The Bram Stoker Megapack (166 page)

When Adams at last arrived he had much to tell; but it was the amplification of what we had heard, rather than fresh news. The U. S. cruiser Keystone had been reached from Hamburgh, and was now on her way to a point outside the three-mile limit off Peterhead; and a private watch had been set on every port and harbour between Wick and Aberdeen. The American Embassy was doing its work quietly as befits such an arm of the State; but its eyes and ears were open, and I had no doubts its pockets, too. Its hand was open now; but it would close, did there be need.

When Adams learned our purpose he became elated. He came over to me and laid his hand tenderly on my shoulder as he said:

“I know how it is with you, old fellow; a man don’t want more than two eyes for that. But there’s a many men would give all they have to stand in your shoes, for all you suffer. Cheer up! At the worst now it’s her death! For myself I feared at first there might be worse; but it’s plain to me that Miss Drake is up to everything and ready for everything. My! but she’s a noble girl! If anything goes wrong with her there’s going to be some scrapping round before the thing’s evened up!”

He then went on to tell me that Montgomery would be joined at Peterhead by two other naval fellows who were qualified in all ways to do whatever might be required. “Those boys won’t stop at much, I can tell you,” he said. “They’re full of sand, the lot; and I guess that when this thing is over, it won’t harm them at Washington to know that they’ve done men’s work of one kind or another.”

It was comfort to me to h
ear him talk. Sam Adams knew what he meant, when he wanted to help a friend; thinking it all over I don’t see what better he could have said to me—things being as they were. He went back to Aberdeen to look out for news or instructions, but was to join us later at Banff.

We left two men at Crom; one to be always on the spot, and the other to be free to move about and send telegrams, etc. Then the rest of us drove over to Fyvie and caught the train to Macduff.

When we arrived we sent one man in the hotel in Banff in case we should want to communicate, and the rest of us drove over in a carriage to Gardentown. It is a lovely coast, this between Banff and Gardentown, but we should have preferred it to be less picturesque and more easy to watch.

When our man met us, which he did with exceeding caution, he at once began:

“They’ve got off, some of them; but I think the rest of the gang’s ashore still. That’s why I’m so particular; they may be watchin’ us now for all I can tell.” Then he proceeded to give us all the information he had gleaned.

“The Seagull was here until yesterday when she went out into the Firth to run down to Fifeshire, as the fish were reported going south. She had more than her complement of men, and her skipper volunteered the information that two of them were friends whom they were taking to join their own boat which was waiting for them at Burnt Island. From all accounts I gather,” he went on, “that they wasn’t anything extra high-toned. Most of them were drunk or getting a jag on them; and it took the two sober ones and the Skipper to keep them in order. The Skipper was mighty angry; he seemed somehow ashamed of them, and hurried out of port as quick as h
e could when he made his mind up. They say he swore at them frightful; though that was not to be wondered at when he himself had to help bring the nets on board. One of the men on the quay told me that he said if that was the effect on his men of waiting round for weeks doing nothing, he would see that another time their double-dashed noses were kept to the grindstone. I’ve been thinking since I heard of the trouble they had in carrying on the nets, that there was something under them that they meant to hide. The men here tell me that the hand-barrow they carried would have been a job for six men, not three, for it was piled shoulder high with nets. That’s why the skipper was so wrathy with them. They say he’s a sort of giant, a Dutchman with an evil, cunning face; and that all the time he was carrying the back handles he never stopped swearing at the two in front, though they was nigh speechless with the effort of carrying, and their faces as red as blazes. If I’m right we’ve missed them this time. They’ve got the girl on the fishing boat; and they’re off for the whaler. She’s the one we’ll have to find next!”

As he spoke my heart kept sinking deeper and deeper down. My poor girl, if alive, was in the hands of her enemies. In all the thoughts which filled me with anguish unspeakable there was but one gleam of consolation—the negro was not on board, too. I had come to think of this miscreant as in some way the active principle of whatever evil might be.

Here, we were again at a fault in our pursuit. We must wait for the reports of Montgomery who was making local inquiries. We had wired him to join us, or send us word to Gardentown; and he had replied that he was on the way.

