"We stripped them without killing a man," said he with hilarious satisfaction, "and took fifty thousand. Black's pleased; for, to tell you the truth, there's an ugly spirit aboard amongst the men, and you upset them altogether this morning. I never saw another who could have said what you said to the skipper and have lived; but you mustn't show on deck for a day or two—they'd murder you to pass time; and, as it is, we've had to post a man at your door, or I doubt if you'd save your skin in here."
"You seem to be making a paying cruise," I said sarcastically.
"Yes; and it's funny, for the sea is swarming with war vermin. Don't you feel the pace we're going now? I expect we're showing our heels to one of them, and shall show them a good many times between this and the first of next month, though Karl below is grumbling about the oil again: you want gallons of it with gas-engines. If we don't pick up the tender to-morrow, it's a bad look-out."
He did not come to me again for three days, but I saw from my port early the following morning that the tender was with us; and I concluded regretfully that the difficulty of the oil was overcome. On the second day after the robbery of the Bellonic, we stopped a third ship; though I saw nothing of it, as all the fighting was on the starboard side, and my cabin was to port; but there was a sharp fight on the third morning with a Cape-bound vessel, and again towards the afternoon with one of the North-German Lloyd boats homeward bound to Bremerhaven: as before, Osbart, coming to my rooms, delighted to give me the details of the captures; and that night he was unusually frivolous.
"Poor business to-day," he said, throwing himself into a lounge and lighting a cigar; "not an ounce of specie, and no jewellery to mention—and there was no killing, so don't put on that face of yours. Why, my dear boy, it was a perfect farce! I, myself, argued for twenty minutes with an old woman, who sat mewing like a cat on her box, and when I got her off it, thinking she had a thousand in diamonds, it was full of baby linen. And I'll tell you a better thing. An old Dutch Jew threw a two-penny-halfpenny bundle into the sea, and then he was so sick with himself that he went in after it. We hooked him out by the breeches with a boat-hook; but I believe he wished himself dead with the bundle. As for 'Four-Eyes,' he took what he thought was five hundred in notes from a card-player, but they're bad, dear boy, bad—every one of them."
"You don't seem very depressed about it," said I.
"Don't I?" replied he. "Well, things aren't all they should be. The tender we sent to Liverpool came out in a hurry, as they began to watch her, with a mere bucketful of oil aboard. We must get oil from somewhere or we shall all swing as sure as we're doing twenty-eight knots now. That's what I've come to tell you about to-night. The skipper can't stand it any more, and is going to run to England himself, and see what those mighty smart naval people of yours are doing. He'll take you with him, for it would be as good as signing your death-warrant to leave you here. Don't count upon it, though, for we shan't let you out of our sight, and you've got to swear a pretty big oath not to give us away before you set foot on the tender."
I was overjoyed at his saying, but I feared to let him see it, and asked with nonchalance—"How do you pick up this ship again?"
"Oh, we fix a position," he replied, "and they'll keep it every day at mid-day after ten days. Meanwhile we're running north out of the track of the cruisers."
"I can't quite understand why the skipper takes me with him this time," I remarked, endeavouring to draw him, but he answered—