"These dirty Britishers have their finger in every pie," he went on,
presently. "Well, we'll make 'em look foolish. What the deuce are they
doing in the stokehold? Just let me have a word with Nicolson, will
you?"
His "word" was something to hear. A barge-master who had dropped his
dinner overboard might have come up to Joey Castle at his best; but I
doubt it. He had the ship doing sixteen knots before one bell in the
afternoon watch. She was a Belfast-built mail-boat, with boilers and
engines not twelve months old, and a better for the purpose we could
not have chartered. By three bells it was patent that the cruiser
gained nothing on us. Her smoke burned upon a clear horizon, but her
stumpy funnel was no longer to be seen. The captain seemed as pleased
as a schoolboy who has won a race--he ordered champagne for our mess
and he talked as big as he had done when we sailed from Lorenzo.
"Here's to a good pair of heels and hoofs for the Britisher," was his
toast. "I'd like to see him stop me, by thunder. There'll be good money
for this at Bremerhaven, and more to come afterwards. Fill your glass,
Lorimer, and drink to a sharp eye on the next watch. Let him come
aboard just for five minutes, and I'll teach him the French language as
they speak it out 'Frisco way. It's a wonderful tongue there, Lorimer,
a wonderful tongue!"
I did not doubt it. Spoken as Joey Castle speaks it, a harbour-master
will take off his hat to you. What I was not so sure of was the
Britisher's understanding of it. Many a ship sailing out of Lorenzo had
been stopped and searched--so much was common gossip aboard. If the
cruiser overhauled us, she would certainly find our million pounds'
worth of ingots--marked "fruit" though they might be, kept in the great
refrigerator for better security.
Here was something more tangible than Joey Castle's French lingo.
I did not know much about international law, but it was in my head
that our ship would be sent to a British port and the gold aboard her
handed over to the British Government. With the crew, I had a sense of
personal honour in the matter. If it had been my ship I would have sunk
the _Oceanus_ before I hauled down my colours to any foreigner, let her
flag be what it might. But what the captain was going to do I did not
know; and thirty-six hours passed before I was any wiser. The afternoon
watch taught me little. Now and then I saw the stumpy funnel upon the
horizon; at other times there was nothing but the hand's-breadth of
smoke to mark the cruiser's course.
On the following day she seemed to be playing a game with us. First
she would show herself clear and threatening on the horizon; then we
lost her again and were just breathing freely when up she pops, like a
squatting hare, and has a good look at us. The see-saw worked on the
captain like an overdose of French absinthe. He couldn't rest a minute
anywhere. He swore and cursed, prayed and threatened, until I thought
the men would mutiny and have done with it. That, however, was to
come later on, when the gold fever fairly got hold of them. They were
willing enough for the time being.
[Illustration: "HE SWORE AND CURSED, PRAYED AND THREATENED."]
"What do you make of it now, Mr. Lorimer?" says the captain at
supper-time. I answered him just as bluntly as he had asked me.
"She's got the legs of you, sir--it seems to me that she's waiting for
something or other. Perhaps it's only a watching job," I put it to him.
"I was thinking the same. The little man in the cap waiting for the
big man in the cocked hat. Well, I hope he'll keep himself cool. We'll
give him a fever draught if he comes aboard. Just pass the whisky, will
you?--my head's queer to-night; but there's a good deal in it--a great
deal--Lorimer, and it's coming out by-and-by."
I had no doubt of it--he had taken enough whisky that afternoon to
start a bar. As for what was in his head, a madder scheme never came to
any man whom fear had robbed of nerve and sense.
"If the cocked hat wants to come aboard here, he shall," he said,
presently; "that's my notion, Lorimer. Let him come aboard and hear
the French lingo. We'll do the honours and then drum him out. You'll
be standing by in the launch with as much gold as she'll carry in her
coal-holes. The life-boats can take the rest. You and Nicolson and the
'fourth' must take charge of them. I'll pick you up next day and you'll
have your compasses. There's not weather enough to hurt a toy yacht,
and a night out will do you good. All this, mind you, if he has the
heels of us and means to come aboard. But I don't believe he can make
sixteen knots, and that's what we're making now."
Well, he chuckled away over this wild notion just as though it had
been a sane man's plan; and, fuddled as he was with the whisky, he
kept repeating it until I was tired of hearing it. When Billy Frost,
our young fourth officer, came down presently to say that the cruiser
had picked us up again and was using her search-light, it was a relief
to go on deck and tot the position up. My belief all along had been
that the cruiser had the legs of us, and what I saw from the bridge
confirmed my judgment. She stood now upon our starboard quarter--her
search-light ran all over us in silvery waves like water washing down a
rock-side. And yet, mind you, she did not challenge us, did not ask us
a question; but just followed us, patiently waiting, I did not doubt,
for some further instructions to be received in European waters. This
doubt and uncertainty plagued our captain to the last point. "They
shall come aboard, by Heaven," he said; "ten days more of this would
kill me." I knew then how much he had at stake, and that it was no mere
captain's wage which had tempted him to carry gold from the Transvaal.
He was playing for a bigger sum of money than he had ever played for in
all his life, and the game had robbed him of his man's common sense.
The cruiser's search-light contrived for a good hour or more to play
all over us like a hose. It made the captain dance, I can tell you; and
when they dropped it just upon eight bells in the morning watch, I saw
that he had come to a resolution and that nothing would turn him from
it.
"We must get the brass overboard, Lorimer," he said; "this crew will
turn ugly if the thing goes on. We'll make a beginning with the launch.
Take Sam the nigger, Peter Barlow, and young Nicolson the engineer, and
bear west for Ascension. I'll make them search us at dawn and turn back
for you; keep your bearings as close as you can and take an observation
every hour. We should pick you up by noon to-morrow--I'll mark the
place on the chart. A cockle-shell could swim in this sea, and the
launch will come to no harm. It's a great scheme, man, and there's few
would have thought of it."
I tried to argue with him, putting it that, even if the cruiser did
search us, she would have no authority to take the gold; moreover, it
would be an international question for the two Governments. He wouldn't
hear a word of it.
"Let 'em wrangle," he said; "I'll hold the dollars meanwhile. The men
will turn on me if I don't. Why, just look at it. They come aboard
and find nothing but silver spoons. The report goes in that we are
all right, and we steam to Bremerhaven without let or hindrance. It's
mighty, man, just mighty; and I'll not be turned from it."
So he had his way. The cruiser fell back at the dark hour before the
dawn, and we began to get the ingots of gold into the launch. This was
one of Simpson's larger boats, carried by us especially to transport
bullion expeditiously--part of the whole affair planned out from the
beginning. Willing hands passed up the golden bars--we packed a fortune
on the deck, and the men stood round about shivering with greed of
the treasure. Let the scheme be mad or sane, I had to go through with
it then; and I own up to a better opinion of it as the time went on.
Nothing could be easier to a trained seaman than to keep such a course
as the captain laid down for us. We had compasses, sextants, and our
navigation books. There was not wind enough to shake a judge's wig nor
any omen of bad weather. Let us get away under cover of the darkness,
and the rest would be child's play. The "if" was a big one. The light
might strike upon us at any instant. I went about the deck with my
heart in my mouth. Sometimes I covered my eyes with my arm, fearing to
find the bright beams upon me. It was all or nothing--an hour's grace
or a million sterling on board the British ship.
Well, we lowered the launch with her heavy cargo of ingots--as many of
them as we dared to put into her--and getting her away under shelter
of the steamer we headed due west toward Ascension Isle. True, there
was an ugly red glimmer from our funnel, but the furnace was under a
half-deck, and our memory didn't run to lights, be sure of it. I had
Sam the nigger with me, together with Nicolson the young engineer, and
Peter Barlow for quarter-master; these were the hands named for my
crew; and I was not a little astonished when we were well away from
the steamer's side to hear the loud voice of Mike the Irishman--a lazy
rogue I would gladly have left behind me.
[Illustration: "THE BLINDING LIGHT SWEPT OVER THEM."]
"Why, Mike," cries I, "and how did you get here?"
"Please, your honour, I just dropped in," says he.
"Then, if I had a rope's end, I'd make you drop out again!" says I.
"Aye, but, your honour," says he, "when was the Irishman born that had
any liking for the water? Sure, I always loved ye from the first day
I clapped these blessed eyes upon ye! 'I'll go aboard to take care of
him,' says I, 'for I feel like his own mother's son!'"
There was no time to argue with him. What with getting the launch away
neatly, and being mortal afraid to find myself any minute in the path
of the cruiser's search-light, I had too much to do to begin with a
hullabaloo--and for that matter the situation was not one to set a man
against companionship. There we were, the five of us, in a boat not
built for ocean seas, running like a good one away from the ship that
should have carried us to Europe and our homes. Let the search-light
be clapped upon us, and the gold would be aboard the British cruiser
within an hour. Or, in another case and a harder one, let the wind
blow, and what then? The gold weighed us down as it was, until even
gentle seas splashed us as we lifted to them. A hatful of wind would
sink us; a shoreman would have known that. I believed that it was the
spin of a coin anyway; and just as I was saying it the cruiser showed
her light again, and a great white arc fixed itself upon the distant
steamer like a mighty river of molten radiance flowing out upon a
darkened sea.
"Look at that for a lantern now," says Mike the Irishman, cowering
before it. "'Twould see ye home from a waking, and no mistake about it.
Just douk your head, sir, if you please. 'Twould be as well not to be
on speaking terms with them when next ye meet."
