The Vultures

The Vultures by Henry Seton Merriman

Mr. Joseph P. Mangles, a dry, dyspeptic American diplomatist, crosses the Atlantic in company with his sister Julia, a lecturer on prisons and the employment of women, and his pretty, deprecating niece Netty Cahere. On deck he falls in with Reginald Cartoner, a quiet, dreamy Englishman with a gift for leaving things unsaid. Meanwhile, at the Signal House near Gravesend, a nameless Russian banker hires Captain Cable, a blunt Sunderland seaman, to carry a secret cargo of explosives and cartridges. Cable is to transship it at sea from the steamer Olaf, under Captain Petersen, with the laughing young Prince Martin Bukaty aboard as interpreter and his white-haired father present at the meeting. Cable does the work in the North Sea during a gale and in the dark, and departs promising silence. In London, Cartoner and the Frenchman Paul Deulin, who are both described as the vultures of their Foreign Offices, go to the house of Lady Orlay. There Deulin introduces Cartoner to Prince Pierre Bukaty, an old Polish rebel, and his daughter Princess Wanda. Cartoner visits the Bukatys at their Kensington hotel and sees Captain Cable leaving it. He then finds Cable's steamer, the Minnie, lying in the Pool of the river. At Lady Orlay's reception Netty and Deulin talk, and Lady Orlay observes that all the Vultures are assembling and guesses that they are bound for Russia. Cartoner meets Martin on the Warsaw Express at the frontier station of Alexandrowo, where Martin warns him that in Warsaw they cannot be seen as friends. The Mangleses and Deulin turn up at the Hôtel de l'Europe. Deulin half admits to Cartoner that he is falling in love with Netty. Down on the Vistula, a raftsman named Kosmaroff rallies a group of Polish workmen with news of five thousand rifles hidden in Warsaw. He is a convict's son born in Siberia, and he waits for a European crisis to give the signal for a rising. At the Bukaty house in the Kotzebue, Kosmaroff warns the family that Cartoner is dangerous because he reports events before they happen. Wanda says she is afraid of him. Cartoner meets Wanda and Martin in the Saski Gardens, and they agree not to meet in public. At the Mokotow races a runaway horse knocks down the old prince, and Cartoner carries word to Wanda in front of all Warsaw. He admits to her that he has asked to be recalled. Deulin reintroduces Netty to Wanda and Martin, and Kosmaroff, watching, helps Netty find her uncle after the races. Riding at dusk, Cartoner deliberately lames his horse and forces his way into the Czerniakowska ironworks. The men inside fall on him, and one proposes to kill him. By calmly asking for a hammer and nails, he gets the shoe replaced and rides away alive. He knows the arms from the Minnie are hidden there. His chiefs refuse his recall and order him to stay. Wanda, hearing from Martin that Kosmaroff may murder Cartoner, goes to Deulin and then meets Cartoner at the railway station. She pleads with him to leave Poland, but he will not. Netty meets Martin in the Senatorska, and later wears violets from Ulrich's flower shop, while Deulin watches them. At a dinner given by Mr. Mangles, Netty speaks of the princess's secret sorrows. Mangles then tells the story of a Polish nobleman sent to Siberia, whose son, born in prison, grew up unknown in a Cossack regiment and is now loose in Poland. Afterwards Netty goes into the dark drawing-room and struggles with an intruder. It is Kosmaroff, who falls at her feet and kisses her hands.

By Henry Seton Merriman · First published 1902 · Genre: Espionage fiction, Political thriller, Maritime adventure · 37 chapters · 111,424 words

First lines

Mr. Joseph P. Mangles, at his ease in a deck-chair on the broad Atlantic, was smoking a most excellent cigar. Mr. Mangles was a tall, thin man, who carried his head in the manner curtly known at a girls' school as "poking. " He was a clean-shaven man, with bony forehead, sunken cheeks, and an underhung mouth. His attitude towards the world was one of patient disgust. He had the air of pushing his way, chin first, doggedly through life. The weather had been bad, and was now moderating. But Mr. Mangles had not suffered from seasickness. He was a dry, hard person, who had suffered from nothing but chronic dyspepsia -- had suffered from it for fifty years or so.

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espionage thriller · political intrigue · Polish uprising · Russian Empire · Warsaw · Gravesend · North Sea · arms smuggling · explosives trafficking · clandestine ship-to-ship transfer · maritime adventure · gale at sea

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The Vultures is listed on Textopian as a novel by Henry Seton Merriman, dated 1902 CE.

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