Every man on board the _Oceanus_--sometime a mail-boat to the South
African ports--knew that we carried treasure to Europe, but what was
the amount of it, or for whom we carried it, our captain, Joey Castle,
alone could say. We had been chartered at Sydney for the purpose, being
one of the fastest steamers in Southern waters, and we took in the
bullion, chiefly in golden ingots, at Lorenzo Marques. Some did say
that it was the property of a Dutch bank, which preferred the American
flag to the German, for the _Oceanus_ was under American colours, and
a handier steamer of her tonnage I never sailed in. Grant you that the
crew were a rough lot--niggers and Lascars, Poles and Swedes, with
half-a-dozen Christian white men to put currants on your cake. Well,
the owners were one of the safest houses in New York, and fat Joey
Castle you might have trusted with the Bank of England itself. Not
two cents did he care whether he had a hold full of diamonds or of
doughnuts.
"I'm going right through, gentlemen," he said to us at dinner the night
we sailed, "and if any tin warship threatens me I'll make Europe laugh.
Risk! Why, there's twenty times the risk in a roundabout at a fair! Let
'em stop me if they like--I'll put 'em through the goose-step before
they've been two minutes aboard, as sure as my name's Joey Castle!"
Well, we didn't think very much about it, but there had been a lot
of talk ashore concerning the British Government and how it handled
suspicious ships entering or leaving Lorenzo Marques. I myself thought
it not unlikely that we should have some trouble. To put it honestly,
I didn't take the hook on the end of this Dutch bank line; and I just
said to myself that our gold was Government gold, and that if it were
found aboard of us all the Stars and Stripes between 'Frisco and Sandy
Hook wouldn't be worth a red cent to us. We should have to pay out, and
quick about it.
In this view I stood alone, however, and I must say that when we put
to sea without let or hindrance, and were steaming next morning due
south before a rattling breeze and with a splendid swell under us, I
dismissed the subject as readily as the others and considered our port
already made. That opinion lasted for ten days. On the eleventh day,
at noon, we sighted a British cruiser on our port quarter. Poor old
Joey Castle! He didn't say a word about the Stars and Stripes then. His
topic concerned the nether regions. You shivered in your boots when he
talked to the engineers. I was on the bridge when the nigger Sam cried
up his news of the other ship; and while I was spying her through my
glass Captain Castle himself came out of the chart-room and asked me
what was there.
"Looks like an ugly one, sir," said I; "a cruiser, I should say, of the
second class."
He took the glass from my hand--I can see him now, fat and florid, and
as plainly anxious at heart as a nervous man could be. I thought then
of all his boasts the night we left Lorenzo, and I was really a bit
sorry for him.
"Do you think she means mischief, Mr. Lorimer?" he asked, with the
glass still to his eye.