Chapter IV

HONORABLE WILLIE SAUNDERS BECOMES THOROUGHLY MAD.

Two hours later, when the cracker-merchant reached the place of rendezvous, convulsively pressing the enormous six-shot revolver in his pocket, he espied Mr. Robertson, Jr.

“You see,” said the latter, “that with the house of Robertson Brothers & Co., you have only to express the wish.”

“And a check,” Willie Saunders might have answered.

But silently he proceeded to the little steamer which was under steam, alongside the wharf. It was a screw propeller, small at the bow, and of elegant shape, which could easily make her twelve miles an hour.

“The Firefly was just manned and free,” resumed the agent, joining Miss Ada’s poor lover. “Her owner was exacting, but I did not hesitate.”

“Let us embark, then; let us embark,” said Saunders, who acted like a madman.

“Let us go on board,” repeated Mr. Robertson, Jr., and, pointing out the way to his victim, he quietly crossed the planking, the boards of which groaned under the infinitely great weight of the heavy Yankee.

The Firefly was immediately unmoored. Two moments later, it was sailing out in the harbor in order to double the point at Brooklyn.

“Three o’clock,” said the agent of the lavish client, after having consulted a superb chronometer which was fastened to his waistcoat by a massive guard-chain.

“So much the better,” answered Saunders; “we can anchor nearer the Gleam without being recognized. There will be the devil to pay if, during the evening or night, the wretch does not betray her presence on board her lover’s boat. Then, tomorrow morning, I swear, this doomed colonel must exchange a few pistol shots with me, or I will kill him like a dog, and her afterwards.”

“Dear sir, don’t commit any act of violence in my presence, at least. I should not like to be accused of complicity in such an affair. Come, calm yourself a little. In the first place, if you will take my advice, be less expressive, and don’t talk so loud about your business. It is not necessary for my crew to know the cause of this little trip.”

“Yes, you are right; but, truly, I am beside myself. To have been duped in this manner--”

It was while walking the deck of the Firefly that these gentlemen exchanged these thoughts. They remained on deck until the steward announced that dinner was ready.

Saunders’ first impulse was to refuse to go to the dining-room, but Robertson, Jr., proved so convincingly that dieting was injurious to mind and body, that the unfortunate merchant finally placed himself at the table, and ate with a very good appetite.

The dinner was just ended, when the captain of the steamboat notified his passengers that they were nearing Staten Island, and that the Gleam was in the harbor.

The stout New Yorker made but one bound from the room to the deck.

It was night, and the sky indicated that it was to be dark and stormy. Nevertheless, one could see plainly enough to distinguish Colonel Forster’s yacht, which was at anchor near the shore.

After taking time to wrap himself in his overcoat, Mr. Robertson, Jr., with a cigar in his mouth, cool, calculating, and methodical as usual, joined the irascible Saunders.

“Suppose we cross the bows of the Gleam at once,” proposed the latter.

“Don’t think of such a thing, dear sir,” answered the agent. “In the first place, I think that our captain would refuse, the maritime law having foreseen this kind of collision on the part of a boat in motion with a ship at anchor; besides, how would it help you? You do not wish, I suppose, to rejoin Miss Ada Ricard by such a dangerous movement?”

“I must see her,” was the answer.

“Have patience. Besides, I do not think she is on board at this moment. You will observe that the porthole of the main cabin does not show any light. I should not be surprised if Colonel Forster was at this moment in his country house at Staten Island, yonder, a hundred steps from shore.”

“We must assure ourselves of it.”

“That is why we are going to anchor here.”

Without consulting his unhappy client any further, Mr. Robinson, Jr., ran to give his instructions to the commander of the Firefly, who stood in the stern near the helm. Two minutes had hardly elapsed before the chain was payed out through the hawse-hole, and the anchor of the yacht lay at the bottom of the bay. They were only about half a cable’s length, that is a hundred metres, from the Gleam.

“Then you believe that Colonel Forster is not on board?” asked Saunders of the agent.

