CHAPTER XXI

THE SHIP

People boxed up together in a small boat like the _Lorna_ react on one another in a most surprising way. Bad temper or good humour in an individual is felt by his companions as it never would be ashore. On board the _Lorna_ that night, down in the cabin under the swinging lamp, Sam was the wet blanket.

He sat with his nose in a book while the other two talked. He did not seem to be reading so much as brooding. Bobby had given up the whole problem of Sam and Martia, and Sam's fits of depression, and so on. The girl had as good as told him that there was nothing between her and the skipper and he left it at that. The expedition up to this had put everything else aside, love included, and would do so till the English coast was reached and the contract with Behrens completed.

All the same, this brooding fit that had fallen on Samuel Hackett, now that work had relaxed, worried Bobby.

The only comfort to him was that there was no town ashore, no bars to which the depressed one could fly for relief in the shape of alcohol.

There was whisky on board the _Lorna_, but the presence of Martia was a restraining influence strong enough to prevent any outburst.

The Fates who try to spoil plans and wreck expeditions had, however, taken note of this last fact, as the sequel was to prove.

The ship's company retired early that night, and were on deck next morning an hour after sunrise. The engine having been set going, the ship was manœuvred over the selected spot and the anchor dropped.

The depths were not yet fully lighted, owing to the lowness of the sun, yet they could see glimmering up to them through the water the shattered group--the little wheel of the chariot, the horse's head, the figure of Victory growing momentarily more defined in the strengthening light.

Glastonbury, a cigarette in his mouth, was getting ready to don the diver's dress, and Sam was assisting Church to rig the tackle necessary for the work, when Bowler, who had been looking seaward, suddenly left the deck and swarmed up to the cross-trees. He clung there for a moment in silence. Then his voice came.

"Below there! Ship to the nor'-west, comin' up this way."

Then he came down with a run, and Sam, leaving the tackle to look after itself, and taking the glass from its sling, went up.

Glastonbury ceased dressing and lit another cigarette, whilst the others stood, faces uptilted, watching Sam.

Yes, away on the distance of that miraculous sea, blue as sapphire and lit by morning, a stain of smoke showed, and beneath the smoke an object that the glass resolved into a vessel of small tonnage travelling fast and making dead for Hyalos. It was the smoke-stain that had attracted the bird-keen eyes of Bowler from the deck, and without a glass he had been able to see the truth.

Sam came down with a run.

"This does us," said he. "I don't know what she is. Too quick and small for a freighter. Not a warship by any English standard, but these confounded foreign navies have all sorts of bumboats in their service. Whatever she is, she's coming here and there's sure to be trouble--cuss and confound her. We've got to camouflage. Man the winch and get the anchor in. Church, nip down and get the engine ready. Glastonbury, get all that truck of yours into the fo'c'sle. We'll bring her west of this place and drop the hook closer inshore. We're an English yacht put in the day before yesterday."

The others said not a word.

The clanking of the winch pawls filled the air, the anchor was brought home, and the _Lorna_, under the auxiliary and steered by Sam, turned and stole off across the agora, across the submerged theatre, across the tranquil bay, dropping anchor three cable-lengths from the shore.

Here the wily Sam, after another observation from the cross-trees that confirmed his worst suspicions, ordered the boat to be got over.

"What do you want with the boat?" asked Bobby.

"You'll see in a minute," replied the other.

They had brought a small tent for possible camping-out. It was stowed down below. He had it brought up and got into the boat that was now alongside. Then he ordered Church and Atherfield to take it ashore, set it up, and come back.

"We've been exploring the island and fishing," he explained to the others. "The tent will help the story out. Now there's nothing more to do but trust in Providence and have breakfast."

They went below, where Martia had laid out the things and made the coffee. There had been no time to cook anything, so they had to content themselves with canned stuff and biscuits. During the meal Bowler from time to time kept them informed, through the skylight, as to the doings of the stranger.

"You can see her from the deck now, sir. She's aisin' down. A boat pullin' off, sir, for the reefs."

From time to time, Sam or one of the others popped up on deck.

The thing was painted grey, with a yellow smoke-stack and a white deck-house. She looked as though she might be some foreigner's idea of a yacht. No Englishman would have been seen dead on board her at Cowes. The stove-pipe funnel, the sheer stern, and the size of the deck-house were enough in themselves; and, to complete the picture, the paint on the hull had gone rusty.

