“Don’t you intend to arm your yacht?”
“Oh, yes; I shall have on board a few sporting rifles, some shotguns, and plenty of ammunition. Is there any game back in the mountains?”
“I don’t know. How many riflemen do you propose to take with you?”
“I was thinking of inviting some of my younger gamekeepers; perhaps half a dozen.”
“But they can’t hold out against a hundred and fifty well-armed men, not to mention the sailors belonging to the Rajah.”
“My dear fellow, why is your mind always running on fighting? This is no Treasure Island cruise, with stockades, and one-legged John Silver, and that sort of thing. We are not qualifying for literary immortality, not being filibusters, but merely staid, respectable city persons going to look over a property we have purchased. If we are discovered and attacked, we will valorously fly, and as, at a pinch, I can get twenty-five knots an hour out of the boat, I think with the current of the stream in my favor we can reach the sea in case these misguided persons become obstreperous. You forget that as a city man I am an investor, not a speculator.”
“I don’t see how that course of action will save your gold from being stolen.”
“Don’t you? Well, you’ll have an inkling by and by. Now, I wish you to go back to Southampton. You negotiated for the charter of the Rajah, I believe.”
“Yes.”
“Who are her owners?”