Chapter 14

A VOYAGE INTO THE UNKNOWN

After the Captain left him, Lermontoff closed and bolted the door, then sat down upon the edge of his bed to meditate upon the situation. He heard distant bells ringing on shore somewhere, and looking at his watch saw it was just eleven o'clock. It seemed incredible that three-quarters of an hour previously he had left the hospitable doors of a friend, and now was churning his way in an unknown steamer to an unknown destination. It appeared impossible that so much could have happened in forty-five minutes. He wondered what Drummond was doing, and what action he would take when he found his friend missing.

However, pondering over the matter brought no solution of the mystery, so, being a practical young man, he cast the subject from his mind, picked up his heavy overcoat, which he had flung on the bed, and hung it up on the hook attached to the door. As he did this his hand came in contact with a tube in one of the pockets, and for a moment he imagined it was his revolver, but he found it was the metal syringe he had purchased that evening from the chemist. This set his thoughts whirling in another direction. He took from an inside pocket one of the bottles of ozak, examining it under the candle light, wishing he had a piece of rock with which to experiment. Then with a yawn he replaced the materials in his overcoat pocket, took off his boots, and threw himself on the bed, thankful it was not an ordinary shelf bunk, but a generous and comfortable resting-place. Now Katherine appeared before his closed eyes, and hand in hand they wandered into dreamland together.

When he awoke it was pitch dark in his cabin. The candles, which he had neglected to extinguish, had burned themselves out. The short, jerky motion of the steamer indicated that he was aboard a small vessel, and that this small vessel was out in the open sea. He believed that a noise of some kind had awakened him, and this was confirmed by a knock at his door which caused him to spring up and throw back the bolt. The steward was there, but in the dim light of the passage he saw nothing of the sentinel. He knew it was daylight outside.

"The Captain, Excellency, wishes to know if you will breakfast with him or take your meal in your room?"

"Present my compliments to the Captain, and say I shall have great pleasure in breakfasting with him."

"It will be ready in a quarter of an hour, Excellency."

"Very good. Come for me at that time, as I don't know my way about the boat."

The Prince washed himself, smoothed out his rumpled clothes as well as he could, and put on his boots. While engaged in the latter operation the door opened, and the big Captain himself entered, inclosed in glistening oilskins.

"Hyvaa pyvaa, Highness," said the Captain. "Will you walk the deck before breakfast?"

"Good-day to