The Island Mystery Part 21

"Go row," she said, "quick--quick--slick."

"Slick" was a word which she had recently learned from Smith. He often used it in urging on his staff of housemaids. He was forced to use an English word now and then when he could not express his meaning in the Megalian language. There is no equivalent to "slick" in Megalian.

What the Queen wanted most at the moment was to be quick and slick in getting off. She and Kalliope ran down to the steps where their boat lay moored. Smith was there, looking at the strange steamer.

"Oh, Smith," said the Queen, "is it a yacht?"

"Don't know, your Majesty," said Smith. "Never saw her before. She looks to me like a foreigner, your Majesty, not an English boat."

"Well, I'll soon find out," said the Queen. "We're going off to her."

Kalliope had already cast off the boat's mooring rope and sat ready at the oars.

"Beg pardon, your Majesty," said Smith, "but it might be as well for me to go off first. Foreign sailors are not always as polite as they might be. Not knowing that your Majesty is Queen of the island they might say things which were disrespectful."

The Queen would not listen to this suggestion.

"Come along with us if you like," she said, "but I'm not going to wait till you come back."

Smith stepped into the boat and took his seat in the bow. Kalliope had the oars. The Queen sat in the stern.

The men on the deck of the steamer were very busy. They were overhauling and coiling down what looked like a long rubber hose. An officer, a young man in a smart uniform, was directing the work. When the boat was near the steamer, the officer hailed and asked in German what boat it was. Kalliope was rowing vigorously. Before any answer could be made to the hail the boat ran alongside the steamer.

The Queen had learned German at school, carefully and laboriously, paying much attention to the vagaries of irregular verbs. She began to think out a sentence in which to describe her boat, herself and her servants. But Smith took it for granted that she knew no German.

Before her sentence had taken shape he answered the officer. The young man leaned over the bulwark of the steamer and stared at the Queen while Smith spoke. Then he went away. Smith explained to the Queen what had happened.

"I asked him to call the captain, your Majesty. I told him that you are the Queen of the island. I was speaking to him in German, your Majesty."

The Queen knew that. She might be slow in framing a German sentence when an unexpected demand for such a thing was made on her, but thanks to the patience and diligence of a certain fat German governess, she could understand the language fairly well. She had understood every word that Smith said. He had not told the young officer that she was Queen of the island. He had described her as the daughter of the rich American who had bought Salissa from King Konrad Karl. She made no attempt at the moment to understand why Smith said one thing in German and offered her something slightly different as a translation; and she did not question him on the point. She was content to leave him to suppose that she knew no German at all.

The boat, which had run quickly alongside of the steamer near her bow, now lay beside the accommodation ladder which hung amids.h.i.+ps. A tall officer stood on the platform outside the bulwarks and looked down at the Queen. He was a heavily built blonde man with neatly trimmed beard and moustache. He wore a naval uniform and stood stiffly erect, his heels together, while he raised his hand to the formal salute. The Queen spoke to Smith.

"Ask him," she said, "if he will come ash.o.r.e and breakfast with us."

Before Smith could translate, the officer replied to her.

"I speak English," he said, "it is not necessary that he translate. I have the honour to present myself--Captain von Moll."

"Very pleased to meet you, Captain von Moll. Won't you come ash.o.r.e and breakfast with us?"

"I regret that is impossible," said von Moll. "I am much occupied."

He spoke slowly, p.r.o.nouncing each word carefully. He looked steadily at the Queen, not taking his eyes from her face for a moment. His words were civil. His att.i.tude was strictly correct. But there was something in his stare which the Queen did not like, a suggestion of insolence. She felt that this man regarded her as an inferior, a member of an inferior s.e.x perhaps, or one of an inferior race.

American women, especially American girls, are not accustomed to think of themselves as men's inferiors. American citizens find it impossible to believe that any one in the world can look down on them. The Queen was not annoyed. She was piqued and interested.

"Perhaps," she said, "you will come for luncheon or dinner. We dine at half-past seven."

Von Moll saluted again with formal politeness.

"I will dine with you," he said, "at half-past seven. Meanwhile I am sorry that I cannot ask you to come on board and see my s.h.i.+p. My men are much occupied."

The Queen signed to Kalliope and the boat left the steamer's side.

CHAPTER XVI

Donovan was no more than moderately interested in what his daughter told him about the strange steamer. She mentioned the fact that the Captain spoke English with precise correctness.

"They're an educated people, the Germans," said Donovan. "I reckon there's ten of them know English for one American knows German.

Couldn't do business with us if they didn't learn to talk so as we can understand them. That's the reason. It isn't fancy tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs they're out for, but business; and they're getting it. I wouldn't call them a smart people. They haven't got the punch of our business men; but they're darned persevering."

"It can't be business that brings him here," said the Queen.

