There was a brief embarra.s.sed pause. Then Mr. Harland turned to us where we had withdrawn ourselves a little apart and addressed his daughter.
"Catherine,"--he said--"This gentleman tells me he knew me at Oxford, and if he is right I also knew HIM. I spoke of him only the other night at dinner--you remember?--but I did not tell you his name. It is Rafel Santoris--if indeed he IS Santoris!--though my Santoris should be a much older man."
"I extremely regret," said our visitor then, advancing and bowing courteously to Catherine and myself--"that I do not fulfil the required conditions of age! Will you try to forgive me?"
He smiled--and we were a little confused, hardly knowing what to say.
Involuntarily I raised my eyes to his, and with one glance saw in those clear blue orbs that so steadfastly met mine a world of memories--memories tender, wistful and pathetic, entangled as in tears and fire. All the inward instincts of my spirit told me that I knew him well--as well as one knows the gold of the sunshine or the colour of the sky,--yet where had I seen him often and often before? While my thoughts puzzled over this question he averted his gaze from mine and went on speaking to Catherine.
"I understand," he said--"that you are interested in the lighting of my yacht?"
"It is most beautiful and wonderful,"--answered Catherine, in her coldest tone of conventional politeness, "And so unusual!"
His eyebrows went up with a slightly quizzical.
"Yes, I suppose it is unusual," he said--"I am always forgetting that what is not quite common seems strange! But really the arrangement is very simple. The yacht is called the "Dream"--and she is, as her name implies, a "dream" fulfilled. Her sails are her only motive power. They are charged with electricity, and that is why they shine at night in a way that must seem to outsiders like a special illumination. If you will honour me with a visit to-morrow I will show you how it is managed."
Here Captain Derrick, who had been standing close by, was unable to resist the impulse of his curiosity.
"Excuse me, sir,"--he said, suddenly--"but may I ask how it is you sail without wind?"
"Certainly!--you may ask and be answered!" Santoris replied. "As I have just said, our sails are our only motive power, but we do not need the wind to fill them. By a very simple scientific method, or rather let me say by a scientific application of natural means, we generate a form of electric force from the air and water as we move. This force fills the sails and propels the vessel with amazing swiftness wherever she is steered. Neither calm nor storm affects her progress. When there is a good gale blowing our way, we naturally lessen the draft on our own supplies--but we can make excellent speed even in the teeth of a contrary wind. We escape all the inconveniences of steam and smoke and dirt and noise,--and I daresay in about a couple of hundred years or so my method of sailing the seas will be applied to all ships large and small, with much wonder that it was not thought of long ago."
"Why not apply it yourself?" asked Dr. Brayle, now joining in the conversation for the first time and putting the question with an air of incredulous amus.e.m.e.nt--"With such a marvellous discovery--if it is yours--you should make your fortune!"
Santoris glanced him over with polite tolerance.
"It is possible I do not need to make it,"--he answered, then turning again to Captain Derrick he said, kindly, "I hope the matter seems clearer to you? We sail without wind, it is true, but not without the power that creates wind."
The captain shook his head perplexedly.
"Well, sir, I can"t quite take it in,"--he confessed--"I"d like to know more."
"So you shall! Harland, will you all come over to the yacht to-morrow?
There may be some excursion we could do together--and you might remain and dine with me afterwards."
Mr. Harland"s face was a study. Doubt and fear struggled for the mastery in his expression and he did not at once answer. Then he seemed to conquer his hesitation and to recover himself.
"Give me a moment with you alone,"--he said, with a gesture of invitation towards the deck saloon.
Our visitor readily complied with this suggestion, and the two men entered the saloon together and closed the door.
Silence followed. Catherine looked at me in questioning bewilderment,--then she called to Mr. Swinton, who had been standing about as though awaiting orders in his usual tiresome and servile way.
"What sort of an interview did you have with that gentleman when you got on board his yacht?" she asked.
