Knight Templar, or The Avenging Saint

whine past, close by, for the last time, and hum away towards the shore. Her mind was cold and numb. When she heard a new sound in the night— a noise not unlike that of the motorboat, but more deep-throated and reverberating—she did not move. And when upon that sound was superim­posed the thrum and clutter of steam winch for­ward, she opened her eyes slowly and felt dully surprised that she could see....

Mechanically she took in her prosaic surround­ings.

The cabin in which she sat was large and com­fortably furnished. There were chairs, a table, a desk littered with papers, and one bulkhead com­pletely covered with well-filled bookcases. One end of the cabin was curtained off; and she guessed that there would be a tiny bedroom beyond the curtain, but she did not move to investigate.

Presently she knelt up on the couch and looked up again. The ship was turning, and the dark coast swung lazily into view. Somewhere on the black line of land a tiny light winked intermittently for a while, and vanished. After a pause, the light flick­ered again, more briefly. She knew that it must have been a signal from the house on the cliffs, but she could not read the code. It would not have profited her to know that a question had been asked and answered and felicitations returned; for the answer said that the Saint was dead....

She lay down again, and stared at the ceiling with blind eyes. She did not think. Her brain had ceased to function. She would have liked to weep, to fling herself about in a panic of fear; but though there was the impulse to do both, she knew that neither outlet would have been genuine. That kind of thing was not in her. She could only lie still, in a paralyzing daze of apathy. She lost track of time. It might have been five minutes or fifty before the cabin door opened, and she turned her head to see who had come.

'Good-evening, Miss Delmar.'

It was a tall man, weather-beaten of face and trimly bearded, in a smart blue uniform picked out with gold braid. His greeting was perfectly courteous.

'Are you the captain?' she asked; and he nodded.

'But I am not responsible for your present posi­tion,' he said. 'That is the responsibility of my employer.'

'And who's he?'

'I am not at liberty to tell you.'

He spoke excellent English; she could only guess at his nationality.

'I suppose,' she said, 'you know that you're also responsible to the American Government?'

'For you, Miss Delmar? I do not think I shall be charged.'

'Also to the British Government—for mur­der.'

He shrugged.

'There is no great risk, even of that ac­cusation.'

She was silent for a moment. Then she asked, casually: 'And what's your racket—ransom?'

'You have not been informed?'

'I have not.'

'Good. That was a question I came to ask.' He sat down at the desk and I selected a thin cigar from a box which he produced from a drawer. 'You have been brought here, frankly, in order that you may be married to a gentleman who is on board—a Mr. Vassiloff. The ceremony will be performed whether you consent or not; and if there should ever be a need to bring forward wit­nesses, we have those who will swear that you consented. I am told that is is necessary for you to marry Mr. Vassiloff—I do not know why.'

2

THE NEWS did not startle her. It came as a perfect vindication of the Saint's deductions; but now it had a grim significance that had been lacking before. Yet the sense of unreality that lay at the root of her inertia became by that much greater instead of less. She could not imagine that she was dreaming—not in that bright light, that common­place atmosphere—but still she could not adjust herself to the facts. She had found herself speaking mechanically, as calmly as if she had been sitting in the drawing room of the American Embassy in London, carrying on the game exactly as she had set out to play it, as if nothing had gone amiss. Her conscious mind was stunned and insentient; but some blind, indomitable instinct had emerged from the recesses of her subconscious to take com­mand, so that she amazed whatever logic was left sensible enough within her to be amazed.

'Who is this man Vassiloff?'

'I am not informed. I have hardly spoken to him. He has kept to his cabin ever since he came on board, and he only came out when we were— shooting. He is on the bridge now, waiting to be presented.'

'Don't you even know what he looks like?'

'I have scarcely seen him. I can tell you that he is tall, that he wears glasses, that he has a moustache. He may be young or old—perhaps he has a beard—I do not know. When I have seen him he has always had the collar of his coat buttoned over his chin. I assume that he does not wish to be known.'

'Do you even know where we're going?'

'We go to Leningrad.'

'And then?'

'As far as you are concerned, that is a matter for Mr. Vassiloff. My own employment will be finished.'

His manner was impeccably restrained and im­peccably distant. It made her realize the futility of her next question before she asked it.

'Aren't you at all interested in the meaning of what you're doing?'

'I am well paid not to be interested.'

'People have been punished for what you're doing. You're very sure that you're going to escape.'

'My employer is powerful as well as rich. I am well protected.'

She nodded.

'But do you know who I am?'

'I have not been told.'

'My father is one of the richest men in America. It's possible that he might be able to do even more for you than your present employer.'

'I am not fond of your country, Miss Delmar.' He rose, deferential and yet definite, dismissing her suggestion without further speech, as if he found the discussion entirely pointless. 'May I tell Mr. Vassiloff that he may present himself?''

She did not answer; and, with a faintly cynical bow, he passed to the door and went out.

She sat without moving, as he had left her. In those last few moments of conversation her con­sciousness had begun to creep back to life, but not at all in the way she would have expected. She was still unaware of any real emotion; only she became aware of the frantic pounding of her heart as the sole sign of a nervous reaction which she felt in no other way. But a queer fascination had gripped her, born, perhaps, of the utter hopelessness of her plight, a fantastic spell that subordinated every ra­tional reflection to its own grotesque seduction. She was a helpless prisoner on that ship, weapon­less, without a single human soul to stand by her, and every pulse of the rhythmic vibrations that she could feel beneath her was speeding her farther and farther from all hope of rescue; she was to be married with or without her consent to a man she had never seen, and whose very name she had only just heard for the first time; and yet she could feel nothing but an eerie, nightmare curiosity. The hideous bizarreness of the experience had taken her in a paralyzing hold; the stark certainty that everything that the captain had announced would inexorably follow in fact seemed to sharpen and vivify all her senses, while it stupefied all initiative; so that a part of her seemed to be detached and in­finitely aloof, watching with impotent eyes the drama that was being enacted over herself. There was nothing else that she could do; and so, with that strange fatalism wrapping her in an inhuman impassivity she had only that one superbly insane idea—to see the forlorn game through to the bitter end, for what it was worth . . . facing the inevitable finale with frozen eyes. . . .

And, if she thought of anything else, she thought with a whimsical homesickness of a sunny room on a quiet Sunday morning, and the aromatic hiss and crackle of grilling bacon; and she thought she would like a cigarette....

And then the door opened again.

It was not the captain. This man came alone—a man such as the captain had described, with the wide brim of a black velour overshadowing his eyes, and the fur collar of a voluminous coat turned up about his face.

'Good-evening—Sonia.''

She answered quietly, with a soft contempt: 'You're Vassiloff, I suppose?'

'Alexis.'