He, like every one else in Borga, knew that even the military governor must yield to the authority of the Prince. Therefore he yielded.
"It will give me the greatest pleasure to--accompany you," he said.
CHAPTER IX
THE FRIENDLY DEEP
Prince Von Hertzwohl looked up from his bureau. He was sitting in his stateroom, which was of some considerable size, and opened out of the saloon. His ears had caught the sound of a hasty entrance of the latter. His luminous eyes were alert and questioning. The man was completely changed from the simple inventor who had told the story of his submersible to Sir Andrew Farlow and his son. There was a restless, nervous tension about him, altogether at variance with his customary calm.
He leapt from his seat. His thin, bent figure moved almost electrically towards the door. The next moment he had entered the saloon. The other side of the room, and just within the entrance doorway, stood Ruxton Farlow, still clad in his German naval uniform, and still bearing in his arms the two bra.s.s cylinders. There was an urgent look in his eyes, and, at the sight of it, the Prince"s question came sharply.
"What is it?" he demanded, with the imperiousness of a man accustomed to high command.
"Von Salzinger," replied Ruxton quickly. A laugh followed his p.r.o.nouncement. It was the laugh of a man who is alive to the danger of a situation.
"Yes?" The Prince"s further enquiry was surcharged with eagerness, and in broad contrast.
"He demands my presence. I have to conform to regulations and register my visit to Borga at--headquarters. He has sent an officer to conduct me to him--at once. The officer is awaiting me on the landing-stage.
The situation has possibilities."
Ruxton"s outward calm was not shared by his companion. The Prince displayed his realization of the necessities of the moment. His eyes were bright and concentrated. Ruxton watched the emaciated features with their crowning, upright white hair. There was an ominous sparkle beneath the bushy brows.
"I saw it in Von Salzinger"s eyes when I sent him off," the Prince said at last. "That is why I left you. Had his order come in my presence, while ash.o.r.e, it would have been awkward. That is also why I left you to bring those cylinders, and with instructions to bring them straight here. I knew you would make this vessel _with me on board_." He pressed an electric bell in the panelling.
A moment later a uniformed officer appeared. He stood awaiting the Prince"s commands. The latter seemed absorbed in thought. Quite abruptly he broke the silence with a series of sharp orders.
"Send a man ash.o.r.e at once, Captain Ludovic. There is an officer waiting there with certain orders from the Captain-General. Convey to him my compliments, and ask him to step aboard as I wish him to convey an important message to the military governor. For yourself, you will stand-by. The moment he enters the tower you will have the moorings cast off. Just keep the boat held to the quay fore and aft by light lines which can be released at a moment. When the officer reappears you will, the instant he has pa.s.sed ash.o.r.e, clear the gangway, cast off the light moorings, and full power ahead out of the harbor. I do not know the effect of my message on the military governor, but I expect he will endeavor to stop me. This must not be permitted. You understand?"
"Yes, Excellency." The man offered no further comment.
"For the present that is all."
The man saluted and retired.
"Is that man a German, or a----?" Ruxton began as the man disappeared.
"He is a Pole." Then the Prince clasped his fingers and bent them back, cracking the joints. It was an expression of intense excitement. He laughed. "He hates Prussians, and Von Salzinger is a Prussian."
"The matter is going to be serious?" Ruxton"s eyes searched the smiling face of the Prince.
"I cannot tell--yet. Von Salzinger has given an order that is about to be disobeyed. Von Salzinger is a powerful force in Borga. Even I have no right to disobey the military governor"s regulations here, nor to defy openly his orders. Von Salzinger may do anything. Remember, he is a Prussian. One thing is certain, he does not get you before his inquisitors. No, I cannot tell what he will do. Ah, here comes our visitor. Give me the cylinders."
The Prince possessed himself of the cylinders and was closely contemplating them when the youthful Prussian officer appeared in the doorway. He was so intent upon his study of them, tenderly handling their shining cases with his long fingers, that he did not appear to observe the officer"s entrance, and, in gently modulated voice, continued to address his pretended nephew.
