He paused again. The men shuffled uneasily. Several at the back of the room whispered hoarsely to each other.
"Is the job straight and above-board, sir?" inquired an anxious voice.
Trevorrick looked straight at the speaker.
"Naturally," he replied.
His tone carried conviction. Had he said more in reply, the men might have "smelt a rat."
"Very good, sir; I'm in it," announced the cautious one. Others joined in accepting the decidedly indefinite offer.
"Any one not wishing to sign on can go," exclaimed Trevorrick. "I won't blame him for refusing a job about which he knows nothing, but there are other people's interests to be safeguarded. What! All agreed? Excellent! Now, Mr. Pengelly, will you please read out the declaration and obtain every man's signature, please?"
The document binding each employee to secrecy was cleverly worded, concluding with the affirmative that each man admitted his liability to be summarily dismissed for insufficiency of work, bad workmanship, insubordination, turbulence, inebriety or other offence or misconduct contrary to the rules and regulations of the Posidon Salvage Company.
"There you are, men," exclaimed Trevorrick, after the last signature had been obtained. "You now know what is the nature of the work—salvage. I will briefly relate the history of the Posidon. Ten or twelve years ago—in 1916, to be exact—the Posidon, bound from Quebec for the United Kingdom with a cargo consisting mainly of copper and silver ingots, was torpedoed by a Hun submarine when about six miles S.S.W. of the Lizard.
"An attempt was made to beach her on Looe Bar, but she turned turtle and sank in fifteen fathoms. After the Armistice attempts were made to salve the cargo. Divers went down, found the wreck lying over on her beam ends. There were a few bars of copper found, but of silver not a solitary ingot. The explosion of the torpedo had blown away one side of the strong-room. That discovery brought the salvage work to an abrupt termination.