“Yes, we can’t take that,” said Briscoe dismally. “We could carry it out, I daresay, but it would go through the bottom of the boat. We shall have to start that old furnace and melt these big things down.”
Just then two of the men who been carrying a load out on to the terrace came back, bearing a message from the captain.
“He says, gentlemen,” said one of the men, “that it will be as much as he dare take aboard when we’ve let down all we’ve got waiting outside.”
“Nonsense!” cried Brace; “why, we have ever so much more to send out yet. We can’t leave all these small things.”
“How much weight do you think you have taken out, my lads?” said Sir Humphrey, who was working hard with the rest.
“’Bout half a ton, sir, I should say,” replied one of the men.
“Let’s go out and have a talk to the skipper,” said Briscoe. “I say, chaps,” he added jocosely, “fair play and fair sharing; no pocketing either of those big images while we’re gone.”
“All right, sir,” said one of the men: “we won’t; but to speak square and honest, I was longing to collar that biggest one at the back there, him with the sign of the sun on his front.”
“We must fetch them another time,” said Briscoe; and he followed the brothers out on to the terrace, where, dully gleaming in the sunshine, quite a couple of hundredweight of the strange objects connected with the ancient worship lay waiting to be lowered down.
“Well, captain,” said Sir Humphrey, “what does this mean—you can’t take any more?”