“By St. Peter of Russia!” he cried, “I’ve got it at last! I must write to Katherine about this.”
Summoning the steward again to take away this fluid, and bring him another pailful of fresh water, Lermontoff endeavored to extract some information from the deferential young man.
“Do you know where we are making for now?”
“Nor when we shall reach our destination?”
“Yes, that’s what the Captain said. But if it meant death for a sailor to be drunk, the commerce of the world would speedily stop.”
“This is a government steamer, Excellency, and if a sailor here disobeys orders he is guilty of mutiny. On a merchant vessel they would merely put him in irons.”
“I see. Now do you want to earn a few gold pieces?”
“Excellency has been very generous to me already,” was the non-committal reply of the steward, whose eyes nevertheless twinkled at the mention of gold.
“Well, here’s enough to make a jingle in your pocket, and here are two letters which you are to try to get delivered when you return to St. Petersburg.”
“Well, if you succeed, I’ll make your fortune when I’m released.”
That night at dinner the Captain opened a bottle of vodka, and conversed genially on many topics, without touching upon the particular subject of liberty. He partook sparingly of the stimulant, and, to Lermontoff’s disappointment, it did not in the least loosen his tongue, and thus, still ignorant of his fate, the Prince turned in for the second night aboard the steamer.
When he awoke next morning he found the engines had stopped, and, as the vessel was motionless, surmised it had reached harbor. He heard the intermittent chuck-chuck of a pony engine, and the screech of an imperfectly-oiled crane, and guessed that cargo was being put ashore.
“Now,” he said to himself, “if my former sentinel is at the door they are going to take me to prison. If he is absent, I am to be set free.”
He jumped up, threw back the bolt, opened the door. There was no one there. In a very few minutes he was on deck, and found that the steamer was lying in the lee of a huge rock, which reminded him of Mont St. Michel in Normandy, except that it was about half again as high, and three times as long, and that there were no buildings of any kind upon it, nor, indeed, the least sign of human habitation.