“I’ll supply you,” cried the Penguin. “Lower a boat and you’ll have what you want.”
The Anne Page seemed to meditate a moment, and then again came the response like that of a deaf man who has failed to catch the meaning of what is said to him:
“I won’t take no German prisoners. There ain’t no room for them. Why don’t you keep ’em yourself—you’re big enough?”
On that the Captain gave his news of the German cruisers, and the Anne Page picked up her skirts and scuttled.
But next day they had better luck. They picked up a real German schooner, captained by a real Simon-pure German skipper, and eight of the scallawags of the Penguin had their first exercise under arms.
The Penguin carried a whaleboat for beach work—Wolff had strongly resented the purchase of this boat, but the Captain had stood firm—and into it were bundled Wolff and Shiner, eight malefactors armed with cutlasses and rifles, followed by Blood himself.
The schooner—the Spreewald was her name—would have escaped, but there was only a five-knot breeze blowing, and the Penguin could make ten. There was also the threat of ramming. She let herself be boarded, received the declaration of war, and then submitted to be robbed.
The whole thing was shameful, and painfully like robbing a child of the milk it is carrying home. She was but a little ship, and the booty was trifling, some five hundred dollars, some barrels of Bismarck herrings, a dozen boxes of cigars, and a gold watch and chain. That is what Blood took from her. But she relieved him of the presence of Wolff and Shiner, and he reckoned that equal to a lot of plunder.