IX
THE “MINERVA”
Next morning early, Harman, standing on the bridge by the Captain, pointed to a smudge on the eastern horizon. The smoke of a steamer.
The Captain glanced at the spot indicated, shading his eyes with his hand; then he took the glass from its sling.
“I can’t make her clearly out,” said he. “The wind is covering her with her own smoke.”
“She’s maybe the mail boat that runs to Samoa,” said Harman, “or maybe she’s just a tramp. What are you goin’ to do?”
“How d’you mean?”
“Well, I mean just that. Are we goin’ to let her slip through our hands?”
“Harman,” said the Captain, “when I signed on for this cruise I knew I was going in for a shady job; still, there didn’t seem much to it, anyway. I knew Shiner was going to tinker up a cable, and I judged he was clever enough to pull the business through safely and give us all a big profit. Well, that scheme is all gone, and now I’m a bloody pirate, it seems. The war with Germany started me on the road, and there’s no use in crying out and saying, or pretending, we’re privateers. We aren’t; we’re pirates. That’s the long and the short of it. We aren’t making war on Germany; we are just collecting dibbs for ourselves. I’m not proud of it, not by a long way; but we’re in for it now and may as well make the most of it. You ask me what I am going to do with this vessel? Well, I’m going to go through her.”
“Good!” said Harman. “I’m not one for runnin’ extra risks, but we’ve risked so much already it’s a pity not to risk a bit more when we have the chance. For it’s not once in a lifetime a chance comes to sailormen like this.”
“I don’t suppose it is,” said Blood. “It’s not every day that chaps like Shiner and Wolff fit out a cable-cutting party and get information of war right first thing through the cut cable. Ah, the smoke’s clearing and her hull’s coming out; let’s see what she’s like.”