Edwin Balmer

“ The train for Scotland kept on; the passengers for the stubby cars on the spur were settling themselves in their seats. Swiftly but thoroughly, Andy searched through each compartment. He was beginning to think he might have been impulsive in leaving his party when he returned to the pile of luggage. But there was no possible doubt of the week-end box. Its owner might not be present; but it was, or at least it had been, possessed by her for whom he—and the police also—searched.
“Who’s with that?” he demanded of the luggage porter bearing it toward the train. ”

“ I don’t know what I’d find myself doing if they got after you again. So, just to protect me, won’t you marry me now? Come on; let’s become woman and husband!”
Roberta kissed him and laughed. “You didn’t really hurt any one. Everybody got off the Cumberland, and the Corinthian couldn’t have put out the fire even if it had come right away. I didn’t hurt anybody in England; and, as for their precious old property, I told my lawyer this morning to pay what was right for that.”
“You did that? Why?”
“I didn’t do those things for votes for women I’d never seen. ”

“ The operator shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Can’t! Why not?”
“I’ve been thinking it over.”
“Well?”
“We can’t call ‘Wolf!’ on the ocean. The wireless must always bring a ship to a ship in distress; no captain must doubt it a minute.”
“Once won’t do any harm,” Andy argued recklessly. “We’ll merely put the Corinthian back a hundred miles, and maybe bring back some other ship which gets the call. And think of the excitement we’ll give the passengers on the Corinthian till they find the Wellington isn’t sinking.” ”

“ Yet still through the village of Stoketon, quiet and unsuspecting serenity continued to reign. Andy walked out to the road. The lights of the little town were beginning to twinkle one by one; the good people of Stoketon were going to bed. He snuffed out his cigar and returned to watch beside the rope in the rear of the garden.
A light figure—a girl’s—leaped over the low palings; standing, panting, she listened a moment before she came farther. Andy, creeping back on the soft carpet of the thick turf, hid himself in the blackest shadow. The girl came on and reached the rope ”

“ Never mind about any other clothes. Your things at the inn are in the hands of the police; your box at the station is now on the way, by that train which whistled ten minutes ago, to Southampton in the possession of a Miss Harriet Dale, a somewhat sporting schoolteacher from Ohio, I believe. Instead of going back steerage—as she was considering—she returns on the Corinthian to-morrow as you. With a little encouragement any one might take her for you, as you’ve seen. After the Corinthian’s at sea, and there’s no stop before New York, she’ll furnish the encouragement. ”

“ The relief wireless operator, halting, excused Andy from reply. “That’s the Wellington—an old hooker, and slow, but still popular. First, second, and steerage always full. Economical’s the word with her. Every ship’s supposed to have two men for the wireless, since the Titanic; but they manage most of the time—as this trip—with one. They’d wake up their man to get help if anything happened to them; but from about ten p. m. to say five a. m., another ship in trouble would have a great time calling them.”
Andy gazed long at the ship, the great idea dawning. “Excuse us,” he said to Roberta. ”

“ By wireless, as they sailed out to sea, they heard of the horror of the British government at finding that the girl on the Corinthian was not Roberta Leigh, and that the very militant suffragette again had escaped.
But, in equal sense of outrage, the suffragist leaders in England received the news that Roberta Leigh had paid for all damage done by her in the name of the suffrage cause.
“We have long suspected,” the chief starver for the suffrage cause was quoted in the newspapers, “the sincerity of the suffragist support from the young women of America. ”

“ Andy begged. “They’ve seen your rope now.”
Outcry from above confirmed him, so she let him guide her out of the garden and down the road, where they found a hiding place behind a hedge. They stopped while scared and horrified citizenry passed them. The armory on the hill was burning now with less flame and more smoke, rewarding local fire volunteers for their labors; but the clamor in pursuit of the perpetrators of the outrage increased.
“Are they always so close up on you?” Andy whispered respectfully, as officers, shouting descriptions of Roberta, stumbled past. ”

“ And, in the perverse manner which the elements have when men must count upon their fairness, the sea and sky were clear during those days and nights upon the course of steamers for New York out of the English Channel and steering from the south of Ireland. By the second night, therefore, the Southampton liner Corinthian had made up half of the advantage of the Cumberland’s earlier start from the Scottish port. As the steamship lanes drew closer and closer together in mid-Atlantic, the two ships came within easy wireless communication. ”

“ The memory of the paragraph by the German psychologist further emboldened him. “Bobs, you—you don’t care a thing about votes for women!”
“What? Of course I do!” She freed herself indignantly; but returned at once to him to feel his share in the effect of her adventure. “Listen to them, Andy; isn’t it great to hear them! They can’t believe that a girl would do it!”
“Those are only the local gallants.” Andy cautioned as he listened. “The fellow who’s followed you from London doesn’t seem harassed by doubts.” ”

