CHAPTER TWO

She was roused from her reverie by the sound of rushing water. The men were washing down the decks, and she had to jump lightly on to a coil of ropes in order to escape the flood. It looked like glass as it flowed over the boards and through the scuppers. Diana felt her whole personality invaded by a sensation of cheerful security, of joy, at being absorbed as it were into a moving entity. She smiled serenely, and looked around her at these evidences of a century to which she seemed to be returning from a flight into a primal age. Westward, barely eight miles away, the rugged cliffs of an island rose out of the sea, crowned with what might be--she had no telescope--the Roman Theatre of Taormina. Years ago she had sailed these self-same waters, but she had never had an opportunity of visiting the island before, or of studying its coast-line. The young sailor who was busy swabbing down the deck had hitherto only sailed the Atlantic to and from America. This was his first experience of the Mediterranean, and he could give her none of the information she so eagerly desired. Nor could she consult the charts, for they were in the captain's cabin. The man at the wheel was always chary of words first thing in the morning. No one was about who could tell her what she longed to know. But soon the sound of an electric bell warned her that her friends were beginning to stir below, and she forgot her preoccupation with the landscape in order to guess who the ringer might be. Three times the summons was repeated, short, decisive, peremptory. It must be Scherer; he alone, as owner of the yacht, would venture on so authoritative an expression of urgency. The prince usually rang but once, with deliberation. Franklin's impatience was implied by three short, syncopated trills following close upon each other. The Russian never rang at all, probably, thought Diana, because it smacked too much of the master. She smiled to herself, hoping breakfast might soon be served. Meanwhile she watched the gulls flying overhead, and as she did so she heard footsteps approaching. The soft, slow tread told her that this was the fifth of her friends aboard.

When the plans for the cruise had been concluded, soon after that evening at Scherer's, and Diana had been asked if she knew of anyone else who would fit into the party, her thoughts had naturally flown to Wilhelm, whose lute playing and fanciful imagination would be greatly appreciated during such a voyage. Indeed, Wilhelm had proved so pleasant a companion to all concerned, that Scherer himself was grateful for the young man's presence.

"Good morning, Wilhelm," Diana called to him as he approached. "You are the first to put in an appearance, and yet you come an hour too late. The best of the day is past!"

"What? Breakfast?"

"No, the early hours!"

"But the sun's hardly risen."

"True; still, like a traveller after an hour's tramp, the sun's beginning to feel a trifle hot and weary. The first step into the free morning air when all the rest of the household is asleep, the first footfall to rouse the echoes along the slumbering street--that's over for today. And look, there's Etna!"

"You are cold," said Wilhelm waving his hand to the mountain. "Farewell! Farewell!--Where are we going to land?"

"Herr Scherer said Syracuse."

"At noon?"

"No, later. Perhaps not before evening."

"And there we'll find the tyrant?"

"Say, rather, the ear of Dionysius."

He sat Turkish fashion on a coil of ropes, his eyes blinking in the dazzle of sun and sea. His dreamy nature made him critical of all this clarity and hardness of outline. It seemed to him that the white apparition before him, resting a foot lightly upon a taut bit of cordage and leaning against the brass rail, with the background of blue, was poised in mid air.

"You have a way of talking about the gods as if they were relations of yours, Diana. And now you want to know where Dionysius keeps his ears! What do they matter? A man needs no more than mouth and nose to appreciate Burgundy."

"This morning you have no eyes," she retorted, smiling and poking him playfully with the point of her shoe. "If only you had ears! Then you would have heard what Herr Scherer had to tell us last night about this ear, seeing that this time, may it please you, we are not making for your tutelary deity, but for the tyrant who took the name of the god because--well, because he may have felt a kinship to the gods just as Diana does. And now let's have some breakfast."

So saying she jumped off the rail, pulled Wilhelm to his feet, linked arms with him, and sped down the deck to the dining-room, a place of glass and steel situated on the promenade deck. Taking the seat at the head of the table, she said to the steward, who awaited her orders menu in hand, "Oh, just give us anything you have a mind to, fruit, tea, what you will!"

"Impossible," protested Wilhelm, grasping the menu and measuring it with his fingers. "Eight inches of breakfast can't be walked off! And the spacing between dishes is as close as in the cheap edition of Jean Paul I have downstairs in my cabin. So for today I decree that we choose the even numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, and tomorrow we'll eat the uneven."

Thereupon he handed back the card to the steward who went off to get them what they had ordered. As soon as the man was out of earshot, Wilhelm said:

"Have you noticed how the Russian eats?"

