Chapter II: Part I: The Buccaneers (2)

“Why can’t you say what you mean?” said he. “Why can’t you ask me right out if I haven’t muddled the navigation and missed the job? Well, I haven’t. Is that plain? Some men may doubt their own work, and there are some men who would be put off by suspicions flung at them and would say, ‘Maybe I _am_ wrong,’ and pick up his buoys and move off to another ground and make fools of themselves. I’m not that sort. Can’t you see that a cable may be passed over by a grapnel half a dozen times without the grapnel catching? It may be glued down with coral.”

“Just so, just so!” said Shiner, anxious to pacify. “We never doubted your capacity, Captain.”

“Never, I’m sure,” said Wolff.

The Captain, somewhat mollified, went on with his meal, and he was raising the glass of mineral water for the second time to his lips when the dead, slow tramp of the engines ceased.

Immediately on their cessation, through the open skylight came the clanking sound of the picking-up gear, and right on that came Harman’s voice, roaring down the saloon companionway: “Below, there! We’ve got the cable!”

In a minute or less, Wolff, Shiner, and the Captain were in the bows; the Captain on the bow balks, Shiner and Wolff on the deck.

The great drum, rotating slowly, was hauling in the grapnel rope, dripping and taut; the dynamometer registered a strain of seven tons, and the strain was slowly increasing.

Nothing else could give this result but cable.

“Are you sure we have got it, Captain?” asked Wolff.

The Captain looked down at him.

“If that rope was to break under this strain,” said he, “it would mushroom out like an open umbrella and cut you to pieces. Better get up on the bridge. You’re safe there. Yes, I’m sure we’ve got cable, unless we’ve grappled a dead whale.”

Wolff and Shiner went up the ladder to the bridge, and the Captain, relieved of their presence, continued his work.

It was worth watching.

He was a true-born cable man, and they are as rare as good violinists. Knowing the depth, and the length of rope out, and its weight in sea water, and the weight of the grapnel, he could tell approximately what was going on down below; he knew that he was lifting heavier stuff than ordinary cable, and the weight could only come from coral incrustations on it. He knew that the cable must be glued down here and there, and that haste would mean a break. Sometimes he stopped the picking-gear altogether and trusted to the rise and fall of the ship on the swell to break the thing gently up from its attachments. And still the grapnel rope came in, dripping and endless, till at last the grapnel itself appeared with what seemed the bight of a sea serpent gripped in its unholy claws.

The thing was crusted here and there with coral, it is true, but it was comparatively new and sound, and a genuine, straight-going cable man would have shuddered at the sacrilege that was going on. Even the Captain felt qualms. To cut this thing was like murder; it would mean a dead loss of ten or fifteen thousand dollars to the company that owned it. An expedition would have to be fitted out to repair it, and if bad weather were to come on, it might be three months before the repairs were effected.

The Captain thought of all this even as he was ordering the stoppers to be got ready and the sling for the man who would do the cutting. He drowned remorse in the recollection that the injury would be done to a company, not to an individual. He would not have injured an individual of his own free will for worlds, but he did not mind much injuring a company. A company was a many-headed beast, and, in his experience, it always dealt hardly with its employés.

The cable was high out of the water now, in the form of an inverted V, with the grapnel at the apex. He ordered each limb of the bight to be secured with a stopper, and then, unable to trust any one else with the delicate business, he himself descended in a sling to do the cutting. Shouting his directions to the fellows who were lowering him, he came just level with the grapnel and began the business with a file. Halfway through, he ordered the grapnel to be eased away, finished the business, and left the two cable ends hanging by the stoppers.

Then he came aboard, and the starboard end of the cable was hauled in. It did not take long to connect it up with the electrical testing room, where Shiner was already installed before the mirror galvanometer.

The end they had hauled on board was the American end; the testing-room door was shut, the blinds of the windows drawn, for a subdued light is necessary to the proper working of the mirror galvanometer; and Shiner and Wolff were left alone with the American continent to work their dark schemes.

Said Harman, as he paced the deck with the Captain:

“I wonder what those two guys are doin’ now? Carryin’ out some of their malpraxises, no doubt. I ain’t a particular man, but this thing’s beginnin’ to get on my spine. It didn’t seem much at the start, just foolin’ with a cable; but now it seems somehow a durned sight worse, now that the thing’s cut. I tell you, Cap, it went to my heart to see it cut. I couldn’t ’a’ felt worse if it’d squealed and blood run out of it. I guess I wouldn’t have joined the expedition if I hadn’t been tempted. I remember my old mother warning me that if sinners tempted me, not to consent.”

“Confound you and your warnings!” said the Captain. “Who tempted me? You, and no one else. But I’m not the man to go back on you and talk about warnings. We’re in for it, and there’s no going back, and we can’t do anything but pray that a cruiser doesn’t heave in sight before we get away.”

“Amen to that!” said Harman.

They continued pacing the deck in silence, till suddenly the testing-room opened and Wolff appeared.

The black-bearded Wolff was ghastly white. He had the look of a man who had received a blow in the stomach. He held up a finger to the Captain, who came toward him.

“Come in here,” said Wolff.

Shiner was off his stool and sitting on the couch that ran along the port side of the room. His hands were in his hair, and the dot of the mirror galvanometer was spilling from side to side of the scale unnoticed. Disaster was in the air.

