id.

Captain Cable followed the motion of his companion's finger.

"I've heard of him," he said. "And I heard his voice--sort of
soft-spoken--on Hamburg quay one night, many years ago. That is why I
refused the job and came out with you."

XXV

THE CAPTAIN'S STORY

More especially in northern countries nature lays her veto upon the
activity of men, and winter calls a truce even to human strife. Cartoner
awaited orders in London, for all the world was dimly aware of something
stirring in the north, and no one knew what to expect or where to look
for the unexpected.

It was a cold winter that year, and the Baltic closed early. Captain
Cable chartered the _Minnie_ in the coasting trade, and after Christmas
he put her into one of the cheaper dry-docks down the river towards
Rotherhithe. His ship was, indeed, in dry-dock when the captain opened
with the Brothers of Liberty those negotiations which came to such a
sudden and untoward end.

Paul Deulin wrote one piteous letter to Cartoner, full of abuse of the
cold and wet weather. "If the winter would only set in," he said, "and
dry things up and freeze the river, which has overflowed its banks
almost to the St. Petersburg Station, on the Praga side, life would
perhaps be more endurable."

Then the silence of the northern winter closed over him too, and
Cartoner wrote in vain, hoping to receive some small details of the
Bukatys and perhaps a mention of Wanda's name. But his letters never
reached Warsaw, or if they travelled to the banks of the Vistula they
were absorbed into that playful post-office where little goes in and
less comes out.

There were others besides Cartoner who were wintering in London who
likewise laid aside their newspaper with a sigh half weariness, half
relief, to find that their parts of the world were still quiet.

"History is assuredly at a stand-still," said an old traveller one
evening at the club, as he paused at Cartoner's table. "The world must
be quiet indeed with you here in London, all the winter, eating your
head off."

"I am waiting," replied Cartoner.

"What for?"

"I do not know," he said, placidly, continuing his dinner.

Later on he returned to his rooms in Pall Mall. He was a great reader,
and was forced to follow the daily events in a dozen different countries
in a dozen different languages. He was surrounded by newspapers, in a
deep arm-chair by the table, when that came for which he was waiting. It
came in th