CHAPTER XLVIII

DUNBUY HAVEN

We had to-day been so hot in the immediate pursuit of Marjory that we had hardly been able to think of t
he other branches of our work; but all at once, the turn of the wheel brought up as the most important matter before us what had been up to now only a collateral. Hitherto the Seagull had been our objective; but now it must be the Wilhelmina. Adams had been in charge of the general investigation as to these boats, whilst Montgomery had been attending to local matters. It was to the former, therefore, rather than the latter, that we had to look for enlightenment. Montgomer
y and MacRae were the first to arrive, coming on horseback from Fraserburgh, the former with all the elan and abandonment of a sailor ashore. He was frightfully chagrined when he heard that the Seagullhad got safely away. “Just like my luck!” he said, “I might have got her in time if I had known enough; but I never even heard of Gardentown till your wire came to me. It isn’t on the map.” He was still full of lamentings, though I could tell from the way he was all nerved and braced up that we should hear of him when the time for action came. When we arrived at the station at Macduff to meet Adams, we hurried him at once into the carriage which we had waiting; he gave us his news as we hurried off to Gardentown. We felt that it might be a mistake our going there, for we should be out of the way of everything; but we had made arrangements for news to be sent there, and it was necessary we should go there before holding our council of war. Adams told us that the whaler Wilhelmina had been reported at Lerwick two days ago, but that she had suddenly left on receipt of a telegram, hurrying in the last of her stores at such a rate that some of them had been actually left behind. He had not been able to gain any specific information by wire. The Master of the ship had said to the Harbour Master that he was going to Nova Zembla; but nothing more definite could be obtained.

When we got together in the
hotel at Gardentown we were surprised by another arrival; none other than Don Bernardino, who had come by the same train as Adams, but had had to wait to get a carriage. We had got away so quickly that none of us had seen him.

Things were now at such a stage that it would not do to have any concealment whatever; and so after a moment in private with the Don, I told my companions of the attack on the Spaniard in my house, and of the carrying off the great treasure. I did not give any details of the treasure or its purpose; nor did I even mention the trust. This was now the Don’s secret, and there was no need to mention it. We all agreed that if we should have any chance at all of finding Marjory, it would be by finding and following the members of the gang left on shore. Sam Adams who was, next to the Secret Service men, the coolest-headed of our party, summed up the situation.

“Those fellows haven’t got off yet. It is evident that they only came to look for the treasure after Miss Drake had been shipped off from Gardentown. And I’m pretty sure that they are waiting somewhere round the coast for the Wilhelmina to pick them up; or for them to get aboard her somehow. They’ve got a cartload of stuff at the very least to get away; and you may bet your sweet life that they don’t mean to leave it to chance. Moreover, you can’t lay your hand at any minute on a whaler ready for shanghaieing any one. This one has been fixed up on purpose, and was waiting up at Lerwick for a long time ready to go when told. I think myself that it’s more than likely she has orders to take them off herself, for a fishing smack like the Seagull that has to be in and out of these ports all the time, doesn’t want to multiply the chances of her discovery. Now that she has done a criminal thing and is pretty sure that it can’t be proved against her, she’ll take her share of the swag, or whateve
r was promised her, and clear out. If the Wilhelminahas to get off the gang it’ll have to be somewhere off this coast. They are nearly all strangers to start with, and wouldn’t know where else to go. If they go south they get at once into more thickly peopled shores, where the chances of getting off in secret would be less. They daren’t go anywhere along the shore of the Firth, for their ship might be cut off at the mouth, and they might be taken within the three-mile limit and searched. Beyond the Firth they can know nothing. Therefore, we have got to hunt them along this shore; and from the lie of the land I should say that they will try to get off somewhere between Old Slains and Peterhead. And I’ll say further that, in-as-much-as the shore dips in between Whinnyfold and Girdleness outside Aberdeen, the ship will prefer to keep up the north side, so that she can beat out to sea at once, when she has got her cargo aboard.”