“What’s up?” asked the Captain.

“Up!” cried Shiner, coming out of his lair as one might fancy a cockatrice coming out of its hole. “Everything is up! Our speculation is done for! War has been declared.”

“War been declared? What war?”

“England and Germany and France,” replied Shiner.

“How did you hear it?”

“How did I hear it? Why, the first message I tapped was a Press Association special to Sydney. They began cursing me for having been held up for half an hour while we were cutting the cable. They thought we were Sydney. They don’t know the cable is cut yet. They’re still jabbering. Anyhow, there it is--war! And war spells ruin to the business we were on.”

“We must cut losses,” said Wolff, who was walking up and down. “The expedition is off. We must get to a Chile port at once--Valparaiso for choice.”

“And my bonus?” said the Captain.

“I guess you may whistle for your bonus,” said Shiner. “Can’t you see we are bust--B-U-S-T?”

“But we can do one thing,” said Wolff. “We can hit the cursed English; we can haul in twenty, forty miles of the cable and cut. The thing is cut, in any case; but a long break like that will make it the worse for them; then Sydney will have one cable the less to talk to her mother with. Yes, we can do that.”

“Curse them!” said Shiner. “Yes, we can do that.”

“So my bonus is gone?” said the Captain. “Well, may I ask one question of you: Who’s fighting who? Is it France and England against Germany?”

“It is Germany against France and England,” said Wolff.

“And you are Germans, and this is a German-owned vessel?”

“Precisely,” said Wolff. “You have touched the matter on the head.”

The Captain ruminated.

Then, said he: “Well, gentlemen, this is a serious matter for me. I lose my bonus, and I lose my pay, I expect; for if you are as badly broke as you say, when you land at Valparaiso or some southern port--and you daren’t go back to Frisco--there’ll be precious few dibs to go round unless you manage to sell the old _Penguin_, which isn’t very likely in war time. Well, gentlemen, I’ve thought of a plan by which I may get my bonus, and my pay, too; and if you’ll come down to the saloon with me, I’ll show you it.”

“Why not tell us here?” said Shiner.

“I cannot explain it here. Come down, gentlemen. When all’s said and done, it won’t take a minute, and there’s a lot of importance attaching to what I have to explain to you. It’s worth a minute.”

He left the testing-room, and they followed him to the saloon. He led the way into his cabin, and they followed him like lambs. He asked them to be seated on the couch opposite the bunk; then he took the key from the inside of the door and inserted it in the lock on the outside.

“What are you doing that for?” said Shiner.

“I’ll show you in one minute,” replied the Captain.

He stepped swiftly out into the saloon, banged the door to, and locked it.

It was Shiner who woke to the situation first, and it was Shiner’s voice that came now as he clung to the handle of the door and punctuated his remarks with kicks on the paneling.

The Captain waited a moment till the other gave pause. Then he said:

“There’s no use in kicking and squealing. You’re prisoners of war, that’s how you stand. The ship’s mine now, a lawful prize. What’s that you say? An Irishman? Of course I’m an Irishman. What’s that you say? I’m a traitor to my country? B’gosh, if you say that again, I’ll open the door and give you a taste of my quality. Say it again, will you! Say it again, will you!”

He shook the door handle at each invitation, but Shiner was dumb. He evidently had no desire to taste the Captain’s quality. It was Wolff’s voice that came instead, muted and murmurous:

“Make terms, make terms; there is no use in arguing. Make terms!”

“You won’t make any terms with me,” said the Captain, “but you’ll be treated well and transhipped as quick as possible.”

“But, see here, Captain!” came Shiner’s voice.

The Captain did not hear him; he had left the saloon, and next moment was on deck. He was a man of swift decision, and he had fixed in his mind that the first thing to be done was to make the crew his own, and the next to dump the cable and be gone. He could not mend it. They had no skilled artificer on board. To mend it, he would have to bring both ends on board and connect them. If you have ever examined a deep-sea cable, with its water coat of wire, its inner coat of rubber, and its core, you will quite understand the complexity of the task.

It was impossible, and he recognized the fact as he walked forward.

Harman was standing by the dynamometer, waiting for orders, and the bos’n near Harman. The Captain ordered the bos’n to pipe the whole crew on deck, and presently, like a kicked beehive, the fo’c’sle gave up its contents, the stokers off duty appeared, and even MacBean himself rose like a seal from the engine-room hatch.

“Boys,” said the Captain, addressing the dingy crowd, “is there ever a German among you?”

Dead silence for a moment, as though the hands were consulting their own hearts, and then a voice from back near the starboard alleyway: “No, there ain’t no Germans here.”

“Sam’s a Dutchman,” came another voice, and then the voice of Sam, protesting: “You lie! I vas a New Yorker.”

“Shut your mouths!” said Blood. “I’m an Englishman, or pretty near the same thing, and I’m captain of this hooker, which is owned by a German firm. In other words, it is owned by Mr. Wolff and Mr. Shiner, who are Germans. Well, my lads, news has just come over that cable we have picked up that war has been declared between England and Germany, so I have taken possession of the ship in the name of England, d’ye see? Which means that there’s lots of prize money for all of us if we can bring her safe into an English port.”

