"We are all at Madame Gilbert's pleasure," said Toppys, smiling. "We know, you and I, that Roger Gatepath is two parts flunkey, one quarter fool, and the other quarter unscrupulous lawyer. He cares for nothing except for the connections and profits of his firm. He would lick the new Lord Topsham's tawny feet if he did not fear to lose some handfuls from my golden pile. I do not value the Barony at a rush for myself, but there is in my blood a centuries-old reverence for my Family. Rather than that coloured brat yonder should be recognised as the Head of my House, I would strangle him with my own hands. If you can save us from that horror, Madame, there is nothing which is in my power to grant that I would not lay at your feet."
"Absurd as it may seem, Sir John, I have a conscience. Madame Gilbert is not for sale."
"No. I should not value you if you were. And believe me I rate you very highly. You will go out in this yacht to the Torres Straits, and you will follow your conscience. Maybe you will bring back the Twenty-Eighth Baron in your train and set him yourself upon his seat. There is no contract between us; you are free to do even this. Be just to me, Madame. I have offered you nothing except a free passage; I have never sought to bribe you. In my heart I knew that it would be useless. Whatever may be the end, Madame, I shall always cherish these weeks of our friendship."
"As a Toppys you are not a little ridiculous," said Madame. "But as a man you are white all through."
She held out her hand to him there on the bridge of the Humming Top, and Toppys, stooping, kissed her fingers. "Thank you," said he, simply.
Although Madame had made a sketchy inspection of the yacht in the company of Sir John Toppys, she learned very little of its fascinating merits until she came aboard in act to sail. The crew were already at their quarters when Madame was ceremoniously received on board by Captain Ching the skipper, and the Chief Engineer, Ewing. She had already given orders—Sir John Toppys had assigned to her his full powers and prerogatives as owner—she had already given orders that the chief officers should mess with her in the pretty little saloon on the upper deck, aft of which was a snug "Owner's Room"—equipped with writing-table and bookcases—which she reserved for her own private occupation. Whenever their duties permitted of social relaxation, Madame had determined that the Captain and Chief Engineer should be her intimate companions. It was no new experience for Madame to be the one woman in a company of men—her maid did not count—and she who had the free outlook and high courage of a man, enjoyed the privileges of a double sex. In repose she was a woman; in action a man.
Toppys had chosen his officers with judgment. The skipper, R.N.R., a man of Devon, sprang from the salt stock which had roamed uncharted seas with Drake and Cook. The Chief Engineer, a man of Glasgow, was of that hybrid race of deep water mechanicians which had come into existence with Bell and Wood's Comet, and for a hundred years had bent the powers of the land to the service of the sea. In the ancestry of sea craft engineers are of mushroom stock, and in comparison with the unbroken line of Plymouth Chings the Glasgow Ewing was little better than an upstart, an expert in tin-pot mysteries. Nevertheless the sailor Ching respected the engine-room accomplishments of Ewing, and Ewing, who could not have safely navigated a railway steamer from Portsmouth Harbour to Ryde Pier, freely acknowledged that in the above deck business Ching was his master. Each expert was supreme in his own department, and where in the world can one find better navigators than in Plymouth, or better marine engineers than in Glasgow City?
They cast off in the late afternoon of March 15th, and in the evening were running out towards the Needles, the rapid whirr of the geared turbines scarcely conveying a flicker of vibration to the long slender hull. The yacht, on bridge and down in the engine-room, was in charge of the junior ranks, and both Ching and Ewing sat at dinner with Madame in the bright saloon.
"Hark to yon turbines," said Ewing. "Did ye ever hear the like? Just a wee whisper down below and a bit quiver along the decks. Yet they are pushing the boat along at eleven good knots."
"Eleven point four," corrected Ching. "What could you hammer out, Ewing, in case of necessity?"