THE GREAT ATTEMPT
They came up on deck.
The great attempt could not be made for hours yet. Two hours before
daybreak was the time settled by Sam, who knew that in a port or a city
the hours before dawn find Vigilance most off her guard.
A boat had just come in, passing the _Lorna Doone_ and making to berth
at the place left vacant at the Silos Wharf by the Nederland liner that
had put out in the afternoon. She was an Italian warship--a destroyer
or big torpedo-boat. Fortunately she had not taken up moorings close
to the _Lorna_, where she might have proved troublesome owing to the
vigilance of her anchor watch. At the Silos Wharf she was safe, the
distance being so great.
"That's another piece of luck," said Martia.
"And the wind is holding steady," said Sam. "It's backed a bit more to
the east, and that's all to the good. Glass is rising. What's the time?
Quarter to eleven. I'll go and have a talk to the hands, and I'd advise
you two to try and get a bit of sleep."
He went for'ard, and the two others, after a few minutes, went below.
Martia retired to her cabin and lay down.
The idea of sleep was absurd. She told herself that as she lay on her
side, her eyes fixed on the panelling of the door. Even to put out the
light was impossible.
The events of the day passed before her like the scenes in a
cinematograph picture--passed and gave place to imaginary scenes from
the future. Naples--should they fail to get away; a law court; a
strange hotel where they would have to stop under surveillance; perhaps
prison, for if they were caught in this attempt to escape she felt that
things would go very much worse with them, so far as that pleasant
little official in the gold-braided cap was concerned.
Was it wise? The question was dismissed as soon as asked. _Any_ chance
was better than the prospect before them. Actually she would have
preferred the risk of drowning.
Noises came through the open port; the snorting of a passing tug, a
confused sound that became stronger and turned into voices singing,
mixed with the wheezing of an accordion. Italian sailors returning to
some ship, happy and free. She closed her eyes, wondering who they were
and where they were going to, and then she was running along a wharf
in dreamland, the little Italian official running after her calling on
her to stop; he was Behrens, and the wharf became Museum Street, and
Behrens was showing her a Dutch doll he had bought at an art sale....
Then oblivion and a knock at the door.
"It's time for starting," came the voice of Sam. "Douse the lamp and
come up."
Martia raised herself on her elbow, remembered everything in a flash,
got out of her bunk, glanced at her hair in the mirror, and put on the
cap she usually wore on deck. Then she put out the light and went into
the saloon. Sam was there with a dark lantern in his hand. He saw her
up the companion stairs and, closing the lantern, followed her on deck.
The harbour lay asleep beneath the stars. The lights of Genoa had
vanished, except the street lamps and those at the entrance to
the fort. One sound only broke the night--the far, everlasting,
intermittent whistling of the shunting engines in the great station
yard.
Bowler took the dark lantern from Sam and slipped below to attend to
the engine. The anchor light was left burning. To have lowered it might
have been to attract attention. In a harbour at night a light slowly
changing place is scarcely noticeable unless to the eye of an attentive
watcher, whereas a lowered light might draw to itself the most casual
eye.
Sam took his place at the wheel, the girl beside him. He struck his
heel once on the deck, and almost directly on the sound a clank and a
splash told him that the anchor chain had gone.
Then came a moment of silence.
The _Lorna_ was lying with her bow towards the breakwater, so that
she had not to be turned until right on the fairway into the outer
harbour. All the same, the seamanship involved in the business of
getting out was of a nature highly trying to anyone but a man like Sam,
used to ports and estuaries and a seaman by instinct. Two turns had to
be taken; to port to clear the inner harbour, to starboard to clear
the outer, and the star-stained darkness was deception itself to one
judging distance.
Sam rapped twice on the planking with his heel, and Martia, scarcely
breathing, heard the reply. The engine had started. Started with only
speed enough to keep the propeller expanded. The _Lorna_ did not seem
to move.
She heard the rudder-chain click and saw the white hands on the
wheel-spokes shift, but the _Lorna_ seemed as stationary as though her
anchor was still in the mud.
What was holding them? She dared not ask. She felt suffocating, her
lips dry as pumice-stone, the palms of her hands wet with perspiration.
Then on the port bow she saw something dark that seemed drawing up
to them. It was the mass of shipping moored to the quay of the outer
harbour.
Yes, the _Lorna_ was moving. The breakwater light was closer, and now
the fairway was pushing aside the shipping and the quay and the outer
harbour were on their port bow. The wheel went over and the _Lorna_
turned, and now, as she softly glided across the star-sprinkled water
with the shipping to port and the breakwater to starboard, the beam of
the revolving light of the breakwater passed over them, sweeping the
night rhythmically, like the wing of a ruby-coloured slowly flying bird.
Sam struck thrice with his heel on the planking, and the engine below
sprang into full life. The bow wash whispered. The lighthouse moved as
though some unseen finger were rapidly pushing it back, passed almost
astern, and swung round to the starboard quarter as the helm went over
and the bow pointed dead for the open sea.
"We're out," said Sam.
"Thank heaven!" said the girl.
"Out, and no wind," he grumbled.
Bobby, who had been forward, came aft.
"We've done them," said Bobby. "I was afraid you were going to ram the
breakwater. Hackett, you're a jewel! Not another man could have done it
like that. But the wind seems gone."
"Flat calm," said the skipper, altering the course a point or two.
"Dog's luck, isn't it? Only wants the engine to give out and we're
done."
Martia turned away from the grumblers and looked astern, where the
revolving light was beckoning to them. A long way off it seemed now,
beckoning and throwing its arms about as though ordering them back,
whilst beyond it the lights of Genoa showed, a faint trace against the
background on the hills.
Now, further away, the light seemed winking at them like a confederate.
Then, as she stood watching, it shifted its position, shining on
the starboard quarter. Sam had altered the course, making no longer
straight out to sea, but in a more westerly direction, as though
steering for Albenga or Oneglia.
The _Lorna Doone_ kept on her course bravely and in defiance of Fate
and the wind. The engine, working to a charm, seemed to say, "Look at
me. Trustable, aren't I? Without me where would you be? Plug, plug,
plug--one hundred and twenty-five revolutions to the minute--plug,
plug, plug." The demon that lives in auxiliary engines said not a word.
It was just on the point of sunrise, and Sam was handing the wheel to
Atherfield, when the thudding of the engine slowed, hesitated, and
stopped.
"Somethin' wrong with the injin, sir," came the voice of Bowler from
below.
Something indeed was wrong with the engine. Sam, diving below, found
Bowler on his knees before it in the attitude of a worshipper.
"It's the feed-pipe, I believe," said Bowler. "Unless it's one of the
cylinders. She was working badly the last few minutes, and then she
gave a cough and let out."
"How about the cylinder rings?" asked Sam. "Church said something about
them when we were over there at that island. They wanted renewing or
something."
"They were all right when I took her down yesterday," said Bowler,
rising to his feet and scratching his head. "Me and Mr. Lestrange took
her down and gave her a clean, and there was nothin' ailin' with her.
Well, it's down, she'll have to be taken again. Is there no wind, sir?"
"No, confound it, not a breath! And this will mean hours. Well, it's
got to be tackled and done at once. I'll send Church down to help."
He came on deck and gave the order, and then stood at the taffrail with
the others, looking at the east.
It was an amazing spectacle that sunrise, for the sea out of which the
sun was rising was smooth like an infinite sheet of glass. Away to the
north and west lay the coast of Italy, the far mountains painted by the
new-born light against the sky of aerial blue--the heavenly blue that
the old Italian painters knew and caught in their pictures of angels
and saints--whilst in all that world of sun-smitten glacial sea and
purple coast there was not a sound, nor a wing, nor a sail.
Even Sam was held for a moment before turning to reach for the glass.
"Can't see any sign of Genoa," said he as he held the telescope to his
eye. "It's hidden by the line of cape over there. We've made a good
distance, but we've had the current with us. It's not much, but it's
something, and we're moving with it now about as quick as a snail. Wind
may come along after the sun's up a bit, but there's no telling."