"You have, my dear Leder, committed the great fault which belongs to your age. Practice and Principle must ever go hand in hand. I do not know yet, of course, but I fear you have let Principle get his nose in front of Practice. It may mean much serious delay. We will take these, and have them more fully tested, and then----"
He broke off and looked up as an impatient clearing of the throat announced the presence of the officer. In a moment the cylinders were deposited on the table, and the big eyes were beaming simple kindliness upon the visitor.
"You have an order from the Captain-General, is it not so?" he enquired blandly.
The young Prussian pulled himself up with due regard for his office.
Just for a moment his conceit had been a little overborne by the presence of the Prince.
"Yes, Excellency," he said, with a sharp return to his military habit.
"It is an imperative order that I conduct, without delay, Herr Leder von Bersac----"
"Ach, so!" exclaimed the Prince, his eyes suddenly flashing and his whole manner absorbing all his recent blandness in a quick-rising heat.
"Does the Captain-General think he can give his orders to men under the command of Prince von Hertzwohl? Your Captain-General has yet to learn.
And those who serve under him also. My nephew, Herr Leder von Bersac, is under the command of his uncle, and no one else. Your Captain-General knows that as well as I. The regulations of Borga are no concern of mine. But when I visit this pestilential place its manners are. Convey to your Captain-General that the manners of Borga had best be improved. I shall not visit here again until I have seen that they are. You can go back, and tell him that I leave at once, and that Herr Leder von Bersac has no time to comply with any order issued by the military governor of Borga."
The tide of the Prince"s anger was too swift for the youthful Prussian"s armor of official effrontery. He came near to withering before it. It was only the understanding of Von Salzinger"s supreme command in Borga that helped him to weather the storm. He waited one moment to see if anything further was to be said, then, under the stern eyes of the Prince, he saluted and departed, darting up the companionway with hurried steps, and made his way ash.o.r.e to the telephone station on the landing-stage.
Had he paused to glance about him he might have been surprised that the Prince"s threat had been so promptly put into execution. As it was he did not notice even that the gangway followed him ash.o.r.e, almost immediately in his wake. But these things, however they might have surprised him, were no real concern of his. It was for him to report promptly to the Captain-General, and make matters as safe as he could for himself.
By the time he reached the telephone station the vessel was gliding silently from the landing-stage.
The throb of the powerful engines told Ruxton Farlow all he wished to know. He sighed quietly, and it was the outward expression of the relaxing of his feelings.
He was smiling into the face of the man before him.
"Well?" he said.
But the Prince had become curiously abstracted. His eyes were on the cylinders in an unseeing contemplation. Ruxton watched him thoughtfully after his monosyllabic interrogatory. He was filled with not a little wonder at the alertness of this man"s mentality in a moment of crisis.
It was an almost confounding realization in the midst of his early impressions of him. For himself he could not see ahead with any degree of certainty. The Prince had committed himself to a dangerous course in defying the German Government"s representative in the place, which was the most treasured secret in the Teuton heart. He judged that certain pursuit would follow, or at least armed interference. Even with a power such as the Prince"s, at whatever cost, Von Salzinger must enforce obedience to his order, or----
The Prince broke in upon his reflections.
"It is good to defy a--Prussian. It did me much good. But Borga is his nursery. He is its nurse. He must act. I wonder---- Ach, if he should try to stop us I will see him in the deepest pit of h.e.l.l."
He threw up his hands with his final explosion and in an action of almost schoolboyish delight. Then he smiled into the Englishman"s face, half questioningly, half eagerly.
"Between us and the open sea lie a hundred batteries of heavy, compressed-air guns. One sh.e.l.l from any of those guns could send us to the bottom, if it caught us at the surface. Then there is the mined channel. We are without a pilot. If we submerge the mines are thicker still. For myself and my vessel I do not care. For you?"
Ruxton shrugged.
"If I am caught and questioned I shall be shot. And you, too, for bringing me here. A gambler"s chance is always attractive, even to a man who never gambles."
"Then we amuse ourselves at the expense of our friend Von Salzinger.
When you are safe in England I will forestall him in Berlin. I have no fear when you are--safe. Let us go on deck."
Five minutes later they were standing on the deck of the submersible.
They were standing at the rail, with the conning-tower intervening between them and the sh.o.r.e. They were the only souls visible on the deck. The captain of the vessel was in the turret, but the crew were all below.
Ruxton observed this at once, as he also observed that the skylights were all sealed ready for submersion.