II.

Every man on board the _Oceanus_--sometime a mail-boat to the South African ports--knew that we carried treasure to Europe, but what was the amount of it, or for whom we carried it, our captain, Joey Castle, alone could say. We had been chartered at Sydney for the purpose, being one of the fastest steamers in Southern waters, and we took in the bullion, chiefly in golden ingots, at Lorenzo Marques. Some did say that it was the property of a Dutch bank, which preferred the American flag to the German, for the _Oceanus_ was under American colours, and a handier steamer of her tonnage I never sailed in. Grant you that the crew were a rough lot--niggers and Lascars, Poles and Swedes, with half-a-dozen Christian white men to put currants on your cake. Well, the owners were one of the safest houses in New York, and fat Joey Castle you might have trusted with the Bank of England itself. Not two cents did he care whether he had a hold full of diamonds or of doughnuts.

"I'm going right through, gentlemen," he said to us at dinner the night we sailed, "and if any tin warship threatens me I'll make Europe laugh. Risk! Why, there's twenty times the risk in a roundabout at a fair! Let 'em stop me if they like--I'll put 'em through the goose-step before they've been two minutes aboard, as sure as my name's Joey Castle!"

Well, we didn't think very much about it, but there had been a lot of talk ashore concerning the British Government and how it handled suspicious ships entering or leaving Lorenzo Marques. I myself thought it not unlikely that we should have some trouble. To put it honestly, I didn't take the hook on the end of this Dutch bank line; and I just said to myself that our gold was Government gold, and that if it were found aboard of us all the Stars and Stripes between 'Frisco and Sandy Hook wouldn't be worth a red cent to us. We should have to pay out, and quick about it.

In this view I stood alone, however, and I must say that when we put to sea without let or hindrance, and were steaming next morning due south before a rattling breeze and with a splendid swell under us, I dismissed the subject as readily as the others and considered our port already made. That opinion lasted for ten days. On the eleventh day, at noon, we sighted a British cruiser on our port quarter. Poor old Joey Castle! He didn't say a word about the Stars and Stripes then. His topic concerned the nether regions. You shivered in your boots when he talked to the engineers. I was on the bridge when the nigger Sam cried up his news of the other ship; and while I was spying her through my glass Captain Castle himself came out of the chart-room and asked me what was there.

"Looks like an ugly one, sir," said I; "a cruiser, I should say, of the second class."

He took the glass from my hand--I can see him now, fat and florid, and as plainly anxious at heart as a nervous man could be. I thought then of all his boasts the night we left Lorenzo, and I was really a bit sorry for him.

"Do you think she means mischief, Mr. Lorimer?" he asked, with the glass still to his eye.

I said that he was the best judge of that.

"These dirty Britishers have their finger in every pie," he went on, presently. "Well, we'll make 'em look foolish. What the deuce are they doing in the stokehold? Just let me have a word with Nicolson, will you?"

His "word" was something to hear. A barge-master who had dropped his dinner overboard might have come up to Joey Castle at his best; but I doubt it. He had the ship doing sixteen knots before one bell in the afternoon watch. She was a Belfast-built mail-boat, with boilers and engines not twelve months old, and a better for the purpose we could not have chartered. By three bells it was patent that the cruiser gained nothing on us. Her smoke burned upon a clear horizon, but her stumpy funnel was no longer to be seen. The captain seemed as pleased as a schoolboy who has won a race--he ordered champagne for our mess and he talked as big as he had done when we sailed from Lorenzo.

"Here's to a good pair of heels and hoofs for the Britisher," was his toast. "I'd like to see him stop me, by thunder. There'll be good money for this at Bremerhaven, and more to come afterwards. Fill your glass, Lorimer, and drink to a sharp eye on the next watch. Let him come aboard just for five minutes, and I'll teach him the French language as they speak it out 'Frisco way. It's a wonderful tongue there, Lorimer, a wonderful tongue!"

I did not doubt it. Spoken as Joey Castle speaks it, a harbour-master will take off his hat to you. What I was not so sure of was the Britisher's understanding of it. Many a ship sailing out of Lorenzo had been stopped and searched--so much was common gossip aboard. If the cruiser overhauled us, she would certainly find our million pounds' worth of ingots--marked "fruit" though they might be, kept in the great refrigerator for better security.

Here was something more tangible than Joey Castle's French lingo. I did not know much about international law, but it was in my head that our ship would be sent to a British port and the gold aboard her handed over to the British Government. With the crew, I had a sense of personal honour in the matter. If it had been my ship I would have sunk the _Oceanus_ before I hauled down my colours to any foreigner, let her flag be what it might. But what the captain was going to do I did not know; and thirty-six hours passed before I was any wiser. The afternoon watch taught me little. Now and then I saw the stumpy funnel upon the horizon; at other times there was nothing but the hand's-breadth of smoