“The deuce it is! Are you sure it’s not the Sea Horse?”
“The which horse?” inquired Blood, whose temper was beginning to rise.
It was his first experience of British navy ways with merchantmen, ways which are usually decided and heralded by language which is usually abrupt.
“Sea Horse—Sea Horse—ah!” His eye had fallen on a life buoy stamped with the word “Penguin.” “You are the Penguin. You will excuse me, but we were looking after something like you—a fifteen-hundred-ton grey-painted boat. The Sea Horse. Tramp steamer gone off her head and turned pirate, looted a German vessel under pretence that war had broken out between England and Germany.”
“Well, it wasn’t us,” laughed the Captain. “Couldn’t you see we were a cable ship by the gear on deck?”
“Yes, but the message came to us by wireless with bare details. What was your last port?”
“Christobal Island, quite close here—we have only left it a few hours, and by the same token there was news there that war had broken out between Germany and England.”
“How did they get it?”
“Well, the fellow there—Sprengel is his name—has a wireless installation, and he picked up a message some days ago.”