He waited for a moment after this announcement, but not a sound came from the crowd in front of them. It was filtering down through the thickness of their intelligences. It was an entirely new proposition that he had laid before them, and required time to find a response. They knew--God help them!--as little as he did of the horrible problems of international and maritime law that the _Penguin_ was about to wind round herself as the silkworm winds a cocoon; but they knew the meaning of the word “money,” and it didn’t matter to them a rap whether it was prize money or not, as long as it could be changed for whisky and tobacco.

A little, wiry Nova Scotian was the first to respond.

“Go to it!” cried he. “Here’s to England and a pocketful of money!” He flung up his cap, and the action touched the rest off. They cheered--Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Latins, and Slavs--for such was their mixture. All joined in the shout.

MacBean alone, cautious and cool, made any question.

“Are you sure,” said he, when the shouting had ceased, “are you sure we’re in the right of this? I’m as willin’ as ony man to fight for England, but I’m no so sure about our poseetion as regards the ship.”

“Well, you will be soon,” said Blood. “This is my position: I’m not only going to take the ship, but I’m going to take anything German I come across on the high seas. Away back in the American Spanish War, I put out in a mud dredger from the Florida coast and took a mail steamer. We pretended we were a dynamite boat. There were seven thousand dollars in gold coin on board her, and we took it. Never mind where it went to----” A wild yell from the crowd. “We took it just as we are going to take any German money we come across. A chance like this doesn’t come in most lifetimes, and I’m not going to lose it.” Applause.

MacBean went back to his engine room.

“May I ax, Captain,” said one of the fellows, “what’s to become of the owners?”

“Meaning Mr. Wolff and Mr. Shiner?” replied the Captain. “Why, they are prisoners of war, and they will be treated as such without a hair of their heads being touched. But we can’t keep them on board. We’ll land them somewhere, or put them on a German ship, if we find one. Now, then, look lively and get the cable away. Mr. Harman, get it aft from the testing-room, and then cast loose the stoppers; dump both ends.”

He went on the bridge while Harman cast the cable loose; then he rang up the engines, and, giving the fellow at the wheel a sou’westerly course to steer by, put the engine telegraph to full speed ahead.

He wanted to get away from that spot in a hurry. He had not yet fixed on any point to make for--north, south, east, or west did not matter for the moment to him. He wanted to be somewhere else and to put as many long leagues as possible between the _Penguin_ and the scene of her crime.

Harman presently joined him on the bridge.

Said Harman: “Well, this is a rum joke, ain’t it, Captain? ’Pears to me it’s the rummest joke ever I seen. We’ve took the ship, and we’ve took the owners--and how about our bonuses and pay?”

“We’ll have to take the bonuses out of the first Dutchman we can lay hands on,” said the Captain. “We’ll never get a cent from Wolff and Shiner. Their game is up. If I can lay alongside of a German trader--and there are plenty in these waters--I’ll take all she’s got.”

“And suppose they show fight?” said Harman.

“Traders don’t fight--we have eight rifles--without ammunition, but that doesn’t matter, for we’d only be spoofing. The sight of the rifles is enough. Still, I wouldn’t mind fighting if we have to.”

“I heard a chap yarning once,” said Harman. “It was at a meetin’ a fellow give me a ticket for, and this chap was sayin’ there was no use in war; he was sayin’ no one was any the better off for war, and all suchlike. Well, it ’pears to me it’s a durned good thing, for you can go and rob the chaps that’s against you, and it’s all on the square. I’ve all my life been wantin’ to rob people open,” continued Mr. Harman, “not poor people, you understand, for there wouldn’t be no fun in that, and, besides, they have nothing worth takin’--but rich folk. Them’s the chaps. My idea would be to be goin’ round Nob Hill with a hand barrow and collecting jewelry, or callin’ at the Bank of California with a cart and a shovel. I never expected in my life I’d have a chance like this.”

“It’s not all too rosy,” said the Captain. “I’m not clear what a German cruiser could do to us if they found us skinning a German ship. I’ve heard that privateering is going to be allowed in the next war--which is this--but then we haven’t a letter of marque.”

“What’s that?”

“A license to rob. But, license or no license, we can’t pick and choose. We have to make good. We’re done out of our bonuses and our salary. D’ye think I’m going back to Frisco as poor as I left it, and maybe poorer? For I’ll tell you one thing, Billy Harman: What we’ve done to that cable is a penitentiary job to start with, and if it tricks America any over this war, supposing she takes a hand in it, it may mean a hanging job.”

“I wish you’d not go on talkin’ like that,” said Harman. “What on earth’s the use of going on talkin’ like that? Who’s to catch us?”

“I don’t know,” replied the Captain. “The only one thing I do know is the bedrock fact that our position couldn’t be worse than it is, and that we may as well play for as big a figure as possible. Between you and me, it’s just this--piracy pure and simple; that’s our game, under shelter of the pretence that we’re English and doing all in our power to help our native land; then if we are caught by an English ship with our holds full of boodle and our scuppers full of gold all we have to say is: ‘Please, sir, we have been fighting the Germans for the good of our native land.’”

“And suppose we are caught by a German ship?”

“Then it will be all the worse for us; but come along into the chart room, for I have an idea, and I want your opinion on it.”

They left the bridge, and went into the chart room, where the Captain, having closed the door, brought out a chart of the Pacific, placed it on the table, and sat down before it.

