“Consigned to Cohen and Co., from 'Frisco,” returned the pilot, “and badly wanted. There's a barque inside filling up for Hamburg—you see her spars over there; and there's two more ships due, all the way from Germany, one in two months, they say, and one in three; Cohen and Co.'s agent (that's Mr. Topelius) has taken and lain down with the jaundice on the strength of it. I guess most people would, in his shoes; no trade, no copra, and twenty hundred ton of shipping due. If you've any copra on board, cap'n, here's your chance. Topelius will buy, gold down, and give three cents. It's all found money to him, the way it is, whatever he pays for it. And that's what come of going back on the pilot.”
“Excuse me one moment, Captain Dobbs. I wish to speak with my mate,” said the captain, whose face had begun to shine and his eyes to sparkle.
“Please yourself,” replied the pilot. “You couldn't think of offering a man a nip, could you? just to brace him up. This kind of thing looks damned inhospitable, and gives a schooner a bad name.”
“I'll talk about that after the anchor's down,” returned Wicks, and he drew Carthew forward. “I say,” he whispered, “here's a fortune.”
“How much do you call that?” asked Carthew.
“I can't put a figure on it yet—I daren't!” said the captain. “We might cruise twenty years and not find the match of it. And suppose another ship came in to-night? Everything's possible! And the difficulty is this Dobbs. He's as drunk as a marine. How can we trust him? We ain't insured—worse luck!”
“Suppose you took him aloft and got him to point out the channel?” suggested Carthew. “If he tallied at all with the chart, and didn't fall out of the rigging, perhaps we might risk it.”
“Well, all's risk here,” returned the captain. “Take the wheel yourself, and stand by. Mind, if there's two orders, follow mine, not his. Set the cook for'ard with the heads'ls, and the two others at the main sheet, and see they don't sit on it.” With that he called the pilot; they swarmed aloft in the fore rigging, and presently after there was bawled down the welcome order to ease sheets and fill away.
At a quarter before nine o'clock on Christmas morning the anchor was let go.
The first cruise of the Currency Lass had thus ended in a stroke of fortune almost beyond hope. She had brought two thousand pounds' worth of trade, straight as a homing pigeon, to the place where it was most required. And Captain Wicks (or, rather, Captain Kirkup) showed himself the man to make the best of his advantage. For hard upon two days he walked a verandah with Topelius, for hard upon two days his partners watched from the neighbouring public house the field of battle; and the lamps were not yet lighted on the evening of the second before the enemy surrendered. Wicks came across to the Sans Souci, as the saloon was called, his face nigh black, his eyes almost closed and all bloodshot, and yet bright as lighted matches.