Part 68

Mr. Starr said it was no wonder Cities of the Zuider Zee died, if they were brought up on hotels like that.

Ours, apparently, had no one to attend to it, except one frightened rabbit of a boy, who appeared to be manager, hall porter, waiter, boots, and chambermaid in one; but when we had scrambled up a ladder-like stairway--it was almost as difficult as climbing a greased pole--we found decent rooms, and after that, things we wanted came by some mysterious means, we knew not how.

It was an adventure sliding down to dinner. Tibe fell from top to bottom, into a kind of black well, and upset Lady MacNairne completely. She said she hated Enkhuisen, and she thought it a dispensation of Providence that the sand had come and silted it up.

We had quite good things for dinner, but we ate in a dining-room with no fresh air, because the commercial travelers who sat at the same table, with napkins tucked under their chins, refused to have the windows open. Mr. van Buren wanted to defy them, but his chin looked so square, and the commercial travelers' eyes got so prominent, that I begged to have the windows left as they were.

There are churches to see in Enkhuisen, and a beautiful choir screen, but we hadn't the heart to visit them. We said perhaps we would go to-morrow, and added in our minds, "if the boat is safely in."

The Rabbit hardly knew what we meant when we asked for a private sitting-room, and evidently thought it far from a proper request.

To add to our melancholy, a thunder-storm came up after dinner, and lightning looped like coils of silver ribbon across the sky and back again, while thunder deadened the chimes of the Dromedary. Still there was no news, and at last Mr. van Buren went out in torrents of rain to the harbor.

We could not bear to sit in the dining-room where the commercial travelers--in carpet slippers--were smoking and discussing Dutch politics, so we clambered up the greased pole to Lady MacNairne's room, and talked about Philip the Second, and tortures, while Tibe growled at the thunder, and looked for it under furniture and in corners.

Nell was in such a black mood that she would have liked Philip to be tortured through all eternity, because of the horrible suffering he inflicted on the people of Holland; but I said the worst punishment would be for his soul to have been purified at death, that he might suddenly realize the fiendishness of his own crimes, see himself as he really was, and go on repenting throughout endless years.

It was not an enlivening conversation, and in the midst Mr. van Buren came to say that there were no tidings of Jonkheer Brederode and the boat.

Then Nell jumped up, very white, with shining eyes. "Can't we do something?" she asked.

Her cousin shook his head. "What is there we can do? Nothing! We must wait and hope that all is well."

"Are you anxious now?" asked Lady MacNairne.

"A little," he admitted.

"I don't know how to bear it," exclaimed Nell, with a choke in her voice.

I longed to comfort her; but her wretchedness seemed only to harden her cousin's heart.

He looked at her angrily. "It is late for you to worry," he reproached her. "If you had shown concern for Rudolph's safety this morning it would have been gracious; but----"

"Don't!" she said.

Just the one word, and not crossly, but in such a voice of appeal that he didn't finish his sentence.

We sat about awkwardly, and tried to speak of other things, but the talk would drift to our fears for the boat. Nell did not join in. She sat by the window, looking out and listening to the rain and wind, which made a sound like the purring of a great cat.

Ten o'clock came, and Lady MacNairne proposed that, as we could do nothing, we women should go to bed.

Then Nell spoke. "No," she said. "You and Phil can do as you like, and Cousin Robert and Mr. Starr; but I shall sit up."

Of course I told her I would sit up, too; and as Mr. van Buren said the commercial travelers had left the dining-room, he and Mr. Starr and Nell and I bade Lady MacNairne good-night, and went down.

The unfortunate Rabbit was in the act of putting out the light, but he was obliged to leave it for us, a necessity which distressed him.

By-and-by it was eleven, and the hotel was as silent as a hotel in a Dead City ought to be. We talked spasmodically. Sometimes we were still for many minutes, listening for sounds outside; and we could hear the scampering of mice behind the walls.

"I can't stand this," said Nell. "I'm going to the harbor."

"I will take you," replied Mr. van Buren.

"No, thank you," said Nell. "I'd rather you stopped with Phil. She has a cold, and mustn't get wet."