“I am sure of it,” answered the latter. “If your rival were on the Gleam it would not be so still, for he would be anxious about our arrival and anchoring so near him.”

“I have an idea, my dear sir.”

“What is it?”

“Do you know where the colonel’s villa is?”

“Perfectly well; if the fog were not so dense we could see the lighted windows from here.”

“What do you think of taking a little walk on land? If Forster is at home it would be easier for me to meet him than on board ship.”

“That is true; but you will observe that the night is very dark and the sea quite rough.”

“If you are afraid, I will go alone.”

“The heads of the house of Robertson & Co. are afraid of nothing or nobody, Mr. Saunders. I will have a boat manned for you and will not leave you;” and immediately giving the necessary orders, the young man preceded the stout Yankee on the ladder, to the foot of which a boat came instantly. It was a graceful, solid fishing boat, in which the worst weather might have been braved. Four vigorous sailors manned it. Robertson, Junior, and Saunders placed themselves in the stern, and the latter, who had been a seaman in his youth, took hold of the helm, ordering the men to push off. The boat moved off, heading toward land. The agent, guiding himself by the lights on the island, indicated the route to his companion; but the fog soon became so thick that just as they were about to enter the channel which leads to the harbor, the boatmen had to rest their oars.

“Listen!” said Saunders, suddenly leaning over on a level with the water in order to try to pierce the fog; and Robertson listened. They heard distinctly, coming from the land, a regular sound of the oars of a boat vigorously worked.

“Ah,” said the agent, “there are fine fellows who know their route better than we do ours.”

The boat, in fact, was rapidly approaching. Suddenly a metallic, silvery laugh echoed by the sonorous waves, made Mr. Saunders give a bound.

“It is she, the cheat!” he growled. “Row, boys, row. Let us reach the entrance of the channel before them. A hundred dollars to you if we go in first.”

Stimulated by this promise, the sailors of the Firefly bent over their oars and the boat sped along like an arrow.

But Colonel Forster’s boat--for it was really he who was returning to his yacht--was not so far away as the cracker-merchant thought. Lost to sight in the bank of fog, he did not see it coming, or rather, perhaps, did not wish to see it, and before the agent could avoid it, by a turn of the rudder, a frightful collision took place between the two boats. The shock was so severe that the fishing boat, receiving it abreast, careened about, heading to shore, from which it was separated by a few yards only, and on which the sea dashed heavily. As for the yawl being driven to the other side of the channel, its situation was still more grave. At the same instant, as if to prove it, a terrible cry was heard--a woman’s cry--whose tone sent a chill of horror through Mr. Saunders, who, thrown backwards from his seat, and covered with water and spray, had been flung upon the sandy shore. Then it seemed to him that a second cry, stifled like a sob, succeeded the first, and, with his eyes looking haggard and his hair standing on end, he tried to leap into the waves, but Robertson stopped him.

“It is she, it is she! I wish at least to try and save her!” he cried, endeavoring to free himself.

“Are you mad?” answered the young man, holding him firmly. “If anything has happened you do not know where. If Miss Ada has not been saved by those accompanying her it is too late, for the tide is going out.”

The agent had spoken truly, the fog had become so dense that one could not distinguish anything two steps off. Moreover, on account of the tide going out, the sea was so rough at that place in the channel, that the best rower could not struggle a single second against the current and waves.

In despair at his powerlessness, and frightened at the consequences of his angry act, the unfortunate Yankee had fallen to the ground. There, oppressed and breathless, he listened attentively to the sounds of the deep, in the hopes of catching some sign of life to relieve him. But none reached him. He heard only the murmuring ripples on the shore. The bank of fog extended around him like a winding-sheet, and the silence of death reigned over the whole bay. Meanwhile the sailors of the Firefly, happy at getting off with a cold bath, plugged up the hole which the collision had made in the boat, and were setting it afloat. They succeeded after an hour’s labor. Saunders imagined that a whole century had passed, when Robertson, rousing him from his exhaustion, told him to embark. The fog had lifted a little and they perceived beyond them, like a star in the gray sky, the headlight of the Firefly.