“Here we are,” said he, making a pencil mark on the spot. “And here,” making another mark, “lies Christobal.”

“Why, Christoval Island lies in the Solomons,” said Harman. “I’ve been there.”

“I said Christobal, not Christoval. This is a German island, and a pretty rich one, too. I know it, and cause I have to know it, for a chap there named Sprengel let me down badly once over a deal. I hope he’s there still. It’s a rich island, lots of copra and trade. I’m going there.”

“And what are you going to do there?” asked Harman.

“Well, you see,” said the Captain, “the place is only just a trading station; it’s not armed; there are only half a dozen whites, and--I’m going to take it.”

“Take it?”

“Hoist the Union Jack there, scoop all the boodle I can find, up anchor, and bunk for Valparaiso. That’s my idea.”

“Lord, that would be lovely!” said Harman. “But suppose they show any sort of fight?”

“Not they. We’ll rig up a dummy gun, and we can arm a landing party with these blessed old rifles and cutlasses there. But the dummy guns will do them. You see, they won’t know what to make of the cut of the _Penguin_. They’ll never have seen a cable ship, most likely. We’ll tell them we are a volunteer cruiser. Good name, that.”

A knock came to the door, and the bos’n appeared.

“Please, Captain,” said that individual, “them guys you’ve locked up in the after cabin are tryin’ to beat the door down and threat’nin’ to fire the ship.”

“I’ll come and attend to them,” said the Captain grimly. But first he went on the bridge and gave the helmsman the course for Christobal.

VI THE CREW’S SHARE OF THE SPOILS

Next day they sighted a bark. She was English, and, to make up for his disappointment, the Captain had the pleasure of giving her news of war, and scaring her nearly to death with the false news of German cruisers in the vicinity.

The latter trick was played out of spite, owing to her refusal to relieve him of Wolff and Shiner--still in durance vile.

He had brought the _Penguin_ to within megaphone distance of the bark--her name was the _Anne Page_--and when he made his request the answer came roaring back, quite definite:

“I won’t take no German prisoners. I’m full up with pigs and copra; there ain’t standin’ room scarcely as it is, and we’re short of water and grub.”

“I’ll supply you,” cried the _Penguin_. “Lower a boat and you’ll have what you want.”

The _Anne Page_ seemed to meditate a moment, and then again came the response like that of a deaf man who has failed to catch the meaning of what is said to him:

“I won’t take no German prisoners. There ain’t no room for them. Why don’t you keep ’em yourself--you’re big enough?”

On that the Captain gave his news of the German cruisers, and the _Anne Page_ picked up her skirts and scuttled.

But next day they had better luck. They picked up a real German schooner, captained by a real Simon-pure German skipper, and eight of the scallawags of the _Penguin_ had their first exercise under arms.

The _Penguin_ carried a whaleboat for beach work--Wolff had strongly resented the purchase of this boat, but the Captain had stood firm--and into it were bundled Wolff and Shiner, eight malefactors armed with cutlasses and rifles, followed by Blood himself.

The schooner--the _Spreewald_ was her name--would have escaped, but there was only a five-knot breeze blowing, and the _Penguin_ could make ten. There was also the threat of ramming. She let herself be boarded, received the declaration of war, and then submitted to be robbed.

The whole thing was shameful, and painfully like robbing a child of the milk it is carrying home. She was but a little ship, and the booty was trifling, some five hundred dollars, some barrels of Bismarck herrings, a dozen boxes of cigars, and a gold watch and chain. That is what Blood took from her. But she relieved him of the presence of Wolff and Shiner, and he reckoned that equal to a lot of plunder.

When they steered off they got five miles away before the _Spreewald_ had fully recovered her senses from the outrage and pulled herself together. Then they saw her spreading her canvas and altering her course.

“She was bound for one of the English islands, I expect,” said Blood, “and now she’s nosing off for some German port of call. Well, I guess this is the first blood the English have drawn in these seas. I deserve a bonus on that.”

The money he had in his pocket, also the gold watch and chain; the Bismarck herrings had gone to the lazaret, and the cigars to the saloon.

He was turning with Harman to go down and enjoy one when a little man with a red head came aft, touching his cap.

“Please, sir,” said this individual, “I was sent by the crew to ax what their share in the liftin’ is to be.”

“Oh, you were, were you?” said the Captain. “And a very natural question, too. I’ll go forward and have a talk with them.”

He found the men clustered round the picking-up gear.

“You sent to ask me what your share in the findings would be,” said he, “so I thought I’d come and tell you by word of mouth. To begin with, what do you think yourselves on board of--a pirate? You’ll just understand one thing: this ship is acting on the square; it’s under command of a Britisher--that’s me--and whatever we take rightfully belongs to the British government. But I can promise you this: Your money you signed on for will be paid when we reach Valparaiso, one-third of all pickings will be divided among you, leaving two-thirds for Mr. Harman and me; and, after we coal at Valparaiso, I intend taking the hooker down to a port I know of and selling her. Half the money she brings will be divided among her crew, the other half between Mr. Harman and me.”

“And the British government?” asked the bos’n.

“I’ll settle with the British government,” replied the Captain, with a wink.

A roar of laughter went up.

