“I’m agreeable,” said Captain Cable, dusting his hat.

When they were out in the street, he turned to Kosmaroff and looked up into his face with bright and searching eyes.

“Who’s that man?” he asked, as if there had been only one in the room.

“I do not know his name,” replied Kosmaroff.

They were standing on the doorstep.  The dirty man had closed the door behind them, and, turning on his heel, Kosmaroff looked thoughtfully at the dusty woodwork of it.  Half absent-mindedly he extended one finger and made a design on the door.  It was not unlike a Greek cross.

“That is who he is,” he said.

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.