“if i did not know positively that count cadillac is at this moment ashore at the club-house, i would be willing to swear that he stands before me yonder,” was the detective’s mental comment, as he gazed upon the transformation wrought by the mere removal of the hat and wig worn by the pirate chief. “as it is, there can be no doubt now that my first idea was the correct one, and that the two men are brothers—aye, twin brothers, at that.”
“well?” asked the woman of the pirate, permitting the book to rest upon her lap and raising her eyes to his face. she spoke in french, and he replied to her in the same tongue; but it was all perfectly intelligible to nick carter.
“it is magnificent,” he replied, throwing himself into a chair opposite her, and selecting a cigar, which he proceeded to light with evident relish. “it is much better than i ever dared to hope, from one affair.”
“affair!” said the woman, with cold contempt in her voice and manner. “why dignify your thieving operations by the use of such a word? why not call them what they are?”
sparkle shrugged his shoulders.
“calm yourself, hortense,” he said, puffing lazily at his cigar. “a few more expeditions like this one to-night[91] will render us independent. before the season is ended, if i continue as fortunate as i have been so far, we will have collected a million, at least—perhaps two millions; and dollars, too! think of it! that seems between five and ten million francs. why, do you know, petite, that alexandre dumas only gave the count of monte cristo something like ten million francs, altogether?”
the woman sighed.
“but it is robbery,” she said—“robbery! there is no gentler term to apply to it. you call it making collections. you describe your piratical expeditions as ‘affairs,’ and you refer to our trips when we start out to accomplish this infamous work as ‘excursions.’ but they are not excursions, jules!”
he waived his right hand deprecatingly.
“whatever they may be, they are none the less necessary,” he said coolly. “i will thank you to regard them so, hortense. think of our estates in france. think of the opportunities which will be afforded you over there for doing unlimited good with the wealth i shall secure for you. think——”
“bah! think! i do nothing else but think! i think all the time. i remember that my family was one which no stain had touched until i married you, and you dragged me into this thievish business! i remember that, although we were poor, we were proud of an illustrious past, than which nobody in france could boast a better. i remember——”
“enough! i will not hear you!”
“and how long, pray, must this continue before you[92] will consider that you have enough to pay your debts and to live on the income of what is left to you after that of your stolen fortune?”
“how long? who knows! as i have said, if other affairs prosper me as well as this one to-night has done, it will not be long. think of it! to-night—to-night alone—i have collected almost a quarter of a million, in the value of dollars! to-night i have added to my store more than a million francs!”
“aye; but much of it you will never be able to use.”
“i shall use it all. the melting-pot is ever handy; and there are other means of disposing of——”
“what, for example, shall you do with the trophy cups you have taken from some of your victims?” she demanded.
“ah!” he replied. “they are valuable! very valuable! i have thought out a method by which their owners can be induced to redeem them for cash at much more than their value and without danger to me. that monsieur kane, for example—he would gladly give fifty thousand dollars rather than lose his cups—his petted race cups. and what is fifty thousand dollars to him? faugh! it is nothing! he would think no more of that amount than i do of the ash of this cigar, which i throw from me—so. and monsieur burton—oui, oui! with him it is the same. fifty thousand? he would give a hundred thousand, so jean tells me. and he is not as rich as monsieur kane! but his trophies are dearer to him. and to-night? to-night i have collected others.[93] ha, hortense! it is the millennium that is at hand for us!”
“the millennium!” she exclaimed scornfully. “say, rather, it is cayenne, toulon, the château d’if, the bastile, or the guillotine!”
the pirate shrugged his shoulders resignedly.
“you mentioned jean,” continued the woman. “tell me, what of him?”
“what of him? what should there be of him? he is invaluable. but for the information he gives me i could not accomplish what i do; i could have accomplished nothing of what i have already done. and he is innocent of real wrong, is he not? he tells me, merely, ‘to-morrow evening monsieur kane will anchor at such a place with his yacht, the goalong. i shall be a guest.’ it is enough. he says no more than that. if i appear upon the scene and demand tribute, jean is not to blame. again he says to me, ‘monsieur burton is fond of running his yacht, the harkaway, through the sound by night, when the moon is full. he likes to go at half-speed. i should not be surprised if he left newport soon after we do so, and i am quite sure that he will be due at that same anchorage where we are going the evening following our arrival.’ you see, hortense, that is merely a comment. if i take advantage of the knowledge thus acquired, it is no fault of jean’s, is it?”