“Sam is about right!” broke in Montgomery “I have been all along the coast since we met, surveying the ground for just this purpose. I tried to put myself in the place of that crowd, and to find a place just such as they would wish. They could get out at Peterhead or at Boddam, and so I have set a watch at these places. Some of our sailors who were sent up to me from London are there now, and I’ll stake my word that if the Wilhelminatries to come in to either of these places she won’t get out again with Marjory Drake on board. But it’s not their game to come near a port. They’ve got to lie off shore, somewhere agreed on, and take off their friends in a boat. There are dozens of places between Cruden and Peterhead where a boat could lie hidden, and slip out safely enough. When they got aboard they could hoist in the boat or scuttle her; and then, up sails and off before any one was the wiser. What I propose, therefore, is this, for I take it
I’m the naval expert here such as it is. We must set a watch along this bit of coast, so as to be ready to jump on them when they start out. We can get the Keystone to lie off Buchan; and we can signal her when we get sign of our lot. She’ll be well on the outside, and these scallywags don’t know that she’ll be there to watch them. When the time comes, she’ll crowd them into shore; and we’ll be ready for them there. If she can hunt the Wilhelmina into the Firth it will be easy enough to get her. “Fighting Dick” Morgan isn’t a man to stand on ceremony; and you can bet your bottom dollar that if he gets a sight of the Dutchman he’ll pretty well see that she hasn’t any citizen of the United States aboard against her will. Dick wouldn’t mind the people in Washington much, and he’d take on the Dutch to-morrow as well as the Spaniards. Now, if in addition this gentleman’s yacht is to the fore, with any one of us here aboard to take responsibility, I guess we can overhaul the whaler without losing time.”

“I’ll be aboard!” said Donald MacRae quietly. “TheSporran is due at Peterhead this afternoon. Just you fit me up with signals so that we’ll know what to do when we get word; and I’ll see to the rest. My men are of my own clan, and I’ll answer for them. They’ll not hang back in anything, when I’m in the front of them.”

I wrung the hands of the two young fellows. East and West, it was all the same! The old fighting gallantry was in their hearts; and with the instinct of born Captains they were ready to accept all responsibility. All they asked was that their men should follow them.

They immediately sat down to arrange their signals. Montgomery was of course trained in this work, and easily fixed up a simple scheme by which certain orders could be given by either flags, or lights, or rockets. There was not need for much complication; it was understood that whe
n the Wilhelmina should be sighted she should be boarded at once, wherever or however she might be. We were, one and all of us, prepared to set at defiance every law—international, maritime, national or local. Under the circumstances we felt that, given we could once get on track with our enemy, we held a great power in our hands.

Before long, MacRae was off to Peterhead to join his yacht, which would at once start on a sort of sentry-go up and down the coast. The rest of us set about arranging to spread ourselves along the shore between Cruden and Peterhead. We did not arrange watches, for time was now precious to all, on both sides of the encounter. If an attempt was to be made to take off the treasure, it would in all probability be made before morning; every hour that passed multiplied the difficulties and dangers of the blackmailers. The weather was becoming misty, which was a source of inconvenience to us all. Thick patches of white fog began to drift in from the north east, and there was ominous promise in the rising wind of there being danger on sea and shore before many hours had passed. We each took provision with us for the night, and a sufficiency of rockets and white and red lights for our signalling work, in case there might be need of such.

In disposing of our forces, we had not of course a sufficiency of men to form a regular cordon; but we so arranged ourselves that there was no point at which a boat could land which was not in view of some of us. I was terribly anxious, for as the evening came on, the patches of white mist came driving in more quickly, and getting thicker and more dense. Between them the sea was clear, and there was no difficulty in keeping accurate observation; but as each fog belt came down on the rising wind our hearts fell. It would come on like a white cloud, which would seem to strike
the land and then close in on every side, as though wrapping the shore in a winding sheet. My own section for watching was between Slains Castle and Dunbuy, as wild and rocky a bit of coast as any one could wish to see. Behind Slains runs in a long narrow inlet with beetling cliffs, sheer on either side, and at its entrance a wild turmoil of rocks are hurled together in titanic confusion. From this point northward, the cliffs are sheer, to where the inlet of Dunbuy has its entrance guarded by the great rock, with its myriad of screaming wildfowl and the white crags marking their habitation. Midway between those parts of my sentry-go is a spot which I could not but think would be eminently suited for their purpose, and on this for some time I centred my attention. It is a place where in old days the smugglers managed to get in many a cargo safe, almost within earshot of the coast guards. The modus operandi was simple. On a dark night when it was known that the coast guards were, intentionally or by chance, elsewhere, a train of carts would gather quickly along the soft grass tracks, or through the headlands of the fields. A crane was easily improvised of two crossed poles, with a longer one to rest on them; one end held inland, could be pushed forward or drawn back, so as to make the other end hang over the water or fall back over the inner edge of the cliff. A pulley at the end of this pole, and a long rope with its shore end attached to the harness of a strong horse completed the equipment. Then, when the smugglers had come under the cliff, the rope was lowered and the load attached; the waiting horse was galloped inland, and in a few seconds the cluster of barrels or cases was swung up on the cliff and distributed amongst the waiting carts.