The idea of doing the Germans and the British government at the same time appealed so much to these gentlemen that they forgot to consider over the terms for the division of the spoil or dispute them.

“And may I ax are we heading for Valparaiso now?” asked the red-headed man.

“No, we are not; we are heading for a little German island named Christobal.”

“And what are we goin’ to do there?” asked another of the crowd.

“We are going to collect all the money we can find for the British government.”

Another howl of laughter.

“And suppose, when we’re landed at this here island, a German ship comes along and asks us what we are doing?” spoke up a grumbler. “What’ll us say to that?”

“Why, we’ll say we’re picking mushrooms,” replied the Captain. “Any more inquiries? Well, then, you can get to work. See here! I want half a dozen chaps to help me rig up a dummy gun on the bow balks. A stovepipe is good, but we haven’t got one, so we must just use a big spar sawed down. There’s a spare yard will do. I’ll go and speak to Mr. Harman about it.”

He turned off, and in the alleyway he met MacBean looking more serious and like a Scotch terrier than ever--an Aberdeen. He had been listening to every word.

“Mon, mon,” said MacBean, “this is an awfu’ business. Fiddlin’ with the cable was bad, but this is shoockin’, rank piracy, call it what names you will, and that I did not sign for.”

“What made you sign on at all?” cried the Captain, flashing out.

“Drink,” replied Mac. “The same that made Harman and half the crew sign on. Mon, this is an unholy ship, a drunk ship that has to keep sober, goin’ about the ocean with hell in her heart; cable smashin’ and pirating under the cover of a devastating war--and sober all the time.”

“Jolly good job for you all you have to keep sober.”

“I was not thinkin’ of the goodness or the badness of the job,” said Mac. “It’s the heepocrisy gets me.”

“Well, if the Germans don’t get you as well you’ll be lucky,” replied the other, going aft.

He found Harman in the saloon sampling the cigars, and he gave him a sketch of what he had done and said to the crew.

“A lick of grey paint and an artificial bore, which you can burn out with a hot iron, and you can’t tell a spar end from the nose of a four-inch gun,” said he in conclusion.

“From the shore?” said Harman.

“Just so,” replied the Captain. “You didn’t fancy I was going to invite the blighters aboard to inspect our armaments, did you?”

VII CHRISTOBAL

Christobal Island lay two days’ steaming away. It was a tiny place set all alone in the wastes of the sea.

There was only one trading station there, and it was run by a German on behalf of a German firm. This person’s name was Sprengel, and, to use the words that Blood applied to him some years before the date of this story, he had everything of the Red Indian about him except the gentleman.

Sprengel was a Prussian, close-clipped, clever, hard, and persistent as the east wind that blows over East Prussia in the spring. He had managed to keep other traders away from Christobal Island. Trade was his god; he had one ideal only--money, and, with the Teutonic passion for alien slang, he declared that in Christobal he was the only pebble on the beach.

The place, though German, was free to all men, absolutely free, yet Sprengel kept it absolutely German. No one could compete with him. Other traders had tried, but their business had wilted; antagonistic influences had worked mysteriously against them.

Blood had brought a cargo of trade here once for a friend. The friend, Samson by name, had put his all into a little schooner and a cargo of all sorts of “notions”--canned salmon, gin, tobacco, prints, knives, et cetera. He had taken Blood along as skipper. Bad luck had followed them to several islands, and here at Christobal had finished them. Blood rightly had put down their failure to Sprengel, and the glorious idea of getting even with Sprengel now haunted him so that he could not sleep.

His one dread was that Sprengel, having made his pile, might have gone back to Bromberg to enjoy it.

They had finished the “gun” next day, and mounted it on the bow, with a tarpaulin over the breech as if to protect it from the weather, when the Captain, who had been superintending the operations, coming aft, discovered Harman emerging from the saloon companionway in a high state of excitement.

“I’ve found it,” said Harman. “I knew it was there. I guessed the swine couldn’t have finished the lot, so I set up a hunt for it. Come you down and see.”

The Captain followed him below, and there, on the saloon table, he saw standing three bottles of Pilsener.

“Where did you get those?” said he.

“Get them! I got them out of the locker in Wolff’s cabin; hid away they were behind some old newspapers. I guessed the pair of those chaps hadn’t finished all the lush, and I hunted and hunted--first in Shiner’s locker, then under the mattress in his lower bunk. I looked into Wolff’s locker twiced, and saw nothin’ but newspapers, and still I kep’ on. I reckon I must have smelled the stuff to make me so persistent. Anyhow, I lit on the idea that the stuff might be hid behind the newspapers, and I went again, and there they were.”

“Fetch some glasses,” said the Captain.

Harman darted off, and returned with two glasses and a corkscrew.

The Captain took the corkscrew, placed a bottle between his knees, and was on the point of inserting the screw into the cork, when he paused, stood up, and replaced the bottle and corkscrew on the table.

“What’s the matter now?” asked Harman.

“An idea has struck me,” replied the Captain.

“What’s your idea?”

“We mustn’t drink this stuff.”

“Not drink it!” cried the outraged Harman. “And what on earth do you want it for if we ain’t to drink it?”

“Bait,” replied the other.

“Bait?”

“To catch Sprengel with. This is Lion brew Pilsener, and it’s a hundred to one, if he’s still on the island, he hasn’t any of this stuff with him. There’s no German born could withstand the temptation. It beats sausages.”