"Hadn't we better raise the sail so's to catch it directly it comes?"
asked Bobby.
"No," replied Sam. "We're less visible with bare sticks, and it won't
take a minute to get the canvas on her when we want to. I'm going down
to get some coffee."
Leaving Atherfield on the look-out, they went below for coffee and
biscuits.
It was over this meal, accompanied by the sound of engine-tinkering,
that Sam did what he ought to have done before.
"I didn't tell you," said he, "for it was only a suspicion, but nosing
round the harbour yesterday evening I saw a boat that wasn't unlike the
_Santa Margharita_."
"Visconti's?" said Bobby.
"Yes. It worried me a lot, for you remember at Hyalos, that night I
dined with him----Well, we had a lot of fizz and that sort of thing,
and, being off my guard, I may have said something that might have
given him a hint of what we were doing. I do remember him asking what
port I was going to call at next, and I said Genoa. How could I have
known he was what we suspect him to be?"
"Oh, dear me," said Martia.
She saw the whole thing in a moment. Visconti coming to Hyalos for
the same purpose that they had done, finding them, finding from Sam
that they had been there a long time and had evidently cleared out the
place, hurrying to Genoa to meet them, attempting through his agent
Vanjour to get a share of the spoil and, failing in that, putting the
Customs and police on to them, either from spite or, more likely, in
the hope of a big reward.
There it was, plain enough, and there before her was the wretched Sam,
and for a moment the anger in her mind seemed about to capture her
tongue. She conquered it.
"Well," she said, "there is no use troubling now about it. What's done
is done. You got us out, anyhow, and we are so far away now they won't
be able to find us. And if they did, what could they do? You said we'd
be safe beyond the three-mile limit."
"We're not really safe till we're home," said Sam. "I said if they
captured us beyond the three-mile limit, we could apply to the British
Consul, and put ourselves under his protection, that's all."
"And that would be as bad as anything else," said Bobby, "for then the
whole affair would be out for the world to know."
They came on deck at a call from Atherfield. There was a trace of smoke
on the sea over Genoa way. In the west a steamer had just disclosed
herself, a great way off, making east, and to be disregarded.
Sam turned the glass towards Genoa.
"There are two craft out there," said he, "making either east or west.
I can't tell for the moment."
He hung silent for a full minute, then he spoke:
"They're coming this way."
Martia's throat closed as though a hand had gripped it. Bobby took hold
of the starboard rail.
"If we can see them, they can see us," said he.
Sam did not reply.
A minute and a half passed; then he handed the glass to Bobby.
"One's a small steamer of some sort," said he. "I believe the other is
a warship, the rate she's making."
"Is she coming this way?" asked Martia.
"Yes," said Sam.
"I've got her," said Bobby. "She's stopped firing up. She's a
destroyer, right enough. I believe she's the one we saw berthing last
night at the wharf."
In a few minutes more they wanted no glass to see the oncomer. She was
making dead for them, and covering the distance at a fine speed.
"That does us," said Bobby.
Martia turned away, sick at heart.
They might throw themselves on the protection of the British Consul.
All the same, they had run away. Their position, British Consul or no
British Consul, would be far worse than if they had stayed to face the
music. The very fact of slipping out stealthily at night and making
off was enough to condemn them. What a business! And all through the
wretched Sam.
But she said nothing. She had agreed to make the attempt. If they had
succeeded, everything would have been all right. It was a gambler's
throw, foiled by the failure of the wind, by the failure of the engine,
and by the chance that had brought this destroyer last night into Genoa
Harbour.
Bobby lit a cigarette, and the unfortunate skipper went for'ard a bit,
crossed his arms, and stood watching.
The destroyer was now only half a mile away. She was making twenty
knots if an inch. They had plenty of time to observe her fully. Now the
plume of foam at her stem could be seen, and her wireless outlined on
the morning sky. The line of her course lay a bit to starboard of the
_Lorna_, and now, close to, her size seemed to increase by leaps and
bounds. Huge, she looked, and threatening and swift as a hawk. But why
did she not check her speed?
