"What do you find interests you, Dr. Phillimore?" she asked in her pleasant voice.
"I was reading, or pretending to read, a book of poems," I answered.
"Poems," she replied, plying her needles, and then in a little, "It is strange you should be reading poems and I knitting here."
"It puzzles me," said I. I rose and went to the window behind her which was not shuttered, and for the light from which she had seated herself there. The crisp sparkle of the sea rose to eyes and ears. When I turned, Princess Alix had ceased from her work and was looking towards me.
"You wonder why?" she asked.
"I have made many guesses, but have never satisfied myself yet why the mutiny is not pushed to its logical conclusion."
"Which would mea–" she said thoughtfully.
"Which would mean," I interrupted quickly, "the possession of the treasure."
There was something deeply significant in her gaze, something that was brave, and appealed, and winced at the same time. She went on slowly with her knitting.
"He is waiting his time," she remarked in a low voice.
"He will wait too long," I said with a little laugh.
"Do you think so?" she asked, and, laying down her work, went to the window as I had done. "It is cold."
"We are off an icy shore," I said.
"Yes, I found it on the map this morning," she nodded. "We are close to the Straits of Magellan!"
At that moment the sound of the piano sailed through the door at the end of the corridor. She turned her head slightly, and then moved away restlessly. She went to the chair on which I had been sitting and picked up my Tennyson.
"I know him pretty well," she remarked, turning the pages. She halted where I had inserted a marker.
"'The Princess,'" she said slowly. She drummed her fingers on the leaf, read for a minute or two, and dropped the book lightly. "We have no literature in comparison with yours, Dr. Phillimore; but we have sometimes done better than that."
"Oh, not than the lyrics," I protested lightly. "Ask me no more——"
The music from without broke into louder evidence, and she turned frowning towards the door.
"Do you know, Dr. Phillimore," she asked hesitatingly, "if Mr. Morland is in his room?"
"He went after lunch," I answered. She stood considering.
"Mademoiselle has a beautiful voice," I said tentatively.
"Oh, yes," she assented. "It is of good quality and training." Her tone was curt, as if she were unwilling to continue the conversation, but she still listened.
Einsam Wandelt dein Freund im Frühlings garten.
It seemed to me that I could almost hear the words in that uplifted music. The song has always been a passionate fancy of mine, beguiling the heart of rock to romance. Sentiment is on wing in every corner of one's consciousness when that song rises in its fulness and falls in its cadences on one's ears and deeper senses.
In der Spiegelnden Fluth, in Schnee der Alpen....
… strahlt dein Bildniss.
I could see Mademoiselle Trebizond at the piano with the vision of the mind, her soul enrapt, her features transfigured. She was a figment of the emotions. And the Princess and I listened, she with a little dubitating look of perplexity, paying me no heed now, and I singularly moved. I walked down the corridor, past where Princess Alix stood, and as I went by I could have put out my arm and drawn her to me. She was wonderful in her beauty and her pride.
Deutlich schimmert auf jedem purpur blättchen.
But I went by and opened the door that gave upon the saloon stairs. Instantly the flood of music rolled into the room in a tide, and, glancing back, I saw the Princess stir. She came towards me.
"A voice is a beautiful machine," she said uncertainly as the notes died away.
I could not answer; but she may have read an answer in my eyes. She passed me just as the singer broke into something new, and entered the music gallery. A shaft of light struck out her figure boldly. I walked round to the second door at the head of the stairs. Right away in the corner was Mademoiselle, and by her Sir John Barraclough lounged on the sofa, stroking his moustache uneasily. But my eyes lingered on the two not at all, for they were drawn forthwith to another sight which filled me with astonishment. The barriers had been removed from several of the windows, the windows themselves were open, and I could discern the figures of men gathered without on the deck.
With an exclamation I ran forward, interrupting the mellifluous course of Schubert's Serenade, and Barraclough started to his feet.
"What is it?" he asked abruptly.
Mademoiselle turned on her stool and regarded me with curiosity, and behind the Princess was approaching slowly.
"The windows, man!" said I.
Mademoiselle burst into laughter. "It was so dark," she said prettily, "I could not see plainly. I must always have light when I play. And I made Sir John open them."
Barraclough fidgeted, but turned a cold face on me.
"What's all the fuss about?" he asked surlily.
I pointed to the figures which we could see through the open windows.
"Well, that's my business," he said shortly. "I'm in command, and I'm not a fool." As he spoke he fingered his revolver.
"Oh, do not be afraid. It is all right," said Mademoiselle cheerfully. "See, we will have more open. I will play them something. They are listening to my music. It will soothe them."
She cast a look at Sir John from her laughing dark eyes, and let her hands down on the keys with a bang, breaking into a jolly air of the boulevards.
"Stay," she cried, stopping quickly, "but I know one of your English tunes suitable for the sea. How do you call it? Tom-bolling!"
As she spoke she swerved softly into that favourite air, the English words running oddly from her lips.
"'Ere a sheer 'ulk lies poor Tom Bo-olling…"
From the deck came a burst of applause. She laughed in delight, and winked up at me.
"I can do more with them than your guns," she said boldly, and was sailing into the next verse when the Princess intervened.
"Mademoiselle," she said in French, "you are inconveniencing the officers. They have much to do."
Mademoiselle turned about angrily and met the Princess' gaze. She seemed about to fly out in a tempest, but as suddenly checked herself, leaving only a little frown on her forehead to witness to her annoyance. She had been engaged in a little triumph that suited her vanity, and she had been called away from it. I really do not think there was anything more than that in it—not then, at any rate. She rose.
"You are a tyrant, my princess," she said, and nodding sweetly to Barraclough and myself, left the gallery.
Princess Alix followed, her face pale and still. More than ever was I convinced that, whatever feelings the lady had inspired in the Prince, his sister was not party to them.
CHAPTER XII
In the Saloon
I think it was from that hour that I began to get on badly with Barraclough. It was in his power as acting captain, no doubt, to remit certain precautions, but the remission of those precautions was not to the credit of his head. He had been beguiled by the Siren, and she, doubtless, by her vanity or her freakishness. When she had gone he turned on me.