“Well,” said Harman, flying out like a child, “if I’d known you was going to collar the stuff like that I’d have drunk it before I called you. It ain’t fair. Here am I with my tongue hangin’ down to my heels for a drink, and there’s the stuff and the glasses and all. I’m not given to complain, but it’s too much. I’m speakin’ my mind now. It’s too much!”

“Can’t you understand that with this stuff I may be able to get the blighter on board,” said the Captain, “and if I once get him on board and down to this saloon the whole of the rest of the thing will be easy. If we try to rush the place with him on shore there may be blood spilled. With him a prisoner here there won’t be any resistance.

“I’ll take him those three bottles as a present, and then invite him on board with the promise of a case of it--d’ye see?”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Harman. “I’ll split the difference with you. Take him two bottles as a present, and we’ll drink the other.”

The Captain considered on this a moment, and then, fearing mutiny as well as having a thirst, he gave in.

It was his first drink for a long time, and it was excellent beer; the only drawback was the quantity.

“What I can’t see,” said Harman, finishing his portion of the liquid, “is what in the nation you want treatin’ the perisher to two bottles of this stuff; two bottles is too little to take ashore with you as a present, and it’s one too many if you’re just going to offer him a drink after he’s caught.”

The Captain joined issue, and the argument went on till thirst joined with Harman, and the Captain gave in. The second bottle was opened.

And now a strange thing happened. No sooner had the contents of the second bottle vanished than the Captain himself prepared to finish the business.

It was the Irishman coming out.

“There’s no use in one bottle,” said he, “and, for the matter of that, I can get him aboard on the promise of beer. How’s he to know there is none?”

Harman actually protested--feebly enough, it is true--yet he protested, holding out his glass at the same time. There was a Scotch strain in Harman.

When they had finished, they filled the bottles with water and recorked them.

“They’re just as good like that,” said the Captain, “for Sprengel.”

VIII SPRENGEL

At seven o’clock next morning Christobal showed up on the far horizon, and by ten o’clock the _Penguin_ was heading for the anchorage, with the Captain on the bridge and Harman beside him.

It was a lovely island.

A broken reef protected the beach from the full force of the sea, and the cliffs showed green with foliage and flecked at one point by the eternal smoke of a torrent. Beyond the beach a white frame house with a veranda showed, and on either side native houses nestled among the cocoanut trees and breadfruits. The faint wind blowing from landward brought the perfume of vanilla and flowers, coloured birds flew in the blue sky above the trees, while the tune of the blue sea beating on the reef came like the song of sleep and summer.

A sulphur-tinted butterfly flittered across the water on the wind, as if to inspect the ship, and flittered away again. On the beach could be seen several natives standing and watching their approach, motionless and seemingly incurious.

“It’s all deep water through the break and beyond,” said the Captain. “We don’t want any pilot.”

“There’s a chap come out on the veranda of the house,” said Harman.

The Captain picked up the glass he had been using, and turned it on the figure in the veranda.

“That’s him,” said he. “That’s the chap right enough. Take a look.”

Harman put the glass to his eye, and the veranda and the man leaped within ten feet of him.

The man was short, stout, bull-necked, bullet-headed, wearing a close, clipped beard and with his hair cut to the bone.

“He ain’t a beauty,” said Harman. “Look, he’s going into the house, and here he comes out again.”

Sprengel had brought out a pair of marine glasses and was observing the ship through them.

“Wonder if he recognises me,” said the Captain.

Then he stood silent, whistling now and then, and now and then giving an order to the fellow at the wheel.

One of the hands was heaving the lead; his hard, thin voice came up to the bridge in a snarl:

“Mark four! Mark four! Quarter less four!”

The Captain rang the engines to half speed, then to dead slow. The _Penguin_ passed the opening in the reef. The water she rode on was like blue satin billowed under by wind; then, in the glassy smooth beyond, Harman, who was forward attending to the anchor, glancing over the side, saw the coral floor beneath them clearly as though he were looking at it through air.

The Captain rang the engines off, the wheel flew to starboard, and the rumble-tumble of the anchor chain through the hawse pipe came back in moist echoes from the woods and cliffs.

Then, the ship safely berthed, the Captain had time to turn his attention to the shore.

Sprengel had vanished into the house, and the few natives on the shore were still standing about in attitudes of indifference. One had taken his seat on the sand, and though there were several canoes on the beach there was no evidence of any thought of launching them.

“It’s a good job we scoffed that Pilsener,” said Harman, who had come up on the bridge. “It wouldn’t have been no use for this chap. You won’t get this chap on board without a windlass and a derrick. No, sir! He’s one of the retirin’ kind. He won’t trade, and he won’t be civil. I reckon you’d better get that spar gun trained on the beach and some of our chaps ready for a landin’ with the rifles, scoop all the money and valuables we can find, and cut stick.”

“I’ve been thinking so myself,” said the Captain. “There’s no use wasting time enticing this chap on board. Train the gun and get the landing party ready with rifles and cutlasses.”

He came down from the bridge, and went aft to his cabin to put on his best coat. When he came up again the whaleboat was lowered and the landing party getting into her.