The hum of her engines rushed up to them as she came abreast and passed
them only a cable's length to starboard, without the officers on her
bridge throwing them more than a glance, tossing them in her wash,
and showing them her turtle stern and the foaming wake of her rushing
propellers.
"Is she going to turn?" cried Bobby.
No; she showed no sign of altering her helm. Minute by minute she
passed farther away across the blue morning sea, no longer a thing to
be feared, no longer a warship--just a dot beneath a smudge of smoke.
Sam began to laugh unsteadily.
"She never was after us!" he cried. "Look at her! Lord, if she'd only
known!"
"We've been fooling ourselves," said Bobby. "I know. I was in as blue a
funk as you were. But what's the meaning of it? She's come from Genoa.
She's the destroyer we saw berthed last night; that I'd swear. She
can't have left port before they found we were gone. Well, if she's not
after us, why isn't she?"
"What do you mean?" asked Martia.
"Just this: the port authorities must have discovered we were gone
at daybreak, maybe before. They had a swift destroyer lying at the
wharf. Well, don't you think they'd have used her to hunt for us? At
all events, even if she were going on naval business--as she evidently
is--don't you think they'd have asked her to overhaul us if met, put a
crew on board, and wireless Genoa? Of course they would."
"Maybe," said Sam, who had recovered himself and was looking through
the glass at the other vessel they had spotted coming from the
direction of Genoa, and had forgotten in their excitement.
"Of course they would," said Martia. "Oh, good gracious, can it
possibly be----"
"What?" asked Bobby.
"Can it possibly be----It is; I'm sure of it! We've been bluffed!"
Sam took the glass from his eyes and turned.
"How do you mean?"
"How do I mean? Why, can't you see? That little man in the gold cap
wasn't a port official. He was fooling us. He was one of the Vanjour
people. I thought there was something queer about him; he was far too
civil."
"You mean to say that the chap who put us under arrest was bluffing?"
cut in Bobby.
"I don't say anything; I only suspect. Look at the whole thing."
"But where would have been the sense of doing that? How would it have
profited Vanjour and Visconti, if he is in this business, to send a
chap like that just to fool us?"
"Remember," said Martia, "what he said. There was to be no fuss or
unpleasantness. He was to call for us early this morning and we were
all to go with him to Naples. Well, what would have happened if we
hadn't been wise enough to put out? I can see what would have happened
quite clearly. He would have come and taken us all ashore. The people
on the quay would have noticed nothing wrong; just a party of people
landing. We would have gone to the station and taken the train to
Naples with him, and he would have vanished when we got to Naples, or
perhaps before. We would have come back like a flock of geese, not
daring to say a word to anyone, and found either the _Lorna_ gone or
the things. They could easily have been taken ashore, packed up; and we
couldn't go to the police or say a word to anyone."
"Upon my word," said Bobby, "there seems something in that. But see
here, the chap was in uniform."
"He had a gold band on his cap and brass buttons," replied Martia, "if
you call that uniform--though it was good enough to fool us with."
"But would he have dared----"
"Why not? You know our position. Even if we had found he was a fraud,
we could have said nothing."
"Well," said Sam, who had the glass still to his eye, "Whatever he
was we'll soon find out, for, if I'm not mistaken, here's the _Santa
Margharita_ herself coming up."
He handed the glass to Bobby, who looked at the oncoming ship steering
straight in their direction.
"I believe it's her," said he.
"I'm certain," said Sam. "And upon my soul," turning to Martia, "I
believe you've struck the nail on the head. That destroyer has given
the whole show away. This coffee-pot must have left the port the same
time as she did. The coffee-pot's after us, and the Government boat
isn't. It's as plain as a pikestaff."
"Think she's going to try and bluff us again?" asked Bobby.
"I don't know," said Sam. "You see, they've brought her into the open.
She's no longer hidden among the shipping at Genoa. They'll know that
we'll be sure to spot her as Visconti's boat. I believe Visconti is the
head of this whole gang that's working against us. Wonder what he has
up his sleeve now?"
