OPEN WAR.

During the few instants that it took Touchtone to quit the dining-saloon and reach the transept into which the state-room opened, a chaos of ideas surged in his head. He afterward wondered how he could even have thought of so many things in such a hurry. There are at least two ways of being frightened: one, clean out of all your wits, the other by having them tossed about like a whirlpool so that for a time you do not know what idea is uppermost.

He stopped in the dim passageway to “pull himself together.” He guessed it now—the startling truth! Since “Mr. Hilliard” was there aboard the steam-ship it was, in all probability, because he knew that they, Philip Touchtone and Gerald Saxton, were there too. And that meant that kind-hearted Mr. Hilliard, number two, the real Mr. Hilliard, had been wrong. This dogging of two defenseless[103] lads had been for no design of mere robbery, but for some sinister end. Philip’s heart throbbed violently as the surmise came that a mysterious enemy was tracking, not simply two boys out of all the summer’s host of traveling ones in general, but Philip Touchtone and Gerald Saxton, in particular. The question was, why were they the objects of his plot, whatever it might be? And was the attack upon Gerald or himself?

He entered the state-room softly. Gerald raised himself on his elbow.

“Is that you, Philip?” he asked.

“Yes, my lord,” Philip answered, sitting down on the edge of the berth, and trying not to let his voice or manner hint of the trouble of his mind. “How is your head? Do you want any thing?”

“My head is ever so much better,” said Gerald, sinking back luxuriously. “I should like some ice-water, if you’ll get it, please, before long. I’d better not try to get up to-night, except to undress. Don’t you think you’d like to get to bed soon yourself?”

“Yes,” replied Philip, absently, “very soon.”

He was asking himself whether he would not[104] better go at once to Captain Widgins, who had seemed so friendly to him, and confide to him his peculiar story and suspicions. But then had he not best know more of the riddle before he did? The only way to do that was to turn the state-room into a hiding-place and a castle for Gerald; and as to himself, to walk out boldly and bring events to an issue. He had courage enough for that.

“I’ll get you the ice-water at once,” he exclaimed, starting up, “and I’ll see what sort of a night it is by this time. Then I wont have to leave you alone again.”

“All right,” returned Gerald, yawning. “I’m half in a doze now; I dare say I’ll be asleep before you get back, but I’d rather not go to bed quite yet. It can’t have cleared much. That fog-whistle is going as hard as it can.”

Philip locked the state-room door as he stepped out—a precaution Gerald was too drowsy to mark. He re-entered the main saloon and walked with deliberate slowness about it, while he waited for the ice-water. There seemed to be no signs of the enemy. It was a rather vacant quarter where he found[105] himself at last. A tall figure quickly drew near and stopped before him. Philip raised his eyes. As he expected, it was the foe.

“Good-evening, Mr. Touchtone,” the man began in his smoothest voice, offering to shake hands, and directing his black eyes full into Philip’s steady ones.

Philip drew himself up, and, paying no heed whatever to the hand, responded stiffly, “Good-evening.” He made as if he would have passed on, but then the other stepped directly in his way.

“Pray, don’t be in a hurry,” he said, in a lower tone, with a different note coming into it, that did not surprise Philip. “I think, considering the extraordinary way that you gave me the slip yesterday, and since I have taken passage on this steamer expressly to have the pleasure of a talk with you, I deserve a little of your valuable time, eh?”

Philip flushed at the familiarity of the man’s speech. However, to lose temper would be the foolishest course. Surely this was the very opportunity he sought.

“I’m sorry, but I can give you very little time,” he replied. “And you are mistaken. I[106] hope I shall never have occasion to say any thing to you or to see you again. You certainly know why, as well as I do. Good-night.”

His manner and words did what he boldly undertook. Before there could be a battle, war must be declared.

It was declared. “Mr. Hilliard” leaned forward, and retorted, “Look here, Touchtone! You’d better not make things harder for yourself. I will have a talk with you. It’s what I’m here for. Is Saxton’s boy in your state-room? Well, it makes no difference; I can go there with you, and he can hear all I have to say, for that matter.”

