Sheriff obeyed the order promptly. He had seen enough of Captain Kettle's usefulness as a marksman not to dispute his wishes.
"Did you know that we came here to stir up a war between our folks at home and the Transvaal?"
"I suppose so."
"And smash up the telegraph instruments afterward, so that it could not be contradicted till it was well under way?"
"That would have been necessary."
"And you remember what you told me on that steamboat? Oh! you liar!" said Kettle, and Sheriff winced.
"I'm so beastly hard up," he said.
Captain Kettle might have commented on his own poverty, but he did not do this. Instead, he said: "Now we'll go back to the ship, and of course you'll have to scuttle her just as if you'd brought off your game here successfully. Run England in for a bloody war, would you, just for some filthy money? By James! no. Come, march. And you, Mr. Telegraph Clerk, get under weigh with that deaf and dumb alphabet of yours, and ring up the Cape, and tell them what's been sent is all a joke, and there's to be no war at all."
"I'll do that, you may lay your heart on it," said the operator. "But Mr. I-don't-know-what-your-name-is, look here. Hadn't you better stay? I'll see things are put all right. But if you go off with those two sharks, it might be dangerous."
"Thank you, kindly, sir," said Kettle; "but I'm a man that's been accustomed to look after myself all the world over, and I'm not likely to get hurt now. Those two may be sharks, as you say, but I'm not altogether a simple little lamb myself."