CHAPTER VI

Having concluded their interview with the captain in his cabin and given him a full account of everything connected with their terrible misadventure, Patrick Sheridan and his cousin Norah make their way back to the wardroom together with Stapleton. He, poor fellow, has been pacing impatiently up and down the flat outside the captain's cabin, cooling his heels while the others are inside making their report. His presence there has not been invited, and all his ingenuity fails to find a pretext for entering unasked; neither is he willing to lose the slender chance of a last few words alone with Norah. And so he remains walking to and fro in the flat, to the unspoken wonder of the marine sentry who is not accustomed to see the first lieutenant of the ship spending his time in this fashion.

But he has not long to wait. In a few minutes the captain's door opens to let the strangers out; and seeing Stapleton there on the spot, Captain Blake is well content to hand them over again to his care, excusing himself from attending them on the grounds that he must put the written statements in order and lock them away in a safe place. Adding as he bows them out of the room:

"But I shall see you again in a few minutes, before you leave us. The destroyer cannot be long now--indeed, she should have been here by this time; but I expect this thick weather has delayed her."

Poor Stapleton! All his attempts to detach Norah from her cousin on the way back to the wardroom prove quite unavailing. Given a little longer time he would no doubt find some excuse for doing so; but the distance is so short that he is unable to hit upon any plausible expedient before the three are once more in the now deserted wardroom; and there, of course, any _tête-à-tête_ is now quite out of the question.

Despairing of this, though he greatly longs for it, he makes the best of a bad job, and like the good fellow he is applies himself whole-heartedly to the more prosaic task of ensuring the comfort of the wayfarers on their journey to the shore and afterwards.

So, no longer the lover but for the time being the plain practical man of sound common sense, he enquires:

"Now, what about money? Of course, you will need some when you land, and it's quite certain you haven't any with you now; better let me lend you some to carry on with till you get to your home."

"No, no!" cries the girl vehemently, shrinking back as though the offer were positively repugnant to her. "We cannot take it from you! We shall be able to manage somehow!"

And yet the offer is a kindly one, and, in fact, a very obviously practical one under the circumstances. Why, then, should she display such a horror of accepting it?

It must be just her sensitiveness, a reluctance to take money from a stranger, Stapleton thinks; half inclined to smile at the fierceness of the refusal; but recollecting the severe strain to which her nerves have been put to-day he readily attributes it to this cause, and gently insists:

"Why, you need not mind, surely, taking it from me as a loan? I am not giving it to you, and you can send it back as soon as ever you get to your friends again."

But Norah shakes her head, and would refuse for the second time but for the fact that she seems unable to find words under the stress of her deep emotion.

However, Patrick Sheridan is troubled by no sensitive scruples, and effectually puts an end to her vain resistance by the gentle yet firm rebuke,

"What nonsense, Norah! Don't be so foolish; it is a very sensible and kind offer, and I shall be very grateful to accept it. And though I shall of course return the money at the earliest possible moment, I shall still be in your debt for your great kindness--we all of us will be, and that's a fact. But where's Netta? I don't see her here. What can have become of her?"

"Yes, where is she?" echoes Norah anxiously.

"I don't know. Anyhow, she can't be very far away; but she had better be ready, the destroyer can't be more than a very few minutes now. Would you like me to go and look for her?"

"Oh yes, _please_ do."

"I'd be greatly obliged if you would, then." Both the man and the girl appear equally desirous, even anxious, judging by the way they speak; but somehow or other Stapleton gets the impression that while Norah's wish is for Netta's presence, Sheridan on the other hand merely wants to get rid of him.

This is no time, however, to analyze motives, and Stapleton merely remarks on his way to the door,

"All right. And I'll get some money at the same time. I won't be more than a couple of minutes."

Hardly has he gone out when a marine sentry enters, and announces the message he has been ordered to give:

"First lieutenant, sir? From the officer of the watch. The destroyer is just coming alongside to take the party ashore." The stolid marine speaks as though it were just a matter of conveying the guests at a Spithead wardroom tea-party back to Southsea pier, and evidently thinks that sending back from the high seas in a destroyer a party of shipwrecked people is no more than part of the ordinary routine of the ship.

It is not till he has come to the end of his message that he perceives he has delivered it in vain, and with a smart "Beg pardon, sir, I thought he was in here," he turns to go.

"No, he's not here," Sheridan informs him, pointing to the other door, "he went out that way, only a moment ago." The sentry thanks him, salutes again, and departs in the direction indicated; Sheridan following him with his eyes till the door closes, leaving him alone with Norah.

Then suddenly he becomes transfigured. His calmness leaves him, and he becomes in an instant a different being, a fierce wild creature with whitened face and blazing eyes. And when he turns to speak to the girl at his side his voice comes in a hoarse whisper:

"_Now, Norah, quickly!_ There's no time for you to choose a better place. Bad luck to the captain for getting us out of it so soon--I never thought it would be a rush like this! You will just have to put it down here somewhere--anywhere, so long as it is out of sight. _Make haste, girl!_"

Who is this girl who stands here with pallid lips and great burning eyes, erect and majestic as a priestess of some ancient faith--and yet with a shade of fear in her face like a priestess who shrinks at the very moment of sacrifice? Can it be the same Norah Sheridan whose sweet dark loveliness only just now won her a knight errant at first sight--yes, and more than a knight errant, a lover for life?

