Thenceforward, whenever Jack had occasion to go ashore, he always kept a particularly smart lookout for “Mr Mackintosh”; but he saw him no more during the remainder of his stay in the Solent. Yet a few days later an incident occurred which, although unmarked by any pronounced significance, rather tended to impress upon Jack the conviction that somebody was evincing a certain amount of interest in the speed qualifications of the Thetis, although it was quite possible that he might have been mistaken. This incident took the form of a somewhat sudden proposal to get up a race for steam-yachts round the island, for a cup of the value of fifty guineas. Such a proposal was a little remarkable, from the fact that steam-yacht racing is a form of sport that is very rarely indulged in by Englishmen, at least in English waters; yet everything must necessarily have a beginning, and there was no especial reason why steam-yacht racing should not be one of those things, particularly as the idea appeared to be received with some enthusiasm by certain owners of such craft. When the matter was first mentioned to Singleton, and it was suggested that he should enter the Thetis for the race, he evinced a disposition to regard the proposal with coldness, as he had already arrived at the conclusion that it might be unwise to reveal the boat’s actual capabilities; but his attitude was so strongly denounced as unsportsmanlike, and he found himself subjected to such urgent solicitations—not to say pressure—that he quickly grew suspicious, and mentioned the matter to Milsom. Milsom, in turn, after considering the matter for a little, suggested that the chief engineer of the boat should be consulted, with the result that it was ultimately decided to enter the Thetis for the race, Macintyre undertaking that while the yacht should present to onlookers every appearance of being pushed to the utmost—plenty of steam blowing off, and so on—her speed should not be permitted to exceed fifteen knots, and only be allowed to reach that at brief intervals during the race. With this understanding Jack agreed to enter, and the race duly came off in splendid weather, and was pronounced to be a brilliant success, the Thetis coming in third, but losing the race by only eight seconds on her time allowance. Nobody was perhaps better pleased at the result than Jack, for the new boat made a brave show and apparently struggled gamely throughout the race to win the prize, the “white feather” showing from first to last on the top of her waste pipe, and a thin but continuous film of light-brown smoke issuing from her funnel from start to finish. If anyone happened to have taken the trouble to get up the race with the express object of ascertaining the best speed of the Thetis, they knew it now; it was fourteen knots, rising to nearly fifteen for a few minutes occasionally when the conditions were especially favourable!
With the approach of the end of the month the yachts began to thin out more and more perceptibly every day, the racers going westward and the cruisers following them; the steam-yachts hanging on to accompany the Channel Match to Weymouth. The Thetis was one of these; and Jack allowed it to be pretty generally understood that after the Weymouth regatta was over he intended to run north for a month or so, visiting the Baltic, and perhaps proceeding as far east as Cronstadt. But yachtsmen are among the most capricious of men—some of them never know from one moment to another what they really intend to do; thus it is, after all, not very surprising that when the Thetis arrived off the mouth of the Tyne Jack Singleton should suddenly give orders for her nose to be turned shoreward, and that, an hour or two later, she should glide gently up alongside and make fast to the private wharf of Singleton, Murdock, and Company. What is surprising is that, when she was seen approaching, some fifty of Singleton, Murdock, and Company’s most trusty hands received sudden notice that they were required for an all-night job; and that at dawn the next morning the Thetis drew a full foot more water than she had done when she ran alongside the wharf some twelve hours earlier, although in the interim she had not taken an ounce of coal into her bunkers.
It so happened that Mr Murdock was absent on important business when the Thetis arrived alongside the wharf, and he did not return to Newcastle until nearly midnight, when he, of course, made the best of his way to his own house. But he was at the works betimes next morning, and, knowing that the yacht was expected, he took the wharf on his way to the office, with the object of ascertaining whether she had arrived. The sight of her lying alongside in all her bravery of white enamel paint, gilt mouldings, and polished brasswork caused him to heave a great sigh of relief; and he joyously hurried forward to greet Jack, whom he saw standing on the wharf engaged in earnest conversation with the yard foreman.
“Good-morning, Singleton!—Morning, Price!” he exclaimed as he approached the two. “Well, Jack,” he continued, “so you arrived up to time, eh? And by the look of the boat I should say that you’ve got the stuff on board; is that so? Ah! that’s all right; I am precious glad to hear it, I can tell you, for to have those cases accumulating here day after day has been a source of great anxiety to me.”
“Sorry!” remarked Jack cheerfully. “But why should they worry you, old chap? Everything is securely packed in air-tight, zinc-lined cases, so that there was really no very serious cause for anxiety or fear, even of an explosion. Such a thing could not possibly happen except by the downright deliberate act of some evil—disposed individual; and I don’t think—”
“Precisely,” interrupted Murdock; “that was just what was worrying me—at least, it was one of the things that was worrying me. Not on account of our own people, mind you; I believe them to be loyal and trustworthy to a man. But I cannot help thinking that some hint of your expedition must have leaked out, for we have never had so many strangers about the place since I have been in the business as we have had during the last fortnight, while those cases have been arriving. We have simply been overwhelmed with business enquiries of every description—enquiries as to our facilities for the execution of repairs; enquiries as to the quickest time in which we could build and deliver new ships; enquiries respecting new engines and machinery of every conceivable kind, not one of which will probably come to anything. And the thing that troubled me most was that every one of these people wanted to be shown over the place from end to end, in order that they might judge for themselves, as they explained, whether our works were sufficiently extensive and up-to-date to enable us to execute the particular kind of work that they wanted done: and every mother’s son of them gravitated, sooner or later, to the spot where those precious cases of yours were stacked, and seemed profoundly interested in them; while one chap, who was undoubtedly a foreigner, had the impudence to insinuate that the marks and addresses on the cases, indicating that they were sugar machinery for Mauritius, were bogus! I sent him to the rightabout pretty quickly, I can tell you. Why, what the dickens are you laughing at, man? It is no laughing matter, I give you my word!”
For Jack had burst into a fit of hearty laughter at Murdock’s righteous indignation.
“No, no; of course not, old chap,” answered Jack, manfully struggling to suppress his mirth; “awfully annoying it must have been, I’m sure. Well, is that all?”
“No,” answered Murdock indignantly, “it is not; nor is it the worst. Only the day before yesterday we had a man poking about here who said he was from the Admiralty. He wanted nothing in particular for the moment, he said, but was simply making a tour of the principal shipyards of the country, with the view of ascertaining what were the facilities of each for the execution of Admiralty work. He, too, was vastly interested in those precious cases of yours, so much so, indeed, that I should not have been at all surprised if he had asked to have the whole lot of them opened! Oh, yes! of course I know he could not have gone to such a length as that without assigning some good and sufficient reason; but I tell you, Jack, that we are playing a dangerous game, and I will not be a party to a repetition of it. A pretty mess we should be in if the British Government were to discover that we are aiding and abetting insurgents in arms against the authority of a friendly Power! Why, it would mean nothing short of ruin—absolute ruin—to us!”
“Yes, you are quite right, old chap, it would,” agreed Jack soberly; “and if Señor Montijo wants to ship any more stuff after this, it must not be through this yard. But it is all aboard and out of sight now, and we leave for—um—Mauritius, shall we say?—this afternoon; so there is no need for you to worry any further about it.”