Bobby was biting his nails. His memory still refused to render up where
and when he had heard this name Visconti before. He only knew that he
had heard it not long before the start and that it had been in some way
or in some place connected with this expedition.
His reasoning mind told him that he must be right in this matter. The
law of probability was entirely against the idea that Visconti had
fitted out an expedition to ransack Hyalos and that his venture and
theirs had clashed. No; Visconti, acting on the same information as
theirs, had tried to forestall them. That was evident. And it was also
evident that if he, Bobby, could remember where he had heard the name
of this dark player, he might hold trump cards at once.
But memory could not clinch the matter.
The safest way to find a half-forgotten name or event is not to think
too much about it, to forget it entirely, if possible, and then the
subconscious mind, left in peace, goes through its files of documents
and galleries of pictures and hands up all at once the desired thing to
the conscious mind. Everybody knows that. Bobby knew it. But he did not
know that his deep anxiety on the point and his desperate endeavours to
solve it had probably so muddled the gnomes in his subliminal mind that
they might never be able to help him now, unless some extra assistance
came to their aid. They had been inhibited.
He stood watching the oncomer.
Yes, she was the _Santa Margharita_, or her twin. She came boldly on,
impudent as she was dirty, so straight for them that they could not
read the name on her bow, if any were there.
Then she slowed, and a few cables' lengths away reversed her propeller
and dropped a boat.
"Here he is again," said Sam, who had levelled the glass at the boat.
"Visconti? No. The port officer man, gold-laced cap and all. There's
no sign of Visconti on the bridge or anywhere. Yes, it's the _Santa
Margharita_. I can just catch the name as she swings." He shut the
glass.
A cold hand laid itself on Martia's heart. What if they were wrong?
What if the destroyer had come from some southern port beyond Genoa?
What if this man in the gold-laced cap were no bluffer but Authority
itself with power to drag them back?
Sam and Bobby were evidently asking themselves the same question. They
stood silent, watching the boat draw on.
Sam ordered Bowler to throw the ladder down on the starboard side. The
boat hooked on and over the rail like a monkey in his gold-laced cap,
came the port man.
There was no smile on his face this time. He glanced round the deck, at
the hands for'ard and the afterguard by the cabin companion-way. Then
he nodded curtly to Sam.
"Below, please," said he, stepping forward and leading the way down the
companion stairs as though he were the master of the ship.
In the cabin he took off his cap and laid it on the table, motioned the
others to be seated, sat down himself, and took from his pocket a long
envelope, which he laid on the table before him.
"Now we will talk business, Captain Hackett," said he. "In the port of
Genoa we talked as friends, believing as I did that you were innocent
men. You are all under arrest."
Martia gulped.
"You and the ship and the crew. You were foolish men to do what you
have done, knowing that we, having your name and your ship's name,
can stop all ports against you. You can go nowhere in the world, as
you know, as a seaman. Every port would stop you. You must now take
your ship back to Genoa Harbour. You must do it with your own men,
as I have no men to give to help you. That is M. Visconti's boat,
the gentleman who gave us the information about you. He is Italian
Government official and his boat is Italian survey boat. Italian secret
survey boat. That was how he found you, Captain Hackett. But enough.
You must take your ship back to Genoa. I will leave a man with you in
charge. But first, all those things must be transhipped to us. You have
played us one trick, Captain Hackett, but not another. No, captain, not
another shall you play."
It was Martia who began to see light vaguely.
"But why tranship the things?" asked she. Then, the light brightening
as she noticed the look on the port officer's face, "Suppose," she went
on, "you took those things on board the _Santa Margharita_ and then
streamed off without bothering to put a man on board us to take us back
to Genoa?"
The gold-braided one hesitated and was lost. The truth came to Sam like
a thunder-clap. He leaned across the table toward the other.
"You infernal scoundrel!" said Sam.
At the same moment he snatched the official looking envelope from the
table and tore it open; there was nothing in it but a piece of blank
paper.
"Close the cabin door," said Sam to Bobby.
