CHAPTER XVIII
THE ATTACK
THEY had guessed it for the last few minutes of the yarn. To gauge the effect upon them, one must remember that they were out to hunt the narrator, fearing to be guyed if they did not catch him. What would the guying be like when the real fact was known? The fact that they had been sailing to hunt for Vanderdecken with Vanderdecken on board, and not only on board but acting as sailing master. It was the sort of joke that becomes immortal, like the joke about Handy Andy throwing the wash jug out of the window instead of the water, the sort of story that would preserve the protagonists in ridicule, not for years but for ages.
And yet there was no spark of anger in the mind of Hank, or in the mind of George. Candon, by his confession and story and evident regret for the business, had drawn their teeth; also in the last few days he had taught them to like and admire him, and in some extraordinary way he had in the last few minutes made them feel that their affairs were subordinate to his and that they were only side characters in a story that was his.
All the same in the mind of each lay the fact that they had been done brown and the conviction that B. C. must now never be taken by the police even if they had to shoot him.
Hank was the first to speak.
“Well,” said he, “it’s a Kid Lewis of a punch, there’s no denying it, and if it was all from your own shoulder, B. C., I’m not saying I wouldn’t have hit back, but there’s more in this than a man can see. Maybe I’m talking through my hat, but seems to me it’s curious. Me putting out on this show and J. B. advertising me and you coming into ’Frisco on top of the advertisement and taking it up. Well, there’s no use in talking, let’s clean the slate. I’m not sure if an expedition was putting out to collar Hank Fisher, I wouldn’t join it same as you did, specially if I had the McGinnis crowd after me. What do you say, Bud?”
“Oh,” said George, “what’s the good of talking. Forget it.”