“It’s in the Baltic, near the Russian coast,” snapped Kate, “and I’ve no doubt there are mountains in Finland that contain the lake which feeds the spring.”
“How far is that rock from the Finnish coast, then?”
“Two miles and a half,” said Kate, quick as an arrow speeding from a bow.
“Captain, we don’t know how far it is from the coast,” amended Dorothy.
“I’ll never believe the thing exists at all.”
“Why, yes it does, father. How can you speak like that? Don’t you know Lieutenant Drummond fired at it?”
“Because the rock fired back at him. There can’t be two like that in the Baltic.”
“No, nor one either,” said the Captain, nearing the end of his patience.
“Captain Kempt,” said Dorothy very soothingly, as if she desired to quell the rising storm, “you take the allegation about the spring of water to prove that Johnson was telling untruths. I expect him here within an hour, and I will arrange that you have an opportunity, privately, of cross-examining him. I think when you see the man, and listen to him, you will believe. What makes me so sure that he is telling the truth is the fact that he mentioned the foreign vessel firing at this rock, which I knew to be true, and which he could not possibly have learned anything about.”
“He might very well have learned all particulars from the papers, Dorothy. They were full enough of the subject at the time, and, remembering this, he thought to strengthen his story by--”
“By adding verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.”
“Quite so, Kate; exactly what I was going to say myself. But to come back to the project itself. Granting the existence of the rock, granting the truth of Johnson’s story, granting everything, granting even that the young men are imprisoned there, of which we have not the slightest proof, we could no more succeed in capturing that place from a frail pleasure yacht--”
“It’s built like a cruiser,” said Katherine.
“Even if it were built like a battleship we would have no chance whatever. Why, that rock might defy a regular fleet. Our venture would simply be a marine Jameson Raid which would set the whole world laughing when people came to hear of it.”
“Johnson said he could take it with half a dozen men.”