The fraud at the table, with the gold-braided cap at his elbow, said
absolutely nothing, did not seem perturbed, seemed thinking in an
amused way over the situation.
Martia almost admired him.
"Now," said the captain of the _Lorna Doone_, sitting down before the
other, "I don't know why I don't fling you overboard for your cheek. It
would serve you right if we took you back to Genoa and handed you over
to the Customs and police."
"On what charge, monsieur?" asked the other amiably.
"On the charge of impersonating them."
"Impersonating them--yes. And for what purpose?"
Sam was stumped. It would be impossible to tell the police or the
Customs the purpose.
"So we will leave that matter alone," went on the other. "My name is
Pirelli, monsieur, and we have been playing a game, you and I. You for
your own hand, I for Monsieur Visconti, who has hired me. The game is
not yet finished."
"Oh, isn't it?" said Sam.
"No, monsieur, not if I know anything of Monsieur Visconti. Let us
talk, shall we?"
"Fire away," said Sam.
"Well then, it is this way," said Pirelli. "M. Visconti, a very
powerful man in the art world, or so I believe, sent for me some days
ago and said to me, 'Pirelli, I have heard of your fame as a secret
service agent; I want your help in a matter of art.' He gave me my
instructions. Your boat had not yet come to Genoa, but was expected.
He gave me a free hand. I employed my assistant, Vanjour. He failed.
Then at night I take the matter into my own hands, and board you in
Genoa Harbour. And I would have succeeded, monsieur, had you not been
an Englishman. No one but an Englishman would have had the courage to
leave the harbour as you did."
The impudence of the man, and the extraordinary nature of this
conversation, dazed Martia. She suddenly spoke.
"Tell me," she said. "Suppose you had succeeded and we had all gone
with you, would you really have taken us to Naples?"
"Why yes, of course," replied Pirelli, as though he were talking of
some perfectly natural transaction. "I would have left you all at
the Hotel Amalfi or the Metropole. But I am, I hope, what you call a
gentleman. You would have received that night a note telling you of the
game that had been played on you, so that you might not be urged to go
to the authorities making enquiries, and so getting involved. You would
have returned to Genoa next day, to find your ship had been visited and
the goods removed. Also you would have found at your ship-chandler's a
letter with some money as compensation--your _viatique_, as they say at
Monte Carlo--for I had made that a stipulation with M. Visconti."
"Don't talk of Monte Carlo," said Sam. "This was robbery----"
Pirelli put up his hand.
"Monsieur, if a seabird steal a fish from the sea, and a bigger
seabird steal that fish from him, which is the robber? Make yourself
clear on this point. We could not have moved against you if these
marbles, which you have taken from the waters of Hyalos, had been your
property, bought and paid for. I do not call you a robber for taking
these things from there, so do not call us robbers for attempting to
take them from you. It is all a game, nothing more."
"So you know about Hyalos?" said Sam.
"M. Visconti told me all. Also that you had given him to understand
that you had been at Hyalos a long time, and had taken everything worth
taking."
"I never----" cried Sam.
Pirelli held up his hands.
"Excuse me, captain. I will give you what you said to M. Visconti.
M. Visconti asked you what you had been doing, and you told him you
had been fishing. He asked you what you had been fishing for, and you
told him you had been fishing for gods, and that you had got all the
gods worth having out of the place. Of course he knew. He had come
himself to find marbles. He had gone to great expense in fitting his
expedition. He found you had been before him, and taken all worth
taking. You told him you were going to Genoa. Well, can you wonder that
he tried to make you disgorge? I would not tell you all this, only that
you can do nothing to me. You are just the same as us, captain; no
better, no worse. Now I have a deal to propose to you, and for your own
good. Last night, if you remember, I made you show me all the things
you have on board. I took an inventory of them in my own mind, and that
inventory is in the possession of M. Visconti."
"Confound you!" said Sam.
