And when at last he was equipped he went forth from Limeport; he went blithely, although he knew that a Titan's job faced him. He kept his own counsel as to what he proposed to do with the steamer. He even allowed the water-front gossips to guess, unchallenged, that he was going to junk the wreck. He was not inviting more of that brazen hostility that characterized the operations of Fogg and his hirelings.
He was at the wheel of a husky lighter which he had chartered; the rest of the crew he supplied from his own men. The lighter was driven by its own power, and carried a good pump and a sturdy crane; its decks were loaded high with coal. The schooner was now merely convoy. It was an all-day trip to Razee, for the lighter was a slow and clumsy craft, but when Mayo at last made fast to the side of the Conomo and squealed a shrill salute with the whistle, the joy he found in Captain Candage's rubicund countenance made amends for anxiety and delay.
“I knew you'd make a go of it, somehow,” vouchsafed the old skipper. “But who did you have to knock down in a dark place so as to steal his money off'n him?”
“That's private business till we get ready to pay it back, with six per cent, interest,” stated the young man, bluntly.
“Oh, very well. So long as we've got it I don't care where you stole it,” returned Candage, with great serenity. “I simply know that you didn't get it from skinflint Rowley, and that's comfort enough for me. Let me tell you that we haven't been loafing on board here. We rigged that taakul you see aloft, and jettisoned all the cargo we could get at. It was all spoiled by the water. There's pretty free space for operations 'midships. I've got out all her spare cable, and it's ready.”
“And you've done a good job there, sir. We've got to make this lighter fast alongside in such a way that a blow won't wreck her against us. Spring cables—plenty of them—and we are sailors enough to know how to moor. But when I think of what amateurs we are in the rest of this job, cold shivers run over me.”
“That Limeport water-front crowd got at you, too, hey?”
“Captain Candage, I have watched men more or less in this life. It's sometimes a mighty big handicap for a man to be too wise. While the awfully wise man sits back and shakes his head and figures prospects and says it can't be done, the fool rushes in, because he doesn't know any better, and blunders the job through and wins out. Let's keep on being fools, good and plenty, but keep busy just the same.”
And on that basis the rank amateurs of Razee proceeded with all the grit that was in them.
The men of Hue and Cry had plenty of muscle and little wit. They asked no questions, they did not look forward gioomily to doubtful prospects. The same philosophy, or lack of it, that had always made life full of merry hope when their stomachs were filled, taking no thought of the morrow, animated them now. Fate had given Mayo and his associate an ideal crew for that parlous job. It was not a question of union hours and stated wages; they worked all night just as cheerily as they worked all day.