They certainly were a most terrific-looking lot, and when the boat’s nose touched the sand and they scrambled out and lined up under the direction of Harman, the natives looking on lost their look of indifference, turned, and bolted for the woods.

“They don’t like the look of us,” said the Captain. “Now then, you chaps, no chasing them. You follow after me, and do what Mr. Harman bids you. Let one man of you disobey orders and he’ll have to settle with me.”

He produced a navy revolver from his pocket. It was the only serviceable weapon of the expedition, barring the cutlasses; they knew it, and they knew him, and they followed like lambs as he walked toward the house on whose veranda Sprengel had reappeared.

Ten yards away he ordered the others to halt, and advanced alone, putting the revolver back in his pocket.

Sprengel was in pajamas, and he had been perspiring with the heat; he was also in a bad temper and a bit frightened, all of which conditions did not add to the beauty of his appearance.

“Mr. Sprengel, I believe,” said the Captain, opening the business.

“That is my name,” replied the other. “And who are you, may I ask, and what is your ship doing here and these men?”

“We will go into the house and talk,” said the Captain, “if you will kindly lead the way. I am the Captain of a British auxiliary cruiser come to have a few words with you.”

He followed on the heels of Sprengel, who evidently had not recognised him in the least, into a large, airy room floored with native matting and furnished with American rockers, a bamboo couch, a table, and island headdresses and spears for wall decorations.

“You did not recognise me outside,” said the Captain. “Perhaps because I had my hat on. Do you not recognise me now?”

“Not from Adam,” replied Sprengel in a violent tone. “I only know that you have landed on my beach with armed men and that you had but till just now a pistol in your hand. Also, I recognise that your ship has a gun trained on my house. Are you aware that this is a German island?”

“That’s just the point, my dear man,” said the Captain, taking a seat unasked. “Are you aware that England is at war with Germany?”

“Eh, what!” said Sprengel, turning more fully on the other. “What you say? England at war with Germany!”

“England at war with Germany. Yes. That is what I said, and I have come to take your island in the name of the British government.”

Sprengel sat down in a chair and mopped himself. Sprengel had been practically monarch of Christobal for a long time.

And now the English had come.

It was an eventuality he had always feared, always reckoned with. He knew that war was in the air. He also knew international law, and he was not so much put out as might have been expected.

Indeed, he was frankly impudent.

“Well, I did not make the war,” said he. “I am an honest trader going about my business. If Christobal is English--well, it cannot be helped--till we take it back from England. I claim the rights of international law. My property is sacred.”

“International law, what is that?” asked Blood.

“Something you would not understand, but which your peddling government fears _and_ respects. Something which they would like to put to one side, _but_ which they cannot.”

“Oh, can’t they? Do you mean to imply that your property can’t be touched because of international law?”

“Ab-so-_lu_tely.”

“We’ll soon see about that,” said Blood, “for I’ve come to take away every rag you’ve got and every penny. I’ll leave you, for you ain’t very good, and you can keep the house and the good will of the business, but I want your money.”

He stood up.

So did Sprengel. Say what we may about the Prussians, they are certainly plucky enough.

Threatened with spoliation, all the latent fury of the man flamed out and centred on Blood. He stood for a moment visibly swelling; then he charged.

Had that charge gone home it would have been the worse for the Captain. Instead of meeting it, however, he stepped aside; Sprengel met the wall, nearly bringing the house down, and Harman, who had been listening on the veranda, rushed in.

He had brought some signal halyard line with an eye for eventualities, and they bound the enemy without much trouble.

“Listen to him!” said Harman. “Listen to him chatterin’ about outrages to noncombatants. What are ye yourself but an outrage, you fat Proosian! Capt’in, lend me your wipe.”

The Captain handed over his handkerchief, and Harman, with suspicious dexterity, rolled it into a gag. “That’ll stop your tongue,” said he. “And now for the plunder.”

They found the safe where the unfortunate Sprengel kept his money. There were five thousand dollars there in silver and American gold coin, and a bank book showing a huge balance at a Berlin bank. Also securities for large amounts. They respected these, as they were useless, and took only the coin.

Then they went over the house and grounds adjoining, and the total loot tabulated roughly ran to:

The amount of coin already specified.

Five thousand cigars.

A suit of new pajamas and a safety razor in case.

A case of Florida water, six bottles of eau de Cologne, all the native headdresses adorning the sitting room.

A live parrot in a cage, half a dozen chickens, and half a boatload of vegetables.

It was not much, but it was all that they could lay hands on. Harman wanted to include a native girl who had come out from among the trees with a basket of fruit on her head, not knowing what was going on, but the Captain vetoed him. He only took the fruit.

Then they pushed off, having first ungagged their victim, unbound him, and locked him in the house.

“And the funny thing is,” said the Captain when they had gained the deck and the boat was being winched on board, “he never remembered me, and he doesn’t know yet who I am.”

“Why didn’t you tell him?” said Harman.

“I thought of it, and then I held my tongue. There might be a chance of him making mischief when the war is over if he knew my name.”

“But how in the nation could he make mischief?” said the simple-minded Harman. “Germany bust or England bust, it’s all the same. What you done was in war time, and so doesn’t count.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” said the Captain. “I am not at all too sure of that. All that blab of Sprengel’s about the property of nonbelligerents may have something in it. I’m not sure that it mayn’t. It seems to me I’ve heard something about it before. Blast all nonbelligerents; there’s always some thorn in the rose.