And what is this thing she plucks from her bosom with tremulous fingers--a wicked looking flat steel box, engraved with numerals and fitted with a strong spring lying fiat to its side?

Boldly she drags it from its soft, warm hiding place; and then, suddenly, all her boldness vanishes when she sees the accursed thing actually before her eyes. She looks wildly around her, and--and hesitates.

"Down there, look, behind that bookcase," the voice of her overbearing companion urges her. "Hurry now! Set it for two hours; you know how. By that time it will be quite dark, and all that are in her will be sent to the bottom for ever!"

Ah, that he should have made choice of these words of all others to screw the courage of his accomplice to the sticking-point! Their effect is none other than to awaken an echo of a voice heard but just now and forgotten a moment later; a manly voice, but yet a pleading one, whose low insistent tones had framed the entreaty.

"_--if those eyes of yours do not shine for me, then I shall be for ever in darkness!_"

Yes, indeed, for ever in the darkness; and hers the hand to send him there, him and all others in the ship with him!

Sheridan has crept round the long table and stands listening at the door, holding the handle so as to delay for a second or two longer, if need be, anyone who should enter before the deed is quite accomplished.

From that vantage-point he turns an angry face towards the girl who still stands nerveless and threatening to fail him just at the culminating moment when the hazardous scheme bids fair to result in complete success.

So overwrought with passion is he that when he essays to whisper the words come from his dry lips more like a hiss.

"Make haste, curse you! They'll be here before you can do it if you don't hurry! Put it down I tell ye!"

"Ah, no, no!" A moaning sob mingles with the low-spoken refusal.

Sheridan gasps, at his wits' end for fear the diabolical plan is going to fail even now at the very last.

No, not quite at his wits' end. He has still another card to play: and he plays it, quietly, persuasively, with all the consummate art he has at his command:

"Ah, then, is it hesitate ye would? Have you forgotten your own father shot down in cold blood in the streets of Dublin by the brutal English soldiers? Murdered, with all his sins upon him! Have you forgotten your mother, the heart of her broken by the cruel deed, and she falling dead across his grave the day they buried him? Can ye not hear them crying out to you now? Take shame to yourself, girl--what kind of daughter is it ye are to play the weak fool now that the chance of vengeance is in your very hands?"

He has struck the right chord, as well he knew he would. An answering vibration stirs the girl's heart-strings and thrills her to her inmost soul.

Once more she becomes the inspired priestess, and steels herself to the dread sacrifice; her eyes glow with the flame of revenge, and sternly she declares: "I'll do it! Yes--I will!"

"That's right! But for the love of heaven make haste--the destroyer must be alongside by now, and that young fool of an officer will be back with Netta any moment!"

Brought back to memory again! Just when she thought she had succeeded in crushing down and forgetting the thought of him!

"Ah, and he too will die!" she cries, dropping her hands limply to her sides. "No, Patrick, I--I cannot do it!"

"Fool! Set down the bomb at once, I tell you! Or if you are afraid, give it to me!"

"No, no--it shall not be. 'Tis more than I can do, Pat. I cannot--I will not!"

"Give it to me, I say! Curse you, give it to me at once--I hear them coming for us."

Indeed, he is telling the truth. Norah can hear them, too. Yet they delay. Their voices and the sound of their footsteps are plainly audible, but something detains them--oh why, why will they not come in?

All at once a light breaks over the unhappy girl's face. No need to wait for help--how foolish of her not to have thought of this before! Now that her mind is made up, the way of salvation lies open and ready before her.

Yes, open and ready, literally. The open scuttle is but a few feet distant from her. She has but to throw the evil thing that rests in her hand out through this porthole, and the vile secret will be buried in the sea for ever, with all its dreadful purpose frustrated.

But Patrick is no fool. He divines instantaneously his cousin's purpose, from the expression on her face and the sudden light in her eyes.

Now or never is his chance. He takes it, heedless of the steps now at the very threshold. Leaping across the table he closes with the girl and seizes her wrist as her hand is now at the open scuttle.

A moaning cry, and an instant's struggle. No more is possible. Across the room, the door is flung open and the officers come trooping in.

"So sorry to have kept you waiting such a long time," surgeon Dale apologises. "The other young lady felt faint, and so we took her away from this hot room. I'm afraid she is still not quite herself though ever so much better. We've taken her on board the destroyer and she is lying down there and quite comfortable. I've seen to it all myself."

"Yes, she'll be quite all right, I assure you," adds the first lieutenant. "And now, if you are ready, will you both of you come along?"

This then is the explanation of the delay outside the door. A train of unhappy incidents, indeed! How fate hangs upon the most trifling, unimportant things! The safety of a ship and the lives of all her crew to depend on the fainting of an overwrought girl: no wonder they speak of the Irony of Fate!

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