“And the funny thing is,” said the Captain when they had gained the deck and the boat was being winched on board, “he never remembered me, and he doesn’t know yet who I am.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?” said Harman.
“I thought of it, and then I held my tongue. There might be a chance of him making mischief when the war is over if he knew my name.”
“But how in the nation could he make mischief?” said the simple-minded Harman. “Germany bust or England bust, it’s all the same. What you done was in war time, and so doesn’t count.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” said the Captain. “I am not at all too sure of that. All that blab of Sprengel’s about the property of nonbelligerents may have something in it. I’m not sure that it mayn’t. It seems to me I’ve heard something about it before. Blast all nonbelligerents; there’s always some thorn in the rose.
“Then, leaving the question of nonbelligerents aside, we have to think of our own position. We haven’t a letter of marque, we have no more right to go hoofing about the seas gobbling German property than you have to go down Broadway lifting folk’s watches.”
“Well, what right have we to anything at all?” cut in the exasperated Harman. “Accordin’ to you, we haven’t the right to breathe nor live.”
“Well, it’s this way,” said Blood. “We have a perfect right to breathe and live as long as we can keep our necks out of the noose.”
“D’ye mean to say they’d hang us?”
“It’s highly probable. The Germans would, anyhow.”