"She's a howling ambulance," said Sam. "She's no navy boat, unless the Digger Indians have started a fleet. And she hasn't been here before, else she wouldn't be sending that boat to take soundings of the channel. Look at that chocolate-box of a deck-house, and the rake of those masts, and the size of that jack-staff."

A siren that might have belonged to the _Majestic_ suddenly let off, answered by a bellow from the astonished echoes of the island, and they saw that the stranger was moving again, following the boat through the channel.

The boat of the _Lorna_ had returned from pitching the tent, and Sam, getting into her, prepared to put off and board the newcomer.

"I'll go and see them," said he. "It's better than them coming to see us. You can bet I'll do all I can to make them keep their distance and fool them."

He put off, Bowler and Church rowing, just as the stranger, passing the reefs, breasted the waters of the bay, going dead slow, a fellow in the chains swinging the lead and calling out the fathoms in a voice that came sharp as the cry of a gull.

"That's a foreigner," said Bobby, as he stood watching with Martia. "There's one thing certain, she doesn't know this place or she wouldn't be stealing in like that. At least, she doesn't know the passage and the soundings. There goes the anchor."

The rumble of the chain, following the splash, came across the water, and then they stood watching the _Lorna's_ boat closing with the newcomer, Sam at the yoke lines steering to fetch her on the starboard side. They saw the ladder thrown down and the redoubtable Sam climbing on deck.

"He's talking to a tall, black-bearded chap in a white yachting cap," said Bobby, who had the glass. "He's pointing towards us and they're jabbering together. Now they've gone into the deck-house."

He handed the glass to the girl, and she put it to her eye.

"Oh, I can see it quite close!" cried she, as though the fact were a phenomenon. "Look at the little men on deck. They're all on this side looking at us. And there's a man throwing a bucket of water overboard. There's a man all in white with a white cap: he must be the cook. I can see a name on the bow."

"Can you read it?"

"Now I can, almost. And now I can't. It goes and comes. It's the movement of the ship. It's a double name. _Santa_--_Santa_----Oh, that's it, _Santa Margharita_. It's the name of a place near Genoa. I've heard it before."

She handed the glass back to him and they continued to watch the stranger, alongside which Bowler and Church in the _Lorna's_ boat were seated, smoking and making no attempt to fraternise with the fellows on board.

Nearly half an hour passed, and then Sam, followed by the black-bearded man, appeared on deck, dropped into the boat and pushed off.

"It's all O.K.," said the skipper of the _Lorna_ as he came over the side. "It's a chap that fancies he's doing a yachting trip in that bath-tub. Visconti is his name. Italian, and they've put in here to do a repair."

"How long will they be over it?" asked Bobby.

"Oh, says he'll be off to-morrow, and he's asked me to drop over and have dinner with him to-night."

"Didn't he ask us, too?"

"No," said Sam. "I told him the _Lorna_ was my boat and I was down here for my health, and the fishing, and we went on yarning, without my mentioning you two, and suddenly he sprung the dinner proposition on me. It was too late then. I couldn't say I have two friends on board. It would have looked as if I were fishing for an invitation for you."

"I don't think it would," said Martia. "And if it did, why shouldn't you fish for an invitation?"

She was disappointed. A break in the monotony of the life on board would have been welcome. So would a change of food and the opportunity to put on an evening frock. She could have smacked Sam for his stupidity, but Sam had sense on his side as well as diffidence.

"You see, it's not only that," he explained. "It's the bother of getting too friendly with him and his staying on here and messing about. If we all went to dinner with him we'd have to ask him back. He'd be sure, anyhow, to call before leaving. Whereas, if I just nip over alone, the thing is ended and done with."

"Are you sure he's all right?" asked the girl. "I mean that he's not anyone connected with the Greek Government or anyone come to spy on us?"

"He's quite all right," said Sam. "He's a gentleman and he's cruising for his health."

"Oh, dear," said she.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing. Only that doesn't sound, somehow, as if it was all right. Was it on account of his health that he came exactly here? Didn't it seem funny, when you were talking to him, to think that you both had come here for your health, at least that you were both yachting for your health?"

"No," said Sam. "Why should it? These seas, at least the Mediterranean and Ægean, are pretty much health resorts. If two people met in Buxton, say, and told each other they had come there for their gout, would it be funny?"

"I'm not talking of Buxton. I only say the whole thing seems to me fishy. Does he call that thing he's in a yacht?"

"Yes. He hired her for three months. He's got no illusions about her. Couldn't. She's offal, and the deck-house is a cockroach trap. But he says she's good enough to 'see sunsets from,' and the open deck is his chief home on board of her."