"He eats splendidly," said Diana with ostentatious decision, smoothing her table napkin primly over her lap.

"Splendidly! Indeed?" The young man raised a hand in protest. Then with the utmost solemnity, as if the conventions of good manners were his main concern in life, he continued: "Didn't you notice how, last night at dinner, he took a quail in his fingers and bit off its head, smartly and almost savagely, as if he were an ogre dining off a grand duke?"

Diana laughed in spite of herself. She bit heartily into an apple, as she retorted:

"Yes, Wilhelm, smartly and savagely," and she suited her action to the words, biting ferociously into the fruit she held in hand. "I'm not particularly enamoured of this conceited young Russian, and as far as I am concerned he might have stayed at home. But he has the finest teeth I've ever seen biting into anything, and it's only when he attacks his food that you can see them, for he never laughs. Besides, as far as quails are concerned, conventional etiquette permits one to bite their heads off, as you can read for yourself in Brillat-Savarin, even if one be a grand duke and one takes the quail for a roasted anarchist!"

"I'll have to ask the prince about that," said Wilhelm huffily, helping himself to porridge. "He's nearly a grand duke himself and must know about such things better than any of us."

The prince appeared at that moment and stood looking through the glass door, as he said with indulgent pity:

"Fancy eating breakfast just as we are sailing by Fiumefreddo, Gurna, and Fondachello! A fleeting moment we may never hope to recapture...."

"Fancy sleeping on to eight o'clock on such a morning," retorted Diana, "and then to try and cloak the misdemeanour with an erudition acquired on the wing as it were--for I am sure you've only culled those names from a map as you were dressing!"

"Well, you can't deny that I've committed them to memory with commendable promptitude," said the prince, as he took his place on Diana's left, for, wishing to avoid formal etiquette of any kind, it had been agreed that all were to take their seats at table as chance would have it--an arrangement which invariably entailed a general post of table napkins as the prelude to every meal. "Fate, in the person of Giorgino, our worthy chef's assistant, who from a passionate desire to move in high social circles gets up when everyone else is asleep and lays the breakfast table, fate, I say, had decreed that the Russian should sit here. But I am not afraid to gainsay the dame by removing Sergievitch's napkin to a lower place at our board," and he suited the action to the word. "Good morning, Herr Wilhelm!"

Wilhelm, busy ladling in his porridge, was content to reply:

"Good morning! Do you happen ever to have killed a quail by biting off its head?"

The prince's eyebrows went up in perplexity at the question. Then, turning to Diana, he inquired:

"Has Herr Wilhelm had a bad dream?"

She shook her head, saying:

"Marsala, porridge, sea air, Jean Paul, and a good deal of Stromboli...."

"Too much Stromboli," interrupted Scherer as he came forward with the Russian. When the chorus of greetings had subsided, he continued: "Not only that, but too much mail as well. I was a fool to call for it in Messina yesterday, it's given me a headache going through the pile and has made me late for breakfast."

"Allow me," said Diana offering him the dish, and for a good while thereafter the five of them were busy with the details of breakfasting.

"Can I get no information for my department?" inquired Diana, at length.

"I suggest an editorial staff on the following lines," said the prince. "The aim of the Scherer expedition: to incite Lord Northcliffe to suicide. The means: publication of events just before their occurrence. Leader writer: the Captain. Trade: Herr Scherer. Commerce: Fräulein de Wassilko. Technical affairs: Herr Wilhelm. Advertisements: Herr Franklin. Art: Giorgino, who lays our dining table so well. Reminiscences of the twenty-first century: Dr. Sergievitch."

"And what about yourself, Prince?"

"I am, of course, the Constant Reader, who for years has sent in letters of protest, in English, in American, in Russian, in Italian, to say: 'I earnestly request you to give us a little less "Excelsior."'"

"Your arrangement won't do at all," interrupted Scherer, "for, since we shall have to depend on our advertisements for our financial security, we must have some one who can get up early!"

Whereupon they all began to comment on Franklin's unpunctuality as if they themselves had been up for hours. Diana recommended Wilhelm for the post, seeing that he had been the first of the men to put in an appearance, but, since Franklin himself entered at that moment, all were nonplussed for a reply.

"I'm awfully sorry," apologized Franklin, hastily slipping into the vacant place, "but I've had a most extraordinary dream!"

"With whom?" asked Wilhelm innocently.

