But before I did so I called the skipper in for council. We talked it all over and decided that someone of our refugees had had the explosives on him and when we got into the row with the governor at Trebizond and it looked as though there were to be an examination of passengers, the guilty man had become panic stricken and, prying up the bunker lid on the deck, had dropped the damaging evidence against himself into the bunker, never doubting that he would be well ashore at Trebizond before the France was at sea again. He must also be passing a restless night knowing what was in the bunkers.
This time I was more than indignant!
It seemed a poor return for all the pains that I had taken in behalf of these wretched people. I called in Morris and told him that I wanted him to watch the refugees carefully from this time on, as I suspected that one of them at least, might be a desperate man, and the Lord only knew what he might be up to before we landed back in the Golden Horn.
“Now, Morris,” I told him, “I am going to assign you to watch these men just as carefully as you know how and if you see the slightest sign of a single one of them making any move which in your judgment is going to endanger the France and the lives of any of us I want you to shoot him on the spot!” And I gave him my big army Colt.
The black man’s face shone with excitement and his teeth gleamed, as he replied:
“Yes, sir; yes, sir. I’ll do just as you say, sir. And if I see anything suspicious, I’ll shoot him right through the head, sir,” and he went on deck to look for symptoms.
But it proved unnecessary. Whether anything more was in the bunkers or not we never knew. Suffice it to say that we did not blow up, but kept blithely on our way towards the mouth of the Bosphorus, whence we had steamed nearly two weeks before.
CHAPTER XIV
The Return to the Golden Horn and the End of the Assignment