"No," said Donovan. "Salissa is not a business centre. It's my opinion that steamer is having trouble with her engines and has come in here to tinker a bit; or maybe she's short of water; or the captain's taken a notion that he'd like some fresh fish and a few dozen eggs. It doesn't seem to me that we need fret any about what brings him here."

The Queen was not satisfied. She sat for some time on her balcony looking at the steamer. With the help of a pair of gla.s.ses she could watch what was going on. The long hose which she had seen in the morning was got on deck and coiled in three great heaps. Then the men knocked off work for breakfast. After that they became active again.

One end of the hose was lowered into a boat. It seemed to the Queen to be a rubber hose like those used by firemen. The boat rowed towards the cave. Another boat lay close to the steamer's bow and received a loop of the hose, taking some of the strain and drag off the first boat. She too rowed towards the cave. A third boat followed in the same way. The Queen saw that the hose was being carried into the depths of the cave, drooping into the water between the boats, but sufficiently supported to be dragged on. The work was very slow, but it was carried on steadily, methodically.

The Queen was much interested in what she saw. After awhile she became very curious. The proceedings of the men on the steamer were difficult to understand. There seemed no reason why they should tug a large quant.i.ty of rubber hose into the cave. It was a senseless thing to do.

Then it occurred to her that the cave was hers, part of an island of which she was Queen, which her father had bought for her from its legal owner. Any householder would feel himself ent.i.tled to investigate the doings of a party of strangers who appeared suddenly and pushed a rubber hose through his drawing-room window. They might be the servants of the gas company or officials sent by the water board, or sanitary inspectors, but the owner of the house would want to satisfy himself about them. The Queen felt that she had every right to find out what von Moll's men were doing.

She called Kalliope and they went off together in their boat, rowing across the bay towards the steamer.

Kalliope was excited. She talked rapidly in her own language, turning round now and then and pointing towards the steamer. It was plain that she had something which she very much wanted to say, something about the strange steamer. The Queen's curiosity increased. She thought for a moment of turning back to the palace. There she would find Smith and he would interpret for her. Then she remembered Smith's odd mistake in translating his own German in the morning. She determined not to ask his help. Kalliope, hopeless of explaining herself in Megalian, fell back on her small store of English words. She kept on saying "Mucky s.h.i.+p," which conveyed nothing at all to the Queen, except the obvious fact that the steamer was there. She also repeated the words "Once more."

At last, when the boat was getting near the steamer, Kalliope made a great effort.

"It--is--once more," she said.

The Queen jumped to a possible meaning of her words. The steamer, that steamer had been in the harbour of Salissa before, had been perhaps about some business similar to that which occupied her now. Kalliope, her eyes on the Queen's face, saw that she was making herself understood. She nodded delightedly, turned round on her seat and pointed to the steamer.

"It--is--once more."

Then she began to sing, softly at first, louder as she became sure of herself, until her voice rang clear across the water. Her song had no words, but the tune was that which she had sung to the Queen in the cave on the day when she first saw the cisterns. It was the tune of the hymn "Glorious things of thee are spoken."

Three or four men were leaning over the s.h.i.+p's bulwarks, looking at the Queen's boat. They heard Kalliope's voice, and they joined in the hymn. A boat lay in the mouth of the cave, supporting part of the long hose. There were four men in her. They also joined in the hymn. They sang words, German words. The Queen listened intently, trying to hear what the words were.

Captain von Moll, standing on the bridge of the steamer, shouted an order. The men stopped singing abruptly. Kalliope finished the tune by herself and then laughed.

"It--is--once more," she said.

The Queen understood. The s.h.i.+p had been in the harbour before. The crew had gone about some work, like that which she saw them doing.

While they worked they had sung that hymn tune. The Queen frowned with perplexity. Then suddenly she recollected. She had been in the choir at school. She had sung hymns every morning at prayers. The fat German governess, an exile from the Fatherland and deeply sentimental, used to play the piano and teach the choir. There were always tears in her eyes when she played that particular tune. The girls understood that in some way it meant a great deal to her, was perhaps the tune of some national song, captured by an English musician and set to the words of a popular hymn. The Queen had never thought much about the matter. Now it occurred to her that the sailors were singing the song which the German governess had in mind, a song so popular that they often sang it at their work. Kalliope had learned it from them when they first visited the island. They recognized it and joined in it when they heard her singing it.

Kalliope rowed slowly round the steamer. An engine on deck began to work. The Queen could hear it snorting and clanking. The boat crossed the s.h.i.+p's bows, pa.s.sing under the length of hose which drooped in a long curve into the water. Suddenly the hose swelled, writhed, twisted. It seemed to be alive. It looked like some huge sea snake, wriggling from the s.h.i.+p into the water, swimming through the water towards the gloomy mouth of the cave. Kalliope stopped rowing and stared open-mouthed. The Queen realized almost at once what was happening. The engine on the steamer's deck was pumping some liquid through the hose.