“Then it would be some time before they could be mustered.”
“Besides,” Mr. Brentin dryly observed, “they are not likely to be of much use unless they can swim. We propose to escape on board the Amaranth.”
“That’s your best chance, gentlemen,” said Mr. Thompson—“in fact, your only practicable one.”
“And you think six of us are enough for the business?” asked Masters.
“You will be the best judges of that, perhaps, when you see the place. My own feeling is that, to make it all perfectly safe, you should be at least a dozen.”
“If necessary,” said Mr. Brentin, “we can always impress half a dozen of our crew. Nothing like a jolly Jack-tar for a job of this kind.”
“If you do,” smiled Bailey Thompson, “you will have to fig them out in what they call tenue de ville convenable. They won’t let them into the rooms in their common sailor dress. Why, gentlemen, they refused me admission once because my boots were dusty. Clean hands don’t so much matter,” he added, in his sly fashion.
Then he rose and remarked, “I must now be returning to Wharton; my poor old friend Crage is in low spirits, and I have undertaken not to be more than half an hour away from him. If there is any further information wanted, however—”
“Just this,” said Hines; “taking it at its worst, and supposing we are all, or any of us, captured, what do you imagine will be our fate?”
Mr. Thompson shrugged his shoulders. “You will be treated with every courtesy; you will undoubtedly be tried, but—if only from the fact of your failing—you will, I should think, be let off easily. If you succeed, and all of you get clear away, I do not imagine there will be any serious pursuit, for policy will close the authorities’ mouth; they will not care to advertise to the world how easily the place can be looted. In fact, from what I know of them, they will most likely take particular pains to deny it has ever been done at all. You see, gentlemen, the entire Continental press is in their pay.”