When I descended to details, it was my turn to watch him. The cigar he was chewing was a complete indicator of his frame of mind. As I spoke of half a dozen resolute men with revolvers, it rose to the horizontal; when I mentioned the steam-yacht and a bolt for the harbor, it drooped like a trailed stick; while, as I sketched our rapid flight to the Greek Archipelago and division of the spoil, it stuck up like a peacock’s tail, a true standard of revolt against the narrowness and timidity of our modern life.
The American mind works so quickly I was not at all surprised when Mr. Brentin suddenly sat up, took the cigar out of his mouth, and hurled it to the other end of the smoking-room.
Bravo! for I knew it signified away with prejudice, away with conventionality, away, above all, with fear! It was a silent, triumphant “Jacta est alea, Rubicon transibimus!”
Then he turned to me.
“Mr. Blacker,” he excitedly whispered, “by the particular disposition of Providence there is a party now lying up-stairs, ay titled gentleman with an enlarged liver, the fruit of some years spent in your colonial service, who owns and desires to part with one, at all events, of the instruments of this enterprise of ours.”
“The yacht?”
“The steam-yacht, sir. It is called the Amaranth, and lies at this moment at Ryde.”
“What is the owner’s name?”
“He was good enough to introdooce himself to me one afternoon last week in the parlor as Sir Anthony Hipkins.”
“Hipkins? That doesn’t sound right.”