“Step careful!” shouted Satan.
The warning came just in time, for the deck was slippery as ice in patches where a thin moss had grown,—a gray, greasy moss, treacherous as Death, and covering the droppings of innumerable sea birds.
He made his way aft, where Sellers was standing with Satan and the half-dozen Spaniards that formed the working party. Drills and picks lay about, and marks showed where work had been started the day before.
“It’s a foot thick,” said Sellers, “whatever it is, and harder than cement. Rock!—this ain’t coral rock, not such as I’ve ever seen. Harveyized steel’s more like it, and after that there’s the deck planking to be got through.”
“Well,” said Satan, “I told you it was a dynamite job, and if you’d played fair and got the stuff we’d have been a long sight nearer the end of the business, even if we started a week later. But there’s no use in talkin’ now, and there’s no use in messin’ about pickin’ holes here and there. Your job is to make a hole big enough to sink that barrel of powder of yours—take me? Sink it half deep and then lay a fuse and fire the whole lot at once and risk chances. It’s ten to one you’ll split the deck right open at one go. As for sinkin’ little holes and usin’ small charges, you’ll be ten years on the job.”
Sellers rose up and wiped his brow and cast his eyes over the sea to westward, evidently with Cleary in his mind.
“Well, I’m not sure you aren’t right,” said he. “I’ll fix it that way; but it’ll be a long job with the tools we have.”
“Maybe,” said Satan. “And now to the question of them dollars.”
“Oh, them—I’ve spoke to Cark, and he’s agreeable.”
“Oh, is he? Well, then. I’ll go right aboard with you now while he’s warm and get them dollars into my hand. Set your men at work and you come along with me.”