Geraldine laid her hand upon her brother’s arm.
“When do you join, Ralph?”
“To-morrow night at Portsmouth,” he replied. “I’m afraid we shall be several days before we are at work. It’s the Scorpion they’re giving me, Gerald—or the mystery ship, as they call it in the navy.”
“Why?” she asked.
His rather boyish face, curiously like his sister’s, was suddenly transformed.
“Because we’ve got a rod in pickle for those cursed pirates—”
“Conyers!” Thomson interrupted.
The young man paused in his sentence. Thomson was looking towards him with a slight frown upon his forehead.
“Don’t think I’m a fearful old woman,” he said. “I know we are all rather fed up with these tales of spies and that sort of thing, but do you think it’s wise to even open your lips about a certain matter?”
“What the dickens do you know about it?” Conyers demanded.