Transported so suddenly from his peaceful life into the most frightful tragedy, the unhappy Saunders obeyed, tottering toward the boat. When once embarked he fell heavily upon the locker of the stern, but he was careful not to take hold of the helm again. Remembering with horror the use he had made of it an hour before, he feared that it might burn his hands.

“Great God!” cried Mr. Robertson, all at once: “the Gleam has put off.”

Roused from his dejection by these words, Saunders wildly peered across the bay.

The Firefly alone was tossing at anchor.

“This is an ugly trip and a sad affair,” said the agent to his companion.

“Horrible! dear sir, horrible!” repeated the latter in a choked voice.

“Evidently some misfortune has happened, and Colonel Forster, in order not to be compromised, for he could not suppose we were there for his sake, has gone to sea, or he would have remained in the roads. In any case, how can the truth be known?”

“Yes; how?”

Then, seized by a sudden inspiration, Saunders continued, addressing the sailors:

“Boys, there is a hundred dollars for each of you if you do not tell a word about what has just happened.”

“That is understood, sir,” answered the seamen in chorus, who, however, did not know the reason of the presence of this stout passenger on board the steamboat, and had seen in the meeting of the two boats only one of those accidents at sea which they almost daily witnessed or took part in. They did not suspect that the life of a woman was at stake, and that, perhaps, she was drowned with her other companions, excepting through the exclamations of Saunders himself.

Ten minutes later the fishing-boat came alongside the Firefly, and Robertson learned that the Gleam had raised anchor but half an hour before.

The fog had not prevented them from seeing in what direction it had gone. However, in the hope of meeting his rival at daybreak, Saunders did not wish to leave the roads; but the next day the steamer made the circuit of Staten Island in vain; the Gleam had wholly disappeared.

There was but one course to take, to return to New York and preserve silence about the frightful scene, in which the cracker-merchant had played so compromising a part. The unfortunate Yankee understood it; he handed each of the sailors the promised one hundred dollars, and with remorse gnawing at his heart he hid in his cabin, and did not leave it until Robertson told him that the Firefly was again moored to the Battery.

Night permitted him to land and reach his house without being recognized, but when he entered his room he shut himself in as if he had all Mr. Kelly’s agents on his tracks, and he fell into an alarming state of nervous prostration. His night was terrible, and the next day he strictly forbade admission, even guarding his door, and would not read a paper or exchange a word with his household. He refused even to hear about business. This lasted four days, and he began to grow somewhat calm, when his valet, disobeying orders, handed him toward three o’clock, a paper marked “personal and urgent,” and bearing the seal of the central office of the police. The unhappy Saunders opened the letter trembling, and, when he had glanced over five lines, he felt himself grow pale with fear. He had read:

The chief of the metropolitan police invites Mr. William Saunders
to appear without fail at the central office to furnish all the
information within his knowledge in regard to the disappearance of
Miss Ada Ricard.

What should he say to that brutal Kelly, whose rudeness he had already experienced? Could he preserve enough self-possession not to compromise himself? Was the event at Staten Island discovered, or still unknown? Why should the chief of police, who would not listen to him when he went to beg him to seek Ada Ricard, disturb himself to-day about her disappearance?

All these questions, which he did not know how to answer, succeeded each other in the shattered brain of the ex-lover of Miss Ada, and he trembled in advance at the idea of the questioning which he should have to undergo.

However, he resigned himself to obey, and, after laying out a course from which he promised himself he would not depart, and trying his best to be calm, he appeared before the terrible Kelly.

The chief of police received him immediately, but five minutes later the stout Saunders reeled out of the central office with a pale, disturbed countenance, and his forehead bathed in a cold sweat. He jumped into his cab and said to the coachman, in accents of terror:

“To the Bellevue Hospital.”

Forty-eight hours before an event had occurred which strangely excited public curiosity, but of which Saunders did not know, for since his dramatic expedition he had not left the house or read a paper.