I smiled at his notion that any amount of "douking" would save us from
the cruiser's light, but instinctively I crouched down with the others.
To me it seemed impossible that any freak of fortune could hide us from
the cruiser's observation. There we were in the still sea, a black
speck, no doubt, but one that a clever eye on a warship's bridge would
never fail to spy out. Our own steamer, the _Oceanus_, was running
north as fast as honest engines could drive her. She, too, appeared
now to be just a shimmer of dancing lights--the captain showed every
lantern he had got to divert the chase from the launch, and here he
succeeded only too well.
Though it was all Lombard Street to a china orange that the cruiser
marked us, she held on obstinately after the bigger game. Perhaps she
believed that it was all a sham and that we had put off to make a fool
of her. I never learned; but I could scarcely believe my eyes when the
blinding light swept over them and still nothing happened. Were they
all daft aboard her? It was really incredible.
"The admiral's having his hair cut, I suppose," said Barlow the
quarter-master, who watched the affair with me from a seat aft. "He's
telling 'em to keep it short in the neck, sir--some day a dog will be
leading him at the end of a string. Well, I don't make no complaint
about that."
"Better not, my man," said I, "if you wish to see the _Oceanus_ again."
"Oh, as to that, we're well enough off here, sir," he said, turning
away his eyes from me; "though if we never saw Captain Castle again, I
reckon we'd have meat and drink for the rest of our lives."
I looked at him sharply; he coughed and glanced down at the compass.
This was the first time I quite understood how well the hands were
acquainted with the cargo and its owners. The danger of the knowledge
could not be hidden from me. Even the nigger Sam, with his blinking
green eyes, ate up every word of our talk and smacked his lips over it.
"You buy barrel of rum and no mistake, sar," he chimed in, unasked.
"You change your Sunday shirt on Monday and blarm the expense. We all
very rich gentlemen, surely."
I turned it with a laugh, though I was well aware of the reservation
behind it. Happily, but for a bottle of brandy of my own, there was no
drink on the launch. I had a revolver in my pistol-pocket, and I said
that at the worst, which was then but a suspicion, I could keep both
the nigger and Peter in order. Mike the Irishman might go any way; but
Nicolson, the young engineer, could certainly be counted upon. To him
I said a word when two of the hands had been ordered to turn in. His
answer was reassuring, but more ambiguous than I liked.
"Oh," he said, "anything to help the Dutchmen. They'll miss this odd
lot if we lose it--and, of course, we're all honest, Lorimer. Don't
you be uneasy. I've no fancy for gilded firesides myself; besides," he
added, "if we took our oaths that we had to jettison it, who'd believe
us? Better go straight under the circumstances."
I replied that there were no circumstances possible to make common
rogues of us, and his cheery assent did much to deceive me. Counting
upon him entirely, I let the launch simply drift while he lay down
for a couple of hours' sleep, and afterwards I wrapped myself up in
a blanket and managed to get some rest. When I awoke it was broad
daylight. An immensely round sun fired the placid water with sheets
of crimson splendour; the air came heavy from the Equator; a burning,
intolerable day seemed before us. Restless and anxious already to be
sure of our bearings, that the _Oceanus_ might find us at noon, I
bustled up almost as soon as I was awake; but the first thing I saw
took my breath away, and I just stood like a man in a wonder-world to
watch it. There amidships, in the well where the money was stored, Sam
the nigger, Mike the Irishman, and Nicolson the engineer were grouped
about a box of golden ingots, and so transported with the sight of
them that they scarcely heard me. One by one they had laid out those
shimmering yellow bars, each a fortune to such men; and they watched
the sunlight glittering upon them, and caressed them with gentle hands
and feasted their eyes upon them. When I appeared, no man budged from
his place or seemed in any way abashed. Evidently they were all agreed
upon a purpose, and this Nicolson made known to me.
"Yes," he said, coolly; "we're counting up the dollars, old
chap--divide on shore, you know--fair and square. Come, don't
look blue. The Dutchman won't miss them, and old Joey's made his
own bargain. We can rig up a tale between us and buy the crowd at
Ascension--good joke, isn't it, Lorimer?"
"Why, yes," said I; "but, as my port's not Ascension, I don't quite
see the point of it. Come, Nicolson, don't be a fool. Just put that
lid on and help me to go over the chart. We mustn't keep the captain
waiting--you know what he is."
Very lazily, I thought, he put the lid on the box of ingots, and,
laughing at the others, he came aft with me. When I took up the chart
to make a dead reckoning by the help of his own calculations during my
watch off, he laughed again in his peculiar way. "It's all right," he
said; "due west for Ascension, as you wished."
"Nicolson," I said, quietly, "you've been playing a fool's game; what
does it mean?"
He sat on the gunnel and looked me full in the face.
"Means that our port is Ascension," he said.