As it happened, “Mr. Hilliard” would have most assuredly preferred not to have Gerald a listener. But he chose to give Philip another idea.

“Or else,” he continued, “do you meet me aft, outside—where the pile of stools is. You know the place. It’s dark there. No one will bother us. Which suits you?”

The waiter was appearing with the ice-water.

“I will meet you outside,” Philip answered. With an undaunted gaze into his foe’s face[107] he added, “I may as well know, sooner or later, what you are hunting us down for in this fashion.”

The other smiled maliciously.

“I will expect you there in five minutes. If you don’t come I will look you up.”

The waiter who handed Philip his jug might have supposed the last sentence just a civil appointment made by one friend with another.

In the state-room, which Philip reached trembling but resolved (and especially resolved on saying nothing to the captain or any body else until after the coming interview), Gerald lay fast asleep, his face turned from the light. He did not hear Philip enter this time.

“Shall I wake him?” questioned he. He set down the water-jug. “No, I wont. The little fellow’s pretty sure to stay like that until I’ve got to the bottom of this row and am back here, ready to make my next move. Heigho! shouldn’t I like to see Mr. Marcy just this minute!”

He bent above Gerald. He was sound asleep—safe to stay so, indefinitely. Philip stole out, once more turning the key on Gerald, that no intruder should disturb his calm dreams.[108] “Only a rascal with no good to talk about would have chosen such a place!” he could not but think, as he went out from the cabin. The Old Province was progressing very cautiously. The opaque fog was like wool around her, although straight up overhead the moon seemed struggling to show herself in a circle of wan light. The ocean’s swell was much less and the drizzle over. But the night bade fair to stay very thick and to give place to a morning like it. Coming from the lighted cabin, Philip stumbled about over the slippery deck. He caught the sound of a repeated whistle rising, falling, and trilling artistically, that was plainly intended as his guide. “Mr. Hilliard” rose from where he had been lounging along the wet rail.

“Ah,” said he, “you’re here, are you, Touchtone? There seem to be some dry chairs on this heap. Looks as if it was going to stay muggy, don’t it?”

“I’d like to know your business with me as soon as I can,” replied Philip, determined to waste no time, and declining the proffered seat. “I’m not here for my own pleasure, nor because you’ve frightened me into coming[109] to listen. I have found out the trick you tried to play on us yesterday. We spent last night with Mr. Hilliard. So don’t try to go on with that.”

Philip was somewhat surprised at his own daring. But those were the words that came, and I have set them down just as he spoke them.

“O, indeed,” said the other, throwing his cigar over the rail. “Really, I presumed you must have done that by this time. I’d no intention of ‘going on’ with that business, I promise you. You see, Touchtone, I’ve concluded that you are about as sensible and clear-headed a fellow of your age as ever lived! It will be much better for me to be honest and confidential with you than to—well, to try any such little devices as I thought advisable yesterday. To begin, my name isn’t Hilliard, as you know—”

“I should think I did!” ejaculated Philip.

“So you will please call me Mr. Belmont, of New York—John Alexander Belmont, at our mutual service. And, by the bye, Touchtone, I must tell you another thing. I knew your father, Reginald Touchtone, pretty well[110] for a good many years. Surprised, eh? Well, it’s a fact. We came together in—in business, before—before he made a fool of himself by pretending to be better than other people.”

At the mention of his father’s name, from the lips of such a man, Philip started violently. Belmont (for such, in deference to his request, he will be called henceforth here) had forgotten for an instant his self-control in his anger over some past event. But Philip’s own composure was upset by the sneer.

“How dare you speak so of my father!” he exclaimed, indignantly. “You can insult me, but you can’t insult him—to my face. I don’t know who you are yet, nor what you have done. But I know that my father never willingly had a word to say to such a man as you. Not he. As for that matter you hint at, he was as innocent in it as—as Gerald Saxton!”

Taken aback at the boy’s honest anger............