“Then, leaving the question of nonbelligerents aside, we have to think of our own position. We haven’t a letter of marque, we have no more right to go hoofing about the seas gobbling German property than you have to go down Broadway lifting folk’s watches.”

“Well, what right have we to anything at all?” cut in the exasperated Harman. “Accordin’ to you, we haven’t the right to breathe nor live.”

“Well, it’s this way,” said Blood. “We have a perfect right to breathe and live as long as we can keep our necks out of the noose.”

“D’ye mean to say they’d hang us?”

“It’s highly probable. The Germans would, anyhow.”

Harman had been attending to the unloading of the boat all through this talk. He now went and spat over the side, and then came back to his companion.

“That’s cheerful,” said he.

“They might give you the choice of shooting instead of hanging,” went on the Captain. “For myself, I prefer hanging, I think, if it’s properly done.”

“Oh, Lord, no!” said Harman. “I’ve seen three fellows hanged, and I’ve swore I would never get hanged if I could help it. Give me shootin’, but shootin’ or hangin’ there’s one thing fixed.”

“And what’s that?”

“We’ve got the boodle. I ain’t one of your clever chaps, and I’ve no education to speak of, but I’ve noticed in life that the chaps who get on are the chaps who get a thing fixed and stand on it, same as a chap stands on a scaffolding and builds from it, same as a chap builds a house and doesn’t care a durn for the future.

“Now we’ve got the boodle fixed,” Mr. Harman went on, “there’s no use in bothering whether we’re to be shot or die natural in our bunks. We’ve gone a certain distance, and what I says is, now we’ve gone so far let’s go the whole hog. Let’s rob every one we can lay hands on. That’s my idea.”

“Germans, you mean?”

“I ain’t particular about Germans,” said Mr. Harman. “Anything with money to it is good enough for me, but if it eases your mind we’ll call ’em Germans.”

The Captain whistled for a moment over this broad plan. Then he went to superintend the fellows who were making ready to get the anchor in.

There were no capstan bars on board the _Penguin_; a steam winch did the business. He gave the signal for steam to be turned on, and then went up on the bridge.

The rattle and rasp of the winch pawls and the links of the anchor chain as it was hauled through the hawse pipe roused echoes from the shore. The gulls fishing on the little harbour made by the protecting reef rose, clamouring and beating their wings, and, as though the sound of the anchor chain had managed to free Sprengel, he appeared, having managed to work his way out of a window.

He came running down to the beach, shaking his fist and shouting till the Captain, more for the fun of the thing than any other reason, picked up a rifle and aimed it at him.

Then he turned and vanished into the woods.

The slack of the anchor chain was now in, and now the anchor itself left the water and was hoisted, dripping, to the catheads. The Captain rang on the engines, and the _Penguin_ began to back out. She could have turned, but it was easier to back her out, especially as the sea was so smooth.

Outside the reef, as she slued round, she let go her siren.

Three times its echoes returned from the moist-throated woods and cliffs; then, full speed ahead, she went toward the east.

IX THE “MINERVA”

Next morning early, Harman, standing on the bridge by the Captain, pointed to a smudge on the eastern horizon. The smoke of a steamer.

The Captain glanced at the spot indicated, shading his eyes with his hand; then he took the glass from its sling.

“I can’t make her clearly out,” said he. “The wind is covering her with her own smoke.”

“She’s maybe the mail boat that runs to Samoa,” said Harman, “or maybe she’s just a tramp. What are you goin’ to do?”

“How d’you mean?”

“Well, I mean just that. Are we goin’ to let her slip through our hands?”

“Harman,” said the Captain, “when I signed on for this cruise I knew I was going in for a shady job; still, there didn’t seem much to it, anyway. I knew Shiner was going to tinker up a cable, and I judged he was clever enough to pull the business through safely and give us all a big profit. Well, that scheme is all gone, and now I’m a bloody pirate, it seems. The war with Germany started me on the road, and there’s no use in crying out and saying, or pretending, we’re privateers. We aren’t; we’re pirates. That’s the long and the short of it. We aren’t making war on Germany; we are just collecting dibbs for ourselves. I’m not proud of it, not by a long way; but we’re in for it now and may as well make the most of it. You ask me what I am going to do with this vessel? Well, I’m going to go through her.”

“Good!” said Harman. “I’m not one for runnin’ extra risks, but we’ve risked so much already it’s a pity not to risk a bit more when we have the chance. For it’s not once in a lifetime a chance comes to sailormen like this.”

“I don’t suppose it is,” said Blood. “It’s not every day that chaps like Shiner and Wolff fit out a cable-cutting party and get information of war right first thing through the cut cable. Ah, the smoke’s clearing and her hull’s coming out; let’s see what she’s like.”

He put the glass to his eye and examined the distant ship; then as he looked he began to whistle.

“Well,” said he, taking the glass from his eye, “I reckon we won’t go through her--she’s a man-o’-war.”

“Whatcha say!” cried Harman, seizing the glass. He looked. Then he said:

“I reckon you’re right; she’s a fightin’ ship sure enough. I guess we’ll let her go this time, our armaments bein’ so unequal; she’s headin’ right for us, and if you ask for my advice I’d advise a shift of helm.”