“That’s something like! Now we’ll have results!”
Above, on deck, came the scuffle of hurrying feet, and immediately—as if they had been prepared against this moment—three fourths of the crew came tumbling down the companionway.
“Seize this man!” shouted Cleigh, thunderously, as he indicated Cunningham.
The men, however, fell into line and came to attention. Most of them were grinning.
“Do you hear me? Brown, Jessup, McCarthy—seize this man!”
No one stirred. Cleigh then lost his head. With a growl he sprang toward Cunningham. Half the crew jumped instantly into the gap between, and they were no longer grinning. Cunningham pushed aside the human wall and faced the Wanderer’s owner.
“Do you begin to understand?”
“No! But whatever your game is, it will prove bad business for you in the end. And you men, too. The world has grown mighty small, and you’ll find it hard to hide—unless you kill me and have done with it!”
“Tut, tut! Wouldn’t harm a hair of your 119 head. The world is small, as you say, but just at this moment infernally busy mopping up. What, bother about a little dinkum dinkus like this, with Russia mad, Germany ugly, France grumbling at England, Italy shaking her fist at Greece, and labour making a monkey of itself? Nay! I’ll shift the puzzle so you can read it. When the yacht was released from auxiliary duties she was without a crew. The old crew, that of peace times, was gone utterly, with the exception of four. You had the yacht keelhauled, gave her another daub of war paint and set about to find a crew. And I had one especially picked for you! Ordinarily, you’ve a tolerably keen eye. Didn’t it strike you odd to land a crew who talked more or less grammatically, who were clean bodily, who weren’t boozers?”
Cleigh, fully alive now, coldly ran his inspecting glance over the men. He had never before given their faces any particular attention. Besides, this was the first time he had seen so many of them at once. During boat drill they had been divided into four squads. Young faces, lean and hard some of them, but reckless rather than bad. All of them at this moment appeared to be enjoying some huge joke.