"Very pleasant--very pleasant indeed"--he replied--"The vessel is magnificently appointed. I have never seen such luxury. Extraordinary!
More than princely! Mr. Santoris himself I found particularly agreeable. When he had read Mr. Harland"s note, he said he was glad to find it was from an old college companion, and that he would come over with me to renew the acquaintance. As he has done."
"You were not afraid of him, then?" queried Dr. Brayle, sarcastically.
"Oh dear no! He seems quite well-bred, and I should say he must be very wealthy."
"A most powerful recommendation!" murmured Brayle--"The best in the world! What do YOU think of him?" he asked, turning suddenly to me.
"I have no opinion,"--I answered, quietly.
How could I say otherwise? How could I tell such a man as he was, of one who had entered my life as insistently as a flash of light, illumining all that had hitherto been dark!
At that moment Catherine caught my hand.
"Listen!" she whispered.
A window of the deck saloon was open and we stood near it. Dr. Brayle and Mr. Swinton had moved away to light fresh cigars, and we two women were for the moment alone. We heard Mr. Harland"s voice raised to a sort of smothered cry.
"My G.o.d! You ARE Santoris!"
"Of course I am!" And the deep answering tones were full of music,--the music of a grave and infinitely tender compa.s.sion--"Why did you doubt it? And why call upon G.o.d? That is a name which has no meaning for you."
There followed a silence. I looked at Catherine and saw her pale face in the light of the moon, haggard in line and older than her years, and my heart was full of pity for her. She was excited beyond her usual self-I could see that the appearance of the stranger from the yacht had aroused her interest and compelled her admiration. I tried to draw her gently to a farther distance from the saloon, but she would not move.
"We ought not to listen,"--I said--"Catherine, come away!"
She shook her head.
"Hush!" she softly breathed--"I want to hear!"
Just then Mr. Harland spoke again.
"I am sorry!" he said--"I have wronged you and I apologise. But you can hardly wonder at my disbelief, considering your appearance, which is that of a much younger man than your actual years should make you."
The rich voice of Santoris gave answer.
"Did I not tell you and others long ago that for me there is no such thing as time, but only eternity? The soul is always young,--and I live in the Spirit of youth, not in the Matter of age."
Catherine turned her eyes upon me in wide-open amazement.
"He must be mad!" she said.
I made no reply either by word or look. We heard Mr. Harland talking, but in a lower tone, and we could not distinguish what he said.
Presently Santoris answered, and his vibrant tones were clear and distinct.
"Why should it seem to you so wonderful?" he said--"You do not think it miraculous when the sculptor, standing before a shapeless block of marble, hews it out to conformity with his inward thought. The marble is mere marble, hard to deal with, difficult to shape,--yet out of its resisting roughness the thinker and worker can mould an Apollo or a Psyche. You find nothing marvellous in this, though the result of its shaping is due to nothing but Thought and Labour. Yet when you see the human body, which is far easier to shape than marble, brought into submission by the same forces of Thought and Labour, you are astonished! Surely it is a simpler matter to control the living cells of one"s own fleshly organisation and compel them to do the bidding of the dominating spirit than to chisel the semblance of a G.o.d out of a block of stone!"
There was a pause after this. Then followed more inaudible talk on the part of Mr. Harland, and while we yet waited to gather further fragments of the conversation, he suddenly threw open the saloon door and called to us to come in. We at once obeyed the summons, and as we entered he said in a somewhat excited, nervous way:--
"I must apologise before you ladies for the rather doubting manner in which I received my former college friend! He IS Rafel Santoris--I ought to have known that there"s only one of his type! But the curious part of it is that he should be nearly as old as I am,--yet somehow he is not!"
I laughed. It would have been hard not to laugh, for the mere idea of comparing the two men, Santoris in such splendid prime and Morton Harland in his bent, lean and wizened condition, as being of the same or nearly the same age was quite ludicrous. Even Catherine smiled--a weak and timorous smile.