"Are you keeping Mr. Kinney a prisoner in his state-room?" Idemanded. "If you are--"
"He doesn't have to stay there," protested the purser sulkily.
"When he found the stewards were following him he went to his cabin.""I will see him at once," I said. "And if I catch any of your stewards following ME, I'll drop them overboard."No one tried to stop me--indeed, knowing I could not escape, they seemed pleased at my departure, and I went to my cabin.
Kinney, seated on the edge of the berth, greeted me with a hollow groan. His expression was one of utter misery. As though begging me not to be angry, he threw out his arms appealingly.
"How the devil!" he began, "was I to know that a little red-headed shrimp like that was the Earl of Ivy? And that that tall blonde girl," he added indignantly, "that I thought was an accomplice, is Lady Moya, his sister?""What happened?" I asked.
Kinney was wearing his hat. He took it off and hurled it to the floor.
"It was that damned hat!" he cried. "It's a Harvard ribbon, all right, but only men on the crew can wear it! How was I to know THAT? I saw Aldrich looking at it in a puzzled way, and when he said, 'I see you are on the crew,' I guessed what it meant, and said I was on last year's crew. Unfortunately HE was on last year's crew! That's what made him suspect me, and after dinner he put me through a third degree. I must have given the wrong answers, for suddenly he jumped up and called me a swindler and an impostor. I got back by telling him he was a crook and that I was a detective, and that I had sent a wireless to have him arrested at New Bedford. He challenged me to prove I was a detective, and, of course, I couldn't, and he called up two stewards and told them to watch me while he went after the purser. I didn't fancy being watched, so I came here.""When did you tell him I was the Earl of Ivy?"Kinney ran his fingers through his hair and groaned dismally.
"That was before the boat started," he said; "it was only a joke.
He didn't seem to be interested in my conversation, so I thought I'd liven it up a bit by saying I was a friend of Lord Ivy's. And you happened to pass, and I happened to remember Mrs. Shaw saying you looked like a British peer, so I said: 'That is my friend Lord Ivy.' I said I was your secretary, and he seemed greatly interested, and--" Kinney added dismally, "I talked too much. I am SO sorry," he begged. "It's going to be awful for you!" His eyes suddenly lit with hope. "Unless," he whispered. "we can escape!"The same thought was in my mind, but the idea was absurd, and impracticable. I knew there was no escape. I knew we were sentenced at sunrise to a most humiliating and disgraceful experience. The newspapers would regard anything that concerned Lord Ivy as news. In my turn I also saw the hideous head-lines.
What would my father and mother at Fairport think; what would my old friends there think; and, what was of even greater importance, how would Joyce & Carboy act? What chance was there left me, after I had been arrested as an impostor, to become a stenographer in the law courts--in time, a member of the bar? But I found that what, for the moment, distressed me most was that the lovely lady would consider me a knave or a fool. The thought made me exclaim with exasperation. Had it been possible to abandon Kinney, I would have dropped overboard and made for shore. The night was warm and foggy, and the short journey to land, to one who had been brought up like a duck, meant nothing more than a wetting. But I did not see how I could desert Kinney.
"Can you swim?" I asked "Of course not!" he answered gloomily; "and, besides," he added, "our names are on our suitcases. We couldn't take them with us, and they'd find out who we are. If we could only steal a boat!" he exclaimed eagerly--"one of those on the davits," he urged--"we could put our suitcases in it and then, after every one is asleep, we could lower it into the water."The smallest boat on board was certified to hold twenty-five persons, and without waking the entire ship's company we could as easily have moved the chart-room. This I pointed out.
"Don't make objections!" Kinney cried petulantly. He was rapidly recovering his spirits. The imminence of danger seemed to inspire him.
"Think!" he commanded. "Think of some way by which we can get off this boat before she reaches New Bedford. We MUST! We must not be arrested! It would be too awful!" He interrupted himself with an excited exclamation.
"I have it!" he whispered hoarsely: "I will ring in the fire-alarm!
The crew will run to quarters. The boats will be lowered. We will cut one of them adrift. In the confusion--"What was to happen in the confusion that his imagination had conjured up, I was not to know. For what actually happened was so confused that of nothing am I quite certain. First, from the water of the Sound, that was lapping pleasantly against the side, I heard the voice of a man raised in terror. Then came a rush of feet, oaths, and yells; then a shock that threw us to our knees, and a crunching, ripping, and tearing roar like that made by the roof of a burning building when it plunges to the cellar.
And the next instant a large bowsprit entered our cabin window.
There was left me just space enough to wrench the door open, and grabbing Kinney, who was still on his knees, I dragged him into the alleyway. He scrambled upright and clasped his hands to his head.
"Where's my hat?" he cried.