"With a French colonial. He and I used constantly to be at loggerheads...."

Whereat they all laughed, and Diana said:

"The prince told us a similar story yesterday. It seems to me there is too much dreaming aboard the 'Excelsior.' You ought to run more races, or swing dumbbells or something. Have we any foils?"

"You need not have anxiety on my account," said Scherer, "for I never dream."

He spoke so simply that no one could doubt the truth of the statement. The prince's scepticism might have led him to demur had not Kyril, with his usual solemnity amid the flashes of wit and humour of his comrades, exclaimed:

"So there really are people in the world who never dream!"

"And who are, nevertheless, musical, you'd like to add. Eh?"

The prince had tossed the repartee to the Russian, hoping to bring a little levity into the solemn seriousness which the man's words had cast upon the company.

"No, what I had in mind was that there were actually persons who never dream and are yet competent to carry out business transactions."

Even the prince, paradoxical as were his outlooks as a rule, was taken aback. Who could have imagined such words in the mouth of a revolutionary? Everyone was now alert in the discussion, while Scherer endeavoured to exculpate himself by saying:

"And why not? So long as a man does not forget the dream of his own practical endeavour, what matters it if his nights are dreamless? Day cannot kill a dream which night has not created!"

"Wilhelm," cried Diana cheerfully, "confirmed dreamer that you are, there's hope for you yet! Even now you may become a man of action!" Her eyes met Franklin's as she spoke, and she realized that though he too was striving towards practical achievements, he had no wish to be exiled from the realm of dreams. She smiled at him across the table.

"You're laughing at me," protested Scherer.

"I am merely laughing at the principles of those who can tolerate fulfilment only when it is in harmony with their own peculiar nature."

The prince, silent himself, became aware that between Diana and the four other men, a series of epigrams was in course of construction. He seemed to perceive the thoughts like living sparks glowing in mid air, when the Russian intervened:

"Fulfilment? There's no such thing so far as rationalists are concerned, and as for us others it would only serve to hinder our activities. Unless one can die at the very moment of fulfilment, it were better never to have been born at all. He who, while dreaming, acts, is even more dangerous than he who could create in response to his dream. In this matter, likewise, I am all in favour of a partition of powers."

Franklin, hardly admitting even to himself how much he disliked the Russian, followed what Sergievitch said as in a dream, barely conscious of the meaning of the words. Before him he saw a man, handsome and young, with hair, complexion, and eyes so clear as to gainsay the sombre spirit which pervaded Kyril's whole inner being. Surely, thought Franklin, this man must be instinct with devotion, imagination, and at the same time so completely master of himself that he gives his fancy rein only to a circumscribed extent, never allowing it to get out of control. He sought to probe the young Russian's heart.

Precisely because he did not understand Kyril as well as Franklin did, Wilhelm liked the Russian. After a while he asked innocently:

"Do you mind telling me what partition of powers means?"

"Alternative spells of freedom and unfreedom," explained Scherer.

"Not bad, so long as you don't take the words in a political sense," commented Kyril. "All the same there's a certain danger...."

"Everything seems to harbour dangers for you this morning," said the prince politely. "And yet the sky is blue and cloudless, and there is no wind to ruffle the waters." He glanced over at Diana to see if she would not give the signal to rise. But she remained seated.

Scherer said softly: "Give me the man who, wide-awake, controls his deeds!"

"And I love the deed which is moulded on the anvil of a dream," put in Franklin.

All were silent for a time. Then Diana, turning to the prince, asked with a smile:

"What have you to say to this?"

"I? Oh, I am honestly fonder of the people themselves than of the people's leaders or of their works, though I would not renounce laurel or other crowns. But I know that such thoughts are quite out of date!"

He looked squarely at Diana as he finished, thus making it clear to her that he wished her to give the signal which should put an end to the meal. He wanted to withdraw, to be free, for he had revealed a tiny corner of his heart and felt profoundly moved at what he had done. In his embarrassment he turned away, and did not observe Kyril's blue eyes, more pure, more innocent than ever, fixed upon him appreciatively. The people! That word, falling from the lips of so paradoxical a creature as the prince, spoken so simply, nonplussed the revolutionary and yet gave him premonitions of a future understanding.

Diana, as she rose, avoided the eyes of both men, seeking Scherer's steady gaze. But instead, she encountered Wilhelm's boyish eyes, puzzled, perplexed, and she heard him mutter to himself:

"What on earth are they all talking about? I haven't understood a word!"

And he slipped through the glass door in her wake.