“ You’ve really smashed up things mighty competently for a girl. But, Bobs, you can’t expect to learn to smash sincerely or thoroughly all at once. You’ve got to have a few thousand generations of your sex behind you who really smashed to be entirely dependable at it. Then you wouldn’t be so broken up about the idea of perhaps a little unintentional killing.”
“Don’t!” she begged, and pulled him farther back from the road as two officers approached, bundling an American girl between them. But Andy, recognizing the captive in the light of the lanterns, shook Roberta about sternly. ”

“ Andy asked anxiously.
“There was no use in trying to catch the Corinthian—she’s faster than we, and would be going her best on an S. O. S. call. Our only chance of getting help soon is from the Elbe—the German ship ahead. She was about sixty miles ahead of us, bound for New York. We are assuming that she also must have got the S. O. S. call from the Wellington—though our man heard only the Corinthian respond. So we’re steering to run across the Elbe if she’s coming back to the Wellington. If she is, we should see her lights now in half an hour.” ”

“ NEW BULLETIN FOR FIRST-CABIN PASSENGERS.
As previously announced, wireless communication has been established with R. M. S. Corinthian from Southampton. It will be of interest to know that the officers of the Corinthian definitely have identified the young woman, suspected since sailing of being Roberta Leigh, as being, indeed, the violent American suffragist who is wanted by the English police for criminal participation in the destruction of many public buildings in England, including the government armory at Stoketon. The intelligence has been sent by wireless to England. ”

“ Andy, till you do it yourself, you’ve no possible basis of appreciating the perfect deliciousness of shocking them so. You couldn’t appreciate it then; you’d have to be a woman with ten thousand generations of downtrodden, meek-made women behind you who wanted to smash things and never dared ”

“ She will be taken for you; the wireless will announce the news to the shore; so all other search will cease till the Corinthian’s in New York, and she again is identified as not you. But before that time, you and I—on the Cumberland, which sails from Glasgow in just eight hours—will have been safe and at large in the land of the free for some hours. I’ve figured it all out and arranged it. If we can stay unsuspected for a day, we’re all right. There’s an automobile waiting for us outside the town. Come on!”
“You and I? How can we?” Roberta questioned. ”

“ He looked to Roberta thankfully. “Since they think the wireless is going again, we can handle them more decently.”
Andy stared out over the dark sea. To the south and astern, the Corinthian, which could have been alongside before now, was racing more than a hundred miles away to pursue a sound ship. He had sent it on that pursuit. Somewhere out ahead—if the German Elbe also had happened to hear his false S. O. S. calls and was responding to them—was the ship which they might meet in time to save the Cumberland’s company. The rockets constantly exploded in the sky to attract it. ”

“ Andy confessed: “That yesterday the captain—most romantic of Scots—blushingly put forward his qualifications as legal wedlocker on the high seas.”
“Ah!”
“So I told him the seas were too high for you; you’d got seasick and changed your mind.”
Roberta looked away. “I told you if I stayed in my cabin, it must be on account of something else—even neuralgia. You know that I never get seasick; I hate people who get seasick.” ”

“ It is such as she who seem to justify, to the thoughtless, the charge that there is nothing new in principle in our attitude toward men. Her traitorous repairing of damage which we supposed was done in good faith will certainly cause us to be more certain of the sincerity and conviction of other recruits in our ranks before intrusting them with important acts of destruction. ”

“ Accordingly, the Elbe, with the Cumberland’s passengers, reached New York on Saturday afternoon, while the Corinthian was still at sea.
The arrest at New York of Roberta Leigh for her high crimes committed in England therefore was postponed till the Corinthian docked. But this arrest was meant to be only postponed. The British government, thoroughly aroused to the need of decisive and drastic measures for the suppression of the suffragist outrages, were determined to show no quarter. The crown officers waited doggedly for the coming of the Corinthian on Monday. ”

“ Andy waited a moment. “What news from the Corinthian?” he asked carelessly.
“She’s about caught up with us now, and is going right on. She’s under special orders to hurry, you know. They certainly mean to do things to that poor suffragette girl, Roberta Leigh. You know——”
Andy was favored with confidential communications picked up by the Cumberland’s wireless. Not to show too great interest, he soon moved away. Roberta, if she was to respond to his instructions, soon would come on deck. Thus far, by keeping strictly to her cabin since he had brought her on shipboard, she had obeyed him ”