"Italian?" asked Martia.

"Yes, he's Italian."

"Visconti," said Bobby, who seemed plunged in meditation. "Where have I heard that name before? Visconti--Visconti----"

"Genoa, maybe," said Sam.

"No, it wasn't in Genoa. It was before that, and it seems to me it was in connection with the expedition. It wasn't at Poole or at the stores. Somewhere or another I heard it, but I can't remember where."

"Well," said Martia, "there's no use in bothering if you can't. Maybe I'm hypersensitive and quite wrong. But I feel, somehow, as if danger had suddenly sprung up against us; as though we ought to beware of the man and his boat. Anyhow," said she, speaking to Sam, "if you go to dinner to-night, be careful of what you say. Don't let him trap you into telling anything. I know--I didn't mean to suggest you'd do anything foolish, I only meant to warn you."

"Thanks," said Sam, evidently huffed. "I'm not a child, whatever else I may be. And as for Visconti, he showed no sign at all of trying to pump me or of having any idea at all about this place except that it was a good harbour for a small boat to put into."

Martia said nothing more and went below.

She had a lot of work to do. Hers from the start had been the business of keeping things tidy below deck. During the treasure hunt, nobody had much time for anything but the great business in hand. As a consequence, things were all over the place and confusion everywhere. Clothes and all sorts of gear had been ejected from lockers to give place to the vases wrapped in straw, and small objects of statuary and things that ought to have been in the lazarette were finding refuge on the cabin floor.

She set to on these matters, but the work did not stop her from thinking; and the more she thought, the more she disliked the idea of Sam going off to dine alone with this gentleman who was cruising for his health. But there was no use in worrying, and the hard work of putting things straight soothed her mind. The stranger could know nothing of the work they had been doing, even if he knew of the existence of Hyalos. Their story was plausible, and the appearance of the tent ashore bore it out. All the same her mind, though quietened, was not quite satisfied.

* * * * *

At seven o'clock Sam, in his best coat and looking a bit more respectable than usual, was rowed off to the _Santa Margharita_ through a blue luminous twilight, above which the constellations were sketching themselves, and through which the voice of the reefs came ghostly, mixed with the occasional weak cry of a gull.

Bobby and the girl watched him go and then went down to their own dinner--canned corned beef and potatoes boiled by Church, with canned asparagus to follow. The beef they had brought in the harness cask had suddenly become tainted, and they had been living for a week mostly on canned stuff, helped out with fish when they had time to do any fishing.

Anyone who has been condemned to live on canned food for any time will know how it palls. The fact that Sam was possibly enjoying a good dinner, served by a French cook, did not improve the flavour of the food before them, and Martia said so.

"The only comfort is," said Bobby, "that Sam doesn't know good from bad and can't be enjoying it."

He was sitting opposite to her, and it seemed to him that whatever else might be the outcome of the voyage, it had been up to this the re-making of the girl before him. The tired look had gone from her eyes and the colour that London had driven away had come back to her cheeks.

Martia was good to look upon as she sat there, the lamplight falling on her shapely little head; good to look at, despite the fact that her get-up would have destroyed the attraction of any Continental woman, consisting as it did of a coat and skirt the worse for sea-wear and salt. Bobby, alone with her for the first time in weeks, had to crush down the desire of his heart and leave unspoken the words rising to his lips. There was still much to be done ere he could treat her other than as a shipmate and fellow-worker and say to her what he wanted to say.

He got pretty near it, though.

"Even if he was," he went on, "he'd deserve it, for he's been working like a nigger this last month."

"We all have," said she.

"Yes, we all have, and we deserve what we've got. What do you think is the worth of the stuff we've hived already?"

Martia knitted her brows in thought.

"I don't know," said she; "anything over a hundred thousand pounds, I should think."

"A hundred thousand?"

"Why not? Some of these things are priceless; far, far above the rubies, for rubies are always being found. That Aphrodite alone might bring a little fortune. It all depends on finding a buyer."

"That's where Behrens comes in. He as good as told me that these things would go to America."

"If I tell you something," said Martia, "you won't speak of it to anyone else?"

"Never."

"Well, I believe Mr. Behrens has arranged that everything we find shall go to South America. Argentina. The wealth of Argentina is simply fabulous, and things can be sold there without too much bother as to where they came from. I'm telling you this in confidence, though he did not make me promise to keep it to myself."

