第70章

We slipped out to sea quietly at dusk, and all through the night everything went well.The breeze was gusty; a southerly blow was making up.It was fair wind for our course.Now and then Dominic slowly and rhythmically struck his hands together a few times, as if applauding the performance of the Tremolino.The balancelle hummed and quivered as she flew along, dancing lightly under our feet.

At daybreak I pointed out to Dominic, amongst the several sail in view running before the gathering storm, one particular vessel.

The press of canvas she carried made her loom up high, end-on, like a gray column standing motionless directly in our wake.

"Look at this fellow, Dominic," I said."He seems to be in a hurry."The Padrone made no remark, but, wrapping his black cloak close about him, stood up to look.His weather-tanned face, framed in the hood, had an aspect of authority and challenging force, with the deep-set eyes gazing far away fixedly, without a wink, like the intent, merciless, steady eyes of a sea-bird.

"CHI VA PIANO VA SANO," he remarked at last, with a derisive glance over the side, in ironic allusion to our own tremendous speed.

The Tremolino was doing her best, and seemed to hardly touch the great burst of foam over which she darted.I crouched down again to get some shelter from the low bulwark.After more than half an hour of swaying immobility expressing a concentrated, breathless watchfulness, Dominic sank on the deck by my side.Within the monkish cowl his eyes gleamed with a fierce expression which surprised me.All he said was:

"He has come out here to wash the new paint off his yards, Isuppose."

"What?" I shouted, getting up on my knees."Is she the guardacosta?"The perpetual suggestion of a smile under Dominic's piratical moustaches seemed to become more accentuated - quite real, grim, actually almost visible through the wet and uncurled hair.Judging by that symptom, he must have been in a towering rage.But I could also see that he was puzzled, and that discovery affected me disagreeably.Dominic puzzled! For a long time, leaning against the bulwark, I gazed over the stern at the gray column that seemed to stand swaying slightly in our wake always at the same distance.

Meanwhile Dominic, black and cowled, sat cross-legged on the deck, with his back to the wind, recalling vaguely an Arab chief in his burnuss sitting on the sand.Above his motionless figure the little cord and tassel on the stiff point of the hood swung about inanely in the gale.At last I gave up facing the wind and rain, and crouched down by his side.I was satisfied that the sail was a patrol craft.Her presence was not a thing to talk about, but soon, between two clouds charged with hail-showers, a burst of sunshine fell upon her sails, and our men discovered her character for themselves.From that moment I noticed that they seemed to take no heed of each other or of anything else.They could spare no eyes and no thought but for the slight column-shape astern of us.Its swaying had become perceptible.For a moment she remained dazzlingly white, then faded away slowly to nothing in a squall, only to reappear again, nearly black, resembling a post stuck upright against the slaty background of solid cloud.Since first noticed she had not gained on us a foot.

"She will never catch the Tremolino," I said exultingly.

Dominic did not look at me.He remarked absently, but justly, that the heavy weather was in our pursuer's favour.She was three times our size.What we had to do was to keep our distance till dark, which we could manage easily, and then haul off to seaward and consider the situation.But his thoughts seemed to stumble in the darkness of some not-solved enigma, and soon he fell silent.We ran steadily, wing-and-wing.Cape San Sebastian nearly ahead seemed to recede from us in the squalls of rain, and come out again to meet our rush, every time more distinct between the showers.

For my part I was by no means certain that this GABELOU (as our men alluded to her opprobriously) was after us at all.There were nautical difficulties in such a view which made me express the sanguine opinion that she was in all innocence simply changing her station.At this Dominic condescended to turn his head.

"I tell you she is in chase," he affirmed moodily, after one short glance astern.

I never doubted his opinion.But with all the ardour of a neophyte and the pride of an apt learner I was at that time a great nautical casuist.

"What I can't understand," I insisted subtly, "is how on earth, with this wind, she has managed to be just where she was when we first made her out.It is clear that she could not, and did not, gain twelve miles on us during the night.And there are other impossibilities...."Dominic had been sitting motionless, like an inanimate black cone posed on the stern deck, near the rudder-head, with a small tassel fluttering on its sharp point, and for a time he preserved the immobility of his meditation.Then, bending over with a short laugh, he gave my ear the bitter fruit of it.He understood everything now perfectly.She was where we had seen her first, not because she had caught us up, but because we had passed her during the night while she was already waiting for us, hove-to, most likely, on our very track.