“Undoubtedly, since you carry coal to his ship.”
“Suppose I tell you to go to h—ll and mind your own business?”
“In that case, you might arrive at the destination before me. I am going to give you ten minutes. If you are not steaming eastward at the end of that time, I promise you that I will most certainly send you to the bottom. Reflect upon it calmly. You cannot help the Jew, but may save yourselves. I’ll tell you something else. If you have any coal to sell, I am a buyer. Now do not finger that pistol of yours, for it might go off, and as sure as God’s in heaven, if it did, this crew would be on the floor of the Atlantic in less than five minutes. Rattle your senses, my man, and speak up. If yonder warship spies us out, she’ll not deal so tenderly with you. What is the Jew to you, and why should you sell your liberty for him? Come, think of it. I am not a patient man, but I will give you time enough not to make a fool of yourself.”
They were brazen words, upon my life. When I pointed westward to a loom of smoke upon the horizon scarcely bigger than a man’s hand—when I did this, and spoke in the same breath of a warship, then, surely, the ingenuity of suggestion could go no further. As for the rascally Russian, I saw that he was struck all of a heap. His eyes had already told him that the yacht, White Wings, carried machine guns and a torpedo tube. Perhaps he argued that even if he raced for it, we could sink him before the Diamond Ship so much as sighted him—and this was to assume that a haze of smoke upon the horizon indicated the presence of the Jew’s vessel, and not of a British warship. In either case he found himself between the devil and the deep sea; and, be sure, I lost no minute of a precious opportunity.
“The game is up,” I resumed, “and your friend, the Jew, is about to pay the price of it. If you wish to contribute your share, go on and join the fun. I don’t suppose the police care much about such riff-raff as you have on board here. Get them back to Cardiff and let them find new ships. You are thinking of the money—well, if you can fill my bunkers yonder, I will pay a long price for the stuff you carry—down on your table in English sovereigns.”
At this he regarded me very curiously. A dull head is often obstinate in suspicion. The fellow perceived his advantage and would have pressed it.
“Oh,” said he, “then you are short of coal?”
“We are short of coal,” I rejoined, my frankness astounding him. “The others have none to spare, and if we buy none of you, we must run to Porto Grande. In that case you will carry this cargo back to Europe, and be arrested when you step ashore. I shall see to that, my man, when I touch at the islands. The police will be waiting for you, and you will get nothing—paid down and counted out. Better take my money—and ten pounds apiece for your crew—not to mention a little deal between us, which you may not find unsatisfactory.”
In such a manner we wrangled and argle-bargled for the best part of an hour. Providentially, the Diamond Ship, whose smoke had at one time been visible, stood upon a westerly course, and disappeared from our ken as we talked. I found the Russian to be a low-witted, covetous fellow, not greatly to be overawed by threats, but exceedingly susceptible to the substantial facts of money. In the end, I bought what coal we could carry from him at a price which I would cheerfully have doubled. And, indeed, I do think that it was one of the best day’s work I ever did in all my life. To cut off the Jew’s patrol, to fill our own bunkers with his precious steam coal, carried at such risk from Cardiff; to send the tramp steamer back again whence she came—even the matter-of-fact Larry could find no word to fit it. As for my poor friend Timothy, his emotions were altogether too much for him.
“Docther,” said he, “I doubt your salvation, and that’s the truth of it. Say that we are going back to dine on the Jew’s ship and I’ll believe ye entirely. ’Twould not be more wonderful than that which these poor old eyes are showing me.”