"I shan't say a word," said Bobby, "but I'm glad to know. It makes things all the surer, and it seems to me there's almost certainly a big profit coming from this business. And that's what worries me."

"How?"

"This way. I'm to get half, according to my contract with Behrens. That is to say, half after all expenses are deducted."

"Yes?"

"Well, where do you come in? You've worked as hard as any of us."

"Me? Why I've had this trip for nothing. I don't want anything more."

He did not reply for a moment; he could not say what was in his mind, that whatever money he made was hers as well as his.

"We'll talk about that later on," he said at last. "There's no use in counting our chickens before they are hatched, and we haven't got the stuff home yet. But there's another point--Sam."

"I doubt if he'll take anything," replied she. "First of all he's one of those queer people who don't care a button for money, and secondly he looks on all this not as work but as fun."

"But he's worked a lot harder than I have."

"Yes; but what you call work isn't work to him. He's never happier than when he's in his shirt-sleeves rigging tackles and overhauling spars. He'd be absolutely and perfectly content if he could only repaint the _Lorna_ on top of everything else. He was grumbling to me only yesterday because there was no paint on board."

Bobby said no more. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her right out what she had known about Sam in the past, and exactly what their relationship had been, but he restrained himself. Presently they went on deck, Martia retiring to her cabin about an hour later.

It was now ten o'clock, and as he sat smoking he could see the forms of the men, who had gathered for'ard round the fo'c'sle hatch, and away across the moonlit bay the lights of the _Santa Margharita_. It was a far cry from Cadogan Street and Piccadilly Circus, and the remembrance of London brought up before him the fact that his life in the course of a very few weeks had taken a new direction, and his future a new significance.

If what Martia said was true--and he felt that it was true--he was no longer a man scraping about to make a living at story-writing, but a man of means, maybe of wealth.

Twenty thousand pounds would be a fortune, and the profit of this wonderful haul from the sea might even bring him in much more than that.

The expedition was a success. It was only just in this minute of relaxation that he recognised the full fact, and the real meaning of it, and the truth that in a few weeks he had made what many a man labours a lifetime to make. Had made? Ah, there was the rub! The thing was not ended yet. They had still to face the sea's pleasure and the chance of storms. They had still to face mischance.

Everything up to this had been easy--too easy, almost. Of Fortune, one true thing can be said--that she has two faces, one beautiful as heaven, one hideous as hell.

Thinking like this, his eyes fell on the lights of the _Santa Margharita_, and a sudden vague uneasiness seized him.

What did that hooker want, putting in just now? There was no reason why she should not have put in to do a repair. Still, it was a nuisance. A day or two more and they would have been gone, and no one would ever have known that they had been to Hyalos. But there was no use in bothering. The _Santa Margharita_, whatever she was, had evidently never been here before, else she would have come in without sending a boat before her to take soundings. Hyalos was evidently as strange to her as it had been to them; stranger, for they had been able to come in without any bother.

If the people on board her knew nothing about the place, it was almost a sure thing that they knew nothing of the treasure city. Still, he wished Sam was back.

It was now a quarter to eleven.

He went forward and had a word with the fellows by the fo'c'sle hatch, then he paced the deck. The idea came to him to send a boat off for Sam, but the arrangement had been that the _Santa Margharita_ people would send the skipper back, and Bobby put the idea away.

Time passed. The fellows on deck dropped below, leaving only Atherfield as anchor watch. The moon dropped further to the west. Then, at last, away over the water something showed. It was a boat, and at the same moment, like the windows of a house shutting up after some festivity, the deck-house lights of the _Santa Margharita_ went out.

The boat came alongside to port. Bobby dropped the ladder. The skipper of the _Lorna_ came on board, leg over rail, and the boat started back.

Sam was breathing hard, with his lips closed. He was not quite steady on his pins. He took Bobby by the shoulder and drew his head close.

"Is she in bed?" whispered Sam.

"Yes, that's all right," said the other. "What have you been doing?"

"Glorious time," whispered the festive one. "Awful good chap, that chap. Help us down. Don't make a noise."

When he was in his bunk he refused to undress. Bobby sat for a moment contemplating things.

Then a movement from the bunk drew his attention. Sam, with his hair horribly and suddenly tousled, was motioning him to come close.

"Don't tell her I got like this," whispered the reveller. "It's not what I've had has done me, but the worry of life. If you'd--ruined your life in the past same's I've ruined mine, you'd know--you'd know."

"Oh, shut up and go to sleep," replied Bobby.