“Look here,” said Blood, “this is all I know of the business. You want me to fish this cable up?”
“Precisely.”
“Cut it?”
“Just so.”
“Connect both ends with the electrical testing room, and let you talk through it and send messages through it from both or one of the cut ends?”
“That is exactly the position.”
“Well, after that?”
“After I have had my use of the cable, you can drop both ends overboard. We will sail away, and no one the wiser. Of course, the cable company will recognise that their cable is broken, and send a ship to mend it; but we will be far away by that time.”
“I see,” went on the Captain, “that it runs from the American coast here to the Australian coast here, but I don’t know the name of the company it belongs to; I don’t know what in the nation your game is. I am as innocent as a baa lamb on the whole affair, and I simply obey your orders, not knowing that you yourself may not own the cable and that this mayn’t be a repairing job. If we are caught, will you bear me out in that statement?—not that your evidence will be much good, I expect, but, still, it’s better than nothing.”