"No, no, captain. It was all in the way of business. Well, these things
are worth money; many thousands of pounds. You are full of treasure,
captain, and M. Visconti is empty. Now I propose you make a deal,
a play for safety. You have an Aphrodite, the one you showed me. I
propose you hand her over to me to take back to M. Visconti as a--what
you call a sop in the pan. It will stop his mouth and hold his hands."
"Never!" said Sam.
"One moment, captain," put in the other. "This is not for myself that I
am talking, but for you. If Visconti not get something, he make trouble
for you. I am not his agent speaking this, but just a sensible man
who is not unfriendly to you. Now see you here, Captain Hackett. I am
Pirelli, of the Piazza Aqua Verde, Genoa. I am an agent that undertakes
delicate matters, but I always work within the law. You may say that
what I did last night, in bluffing you and trying to seize these
marbles for M. Visconti, was not within the law. You are mistaken. I
was only trying to recover from you M. Visconti's property."
"His property?" said Sam.
"A moment, captain. Before moving in this matter I required and
received from M. Visconti a document stating that these things were his
property, and empowering me to get them back for him by what means I
could. I dictated that document to him. It does not matter to me in the
least what truth there is in it; what matters to me is that it clears
my hands. I am only his agent acting on certain advice, and under
Italian law nothing can be done to me acting as agent for him with such
a document in my hand. Under Italian law _you_ could sue me for taking
these things from you by what you might call a trick, but under Italian
law you would have first to prove that they were yours. Which you could
not do. You see, captain? I was a very cautious man."
"Maybe," said Sam. "But I think you are also a dashed scoundrel, if
you'll excuse me for saying so."
"No, captain, not more than yourself. It is all a game of gambling,
nothing more. We are all playing with the loaded dice, nothing more. In
what I am saying to you now, I am quite honest. Beware of M. Visconti.
He is a dangerous man; he feels himself to have been done in this deal,
and he will have his revenge, as the gamblers say. Take my advice,
captain, and cut off his hands. Give him this Aphrodite and keep the
rest. There is such a thing as hush-money, captain, and it is very
useful money. It buys silence, which is sometimes better than gold, as
your English proverb says."
Sam turned to the others.
"Have I a free hand to deal in this matter?" asked he of Bobby and
Martia.
"Yes," said Bobby, "I'll leave it to you, Sam."
Martia agreed.
"Good," said Pirelli, "now we talk sense. This is my position, captain;
for what I have done in this case I have been paid, but I do not hide
it from you I get a commission as well on what I can secure from you.
On the Aphrodite I would get my commission. You see I am straight with
you. But leaving that to one side, as a man to a man, I advise you to
buy the silence and the friendship of M. Visconti by this concession.
There, I have said it."
Martia watched with interest to see how Sam would react to this
temptation.
He sat seemingly lost in thought for a minute. Then he spoke.
"Tell Visconti from me," said Sam, "that if he had acted as a gentleman
I would have given him not only the Aphrodite, but half of the other
things we have on board, seeing that we crabbed his expedition. Tell
him that he invited me on board his ship as a guest and outraged the
laws of hospitality by using what I said in conversation with him for
his own ends and to my disadvantage. Got that down? Tell him I would
sink my ship with all on board, or run it on the rocks, or hand it over
to the Customs, before I would let him profit by his conduct to me.
And tell him," finished Sam, "that he can go to the devil for all I
care, that I am running this show for no profit for myself but entirely
for two friends, and that I have only two ambitions; one is to see it
safely through, and the other is to kick him. That's all."
"That's right; that's splendid," said Martia enthusiastically.
"Ah well, ah well," said Pirelli, seeing the game was up, "it is all
very unfortunate. You will not take my advice. I can do no more. Well,
captain, a pleasant voyage to you, and one word in your ear from a
friend to a friend; beware of M. Visconti. I see you will not deal
at all and I am not saying this to frighten you, for you are a brave
man and not to be treated as a child. The affair now leaves me. I
have acted for M. Visconti as best I could. I receive my payment and
everything is done as far as Alfredo Pirelli is concerned. But I give
you this piece of advice as a present: beware of M. Visconti."
He rose, bowed to Martia, and went on deck.