“bah!” she exclaimed. “such arguments! sophistry! lies!”
“well? and then what? in anjou we have our estates—jean and i. when he is away, i am there. when[94] i am there, he is not. even our own people do not understand that there are two men who are so much alike that one cannot be separated from the other by strange eyes. and who, in the end, shall have it to say that the count of cadillac was ever a pirate? surely, not the american millionaires who have entertained him; surely not those men who have seen him seated beside them on their own decks while the pirate was engaged in looting their treasures. and when i have collected the five or ten million francs and taken them to france—when the fortunes of the cadillacs are reestablished, and one or the other of us seems suddenly to reappear from far-away peru with a story about fabulous mines owned there, which have yielded the fortune so suddenly in evidence, who will there be to say that once there was a shadow on the water—a pirate, if you will—which collected this fortune for the twin brothers so happily reunited after a separation which has endured since childhood? ah, hortense, it is well planned. it is well schemed. it is perfect!”
the woman was quietly weeping now, and did not reply. seeing that it was so, he left his seat and passed around the table to her side.
“i am sorry, petite,” he said sadly. “it is robbery, i know. but it is robbery of millionaires, who will never miss what is taken from them.”
he would have caressed her, but she repulsed him.
“no,” she said. “leave me. i do not know even if you are jules. you may be jean. when one of you is beside me i never know which one it is. it is only[95] when you approach me together, side by side, that i know which is my husband. and you can change places with each other so deftly that i never know when you do it. return to your chair. remain there until you go to your room.”
he laughed uneasily; but he obeyed her, and returned to his chair at the opposite side of the table.
nick carter witnessed this scene with varying emotions, and behind him in the passageway he knew that chick and kane were both standing, as deeply interested as he was. he was thinking that somewhere about the craft there were at least seven more men. no doubt they were forward in their own quarters. perhaps they were in that general assembly-room.
the detective knew now that it was merely a question of opportunity when he would capture the pirate cruiser and all the men aboard of her. the game was in his own hands now, and he merely desired to hold back his trumps until the final play, in order to surprise his opponent the more.
the shadow was by this time passing swiftly through the water. he knew that, because he could hear the rustling of the passing ripples along the smooth sides of the hull. but there was no motion to the craft at all. there was no jar made by machinery. the cruiser went along as silently, as swiftly, and as smoothly as if she had been a phantom.
he wondered where she was going—where the vessel was taking him and his friends—but he had no means of determining that question until she should arrive at her[96] destination—until the hatches should be opened, and there should be an effort made on the part of the officers and crew to go on deck. but he hoped that such a time was approaching, and he believed it was, inasmuch as neither of the occupants of the cabin seemed to think of retiring. it was evident to him that they were both awaiting the arrival of the vessel at some port where she was expected to lay by and rest until the time came for her to start again upon another of her “collecting excursions.”
presently, captain sparkle left his chair, and the detective drew back hastily, thinking that perhaps he intended to seek his room. but he was undeceived.
“we must be approaching our anchorage,” he said. “it is time i went to the wheel. i dare not trust toto to take us inside the screen.”
the woman made no reply, and he left the cabin, going forward through that other cabin by which nick and his friends had entered the vessel.
when he was gone, the woman did not move.
she remained where he had left her, with her head bowed upon her hand, and nick turned to chick and made a number of pantomimic gestures, which were plainly read by his assistant. they told him as plainly as words could have done that his chief wished him to approach the woman silently from behind, and to seize her, and hold her, so that she could not move. at the same time he was to wrap a towel tightly around her face, so that it would cover her mouth, and thus prevent her from crying out, and so giving an alarm.
chick obeyed.
[97]
he crept forward silently, and the woman was not aware of his approach until he had thrown the towel across her lips and drawn it tightly against them. and then, while she struggled, trying in vain to escape, nick carter stepped in front of her, and said, quietly, and in the french language:
“be calm, madame. you are in no danger, and you shall not suffer the slightest harm, i assure you.”
