“Of course, the money I'm getting for this job looks good to me, governor, but my chance to put a wallop into anything that old Vose and his sons are interested in looks just as good. I wouldn't be in this just for the money end of it. I'm no pirate, but when they kicked me out of the pilot-house and posted me up and down this coast, they put themselves in line to get what's coming to 'em from me.”
“But have you considered every side of it?” pleaded Fogg. “You're the practical man in this proposition. What can happen?”
“If you do exactly what I tell you to do nothing can happen but what's on our program. Just let me stiffen you up by running the thing over once more.”
He pulled a hand-smutched, folded chart from his breast pocket and spread it over his knees. With blunt forefinger he indicated the points to which he made reference in his explanation.
“When he fetches Nobska horn on his port, bearing nor'west by west, he'll shift his course. After about five miles he's due to shift again, swinging six points to nor-rard. You'll hear the mate name the bearing of West Chop steam-whistle. Then you walk right up to the left of the compass and stand there. You may hear a little tongue-clattering for a few seconds. There'll be a little cussing, maybe, but you won't be cussed, of course. You stand right there, calm and cool, never batting an eyelid. And then it will happen, and when it does happen it will be a surprise-party all right.”
“It's wrecking a seven-thousand-ton passenger-steamer in the night!” mourned the general manager.
“It isn't! It's putting her into a safe cradle.”
“But at this speed!”
“That chap in the pilot-house is no fool. He'll get his hint in time to save her from real damage. You needn't worry!”
Fogg opened his traveling-bag and lifted out a strip of metal. He handled it as gingerly as if it were a reptile, and he looked at it with an air as if he feared it would bite him.