I remained silent, holding my cap in my hands and looking at Boldwin, my skipper, who had done me the honor to report me favorably in the log book.
"I hear, also," continued Lord Hawkes, "that you are a good diver, a master workman under water——"
"Pardon me, your lordship," I interrupted, "I'm but a licensed ship's officer, and what I don't know about diving would fill a dozen empty log books."
"Well, at all events, you showed resource. Yes, my good Garnett, you are a man of infinite resource. There's no doubt about that, and that's what I'm coming to. You are also resolute in time of trouble, and the two qualities are what I need in the work I am going to send you to do."
Bill Boldwin looked scared. He didn't want to lose his mate. He had simply spoken for me that I might get in the good books of the company, not get away from his ship.
The manager of the Bay Line seemed to be studying some papers upon the desk before him while we two stood respectfully in front as became seamen in the presence of our mighty ruler. Boldwin was keen on lords. I hadn't associated with them to any great extent myself, but I was willing—no matter what might be said about them.
"The Princess Heraldine, our Cape liner, left port August the fifth," said Lord Hawkes. "She had aboard in her safe the famous Solander diamond, a stone nearly as large as the Cullinan and worth something like a round half-million dollars. Also she had about three million more in various stones uncut and consigned to the firm here. In running up the West African coast, she broke her crank shaft and drove it through her bottom, tearing the compartment to pieces, and forcing Captain Sumner to head for Lagos in the hope of beaching her before she sank. He managed to get her into ten fathoms on that low, sandy coast, and she went down about a mile or two offshore.
"All the passengers were saved, but by some oversight the combination of the safe was lost at the time they needed it, owing to the agent, Grimes, being either too frightened or too ill to remember it.
"Captain Sumner—the only other man aboard who knew the combination—was unable to either leave the bridge at the critical moment of her sinking, owing to the necessity of saving the passengers in the small boats, or tell any one before the Heraldine suddenly settled and went down, carrying five of the crew and the entire contents of the safe along with her."
Lord Hawkes looked up at me shrewdly as he finished and gazed into my eyes.