“Then just cast your eye over this”—that so slighted letter, sent years before by Hogarth to Foreign Offices, claiming the sea as his private manor.
The officer read it half through with flurried closeness; then, “Well, but what is all this?” he broke out: “is it a piece of comedy, or what, gentlemen?”
“It is serious; and the last clause comes into operation to-day: only such ships being held authorized to pass on the sea as pay to the first-reached sea-fort on any voyage a tax, or sea-rent, of 4s. per ton on their registered tonnage, with an additional stamp-tax of 33s. 4d. for receipt, and a stamp-tax of £1 16s. 8d. for clearance. You will see at a glance the clauses of the law, if you cast your eyes over this schedule—”
“Law!” the other broke in: “you talk of Law! But doesn't the sea, then, belong by right to all men—?”
“Not more than the land. Ask yourself: why should it? But I do hope you won't argue: your time must be so precious”.
Out shrilled the Kaiser Wilhelm's whistle of recall.
“I must go!” said the officer with a worried hand-toss: “I must go. If you give me those documents, I will show them to the Captain—but he is not the sort of man—this is mere piracy, after all! But, good God, gentlemen, if you only dare touch that ship, I shouldn't put myself in your place this day week for all—”
He snatched the papers, dashed, and his men, in a passion of haste, lay to the oars, the Kaiser only four hundred yards from the Boodah; and the officer, shaking aloft the documents, pitched up the stair, the centre of five hundred pairs of scared eyes, while the captain bored his way to him.
Two minutes of intense low speech, crowded with gestures: and suddenly the Captain's face, till now haggard, reddened; out went his shaken fist; with eyes blazing like lunacy, up he flew to the bridge; and now he is bending down with howling throat: “Passengers to their berths!”
Simultaneously, above the engine-room stair a bell jangled; round swung the pointer to “Full Ahead”; and ere the decks were cleared of their bustle the Kaiser, like a back-kicking hen, scratched up under her poop a spreading pool of spume, which tossed spasmodic spray-showers and spoutings: and she stirred, stretched like a street, churned the sea, and, wheeling to reveal her receding stern, was away.