the cabin as though the ship were afire. i had but to take one look at his bright eyes to know that he was there to justify me, and to say that the night was eloquent.
“doctor,” he cried, too excited almost to speak at all, “please to go up. there’s something happening.”
we raced up the ladder together—mcshanus with an agility that must have spoken of his lost youth. it would have been then about ten o’clock at night—four bells of the first watch, as the seamen have it. the night was intensely dark and void of stars. a long gentle ground swell lifted the yacht lazily and rolled her as though she had been a cradle rocked by a loving hand. i perceived at once that our engines had been stopped and that we carried no lights. the african shore was hardly visible, but the thunder of distant surf said that we still hugged it. the crew themselves were all at the bows. i did not fail to notice that the machine guns were uncovered and the magazine hatch already removed.
it really was wonderful how the good fellows acted in that moment of discovery. had they been trained upon the decks of a british man-of-war, i could have looked neither for a warmer zeal nor a finer prudence. none spoke aloud or gave tongue to the excitement which possessed him. quietly making way for me as i came up, the great boatswain, whom they called balaam, pointed with his fat hand at the scene which engrossed their attention, and waited for my remarks. others nodded their heads expressively. it was as though to say, “the master is right, after all.” i could have asked no greater compliment.
and what did we see to hold us there engrossed? a low light flashing upon the water, perhaps the third of a mile from our own deck. other lights from a steamer’s deck plainly answering the signal. a man needed to be no wizard to say that a boat had put out from some harbourage near by, and now exchanged signals with the steamer we had followed all day. but this was very far from being all, for as we stood there one of the ships suddenly turned a search-light upon the boat that came out to her, and we saw the whole picture, as in vivid radiance, cast upon the black screen of the night.
there were two vessels, as we had surmised, and one of them had the shape and the manner of a foreign-built gunboat. the other seemed to be little more than a sea-going launch, speedy and snake-like, and carrying no more than three men. we could plainly see that a rope ladder had been slung out from the apparent gunboat, and that one of the hands from the launch meant to go aboard her. a great cloud of crimson smoke above the funnel of the larger vessel denoted her preparation for a speedy voyage and the brief aspect of her call. indeed, to be precise, she did not lie-to more than fifteen minutes in all, and the man who had gone aboard her had already descended the ladder and had cast the launch off before she discovered our presence and knew that she was watched.
as a flash of light upon a dark horizon, so it happened. the quivering rays of the great lantern skimming the limpid sea as it were jestingly on the part of the man who guided them, fell for an instant upon our decks and revealed us there as a black shape threatening and undeclared. instantly signal guns were fired from the shore; the lights were extinguished; the after darkness fell impenetrably and unrelieved save where the crimson flame hovered above the gunboat’s funnel. then for the first time a voice spoke upon my own yacht. it was that of captain larry, and he uttered a truth which was plain to all.
“they’re running due west, sir—to the open sea. it is as you said it would be.”
“and will be afterwards, captain larry. full steam ahead, if you please. we must not lose sight of them again.”
“whatever it may cost, sir?”
“it will cost nothing, captain.”
to the men i said:
“fifty pounds apiece, my lads, if you track that steamer to port.”
they answered me with a ringing cheer and were at their places in an instant. white wings began to race through the water with all the power of the great engines which drove her. i heard a second signal gun fired ashore, but could attach no meaning to it. there was no other light upon our horizon than that of the red loom of flame which betrayed the gunboat’s course. she was our goal—and yet not she alone. the ocean had her secrets to reveal. i did not believe that she could hide them from me now.
“we have the legs of her, captain larry?” i asked him presently.
“undoubtedly, sir.”
“and we will be up with her in half an hour?”
“in a quarter if we hold this speed. mr. benson is showing off a bit, you see.”
“captain larry,” i said, “they have arms aboard for certain, and i will risk the life of no man who came to serve me in ignorance of this. let mr. benson be a little more discreet. we will keep out of gunshot, if you please.”
“i understand you, sir. and none too early.”
he meant that we were already upon the point of being within gunshot of the pursued, and he rang down for “half-speed” as he spoke. the order was not obeyed a minute too soon. a heavy gun thundered at us presently, and a shell fell impotently into the sea not a furlong from the starboard bow. the effect of this upon my crew was such as words can express with difficulty. it may be that the scene had been unreal to them until this time; a vision of which they could make little. but powder and shot! the poorest intellect of them all understood that, while as for my genial irishman, he ducked his head like an old woman who believes that a tile is falling.
“ach, divil take them, fabos! am i wounded anywhere?”
“it would be somewhere about the pit of the stomach, timothy.”
“but ’tis shell they’re firing!”
“i will complain about it, timothy, when we go aboard.”
he was very white—i forgave him for that. like the others, he, too, had but little realised what the pursuit of this unknown ship might cost us, and what pages it might write in the story of crime. the crashing sound of a great gun ringing out in the silence of the night brought the truth to his ears as no words could have done.
“faith, ’tis little stomach i have for it at all.”
“would you turn back, timothy?”
“not for a thousand sovereigns upon the cabin table.”
the men heard him and gave a great cheer. it was answered distantly from the racing gunboat, echoed again by a low sobbing sound as of winds, given back to us by a murmur of the sea, which already fretted as though at the far voice of tempest. a storm had crept upon us unseen. we had no eyes for anything but the black shape of the gunboat.
“there’s water for your soup, sir,” said the quartermaster they called cain. “begging your pardon for the liberty, there’s more than a capful of wind coming.”
we scarcely heard him. captain larry, more prudent, went down to his cabin to read the glass, and returned with a grave face.
“we shall have wind, sir, without a doubt,” he said to me.
“and what if we do, larry?”
“oh, the ship must tell us that.”
“i have no doubt of her. if it were only daylight, larry——”
“ah, sir, if our wishes were sovereigns what fairy godmothers we should make.”
“they’ve doused their lights, larry,” i went on. “the night is their luck. we may lose them yet, but we shall find them again if we cross the atlantic to do it.”
“may i go with you, if it’s twice round the world and back!”
loud voices cried “ay!” to that. the excitement of the night worked strangely upon the nerves of men who, like all sailors, were awestruck in the presence of mystery. yonder in the trough of a black ocean was the unknown ship we had set out to seek. the darkness hid her from us, the sea rose rapidly, the wind had begun to blow half a gale. no longer could there be any thought of firing a gun or declaring an open attack upon us. each ran for the open and for safety. our searchlight showed us an empty waste of trembling waters and a black hull breasting the swell in cataracts of foam and spindrift. we doubted if the others would weather the night. anxiety for our own safety became the dominant factor of our thoughts.
looking back to that unforgotten night, i have often wondered at the folly of calculations which had taken so little thought of nature and allowed the temper of winds so small a place in all our reckonings. i confess that such an arbiter as storm and tempest never once was in my mind when i planned to search the northern parts of cape colony for an unknown ship and to follow that ship to her haven in the open atlantic. when the gale broke upon us, a swift cyclonic tempest characteristic of the southern ocean and her humour, i perceived my folly and could but laugh sardonically. so near had we been to that day of discovery of which i had dreamed! and now we were but a shell of steel tossed impotently amidst a raging cataract of sounds, swept by a hail of spray, or carried blindly at the beck of winds. the ship we pursued appeared to have been lost altogether in the darkness. it became, for any but a trained sailor, almost a dangerous thing to remain upon the deck of the white wings. the crash of the seas upon our plates was as the tremor of thunder about a house.
so for the hour we had failed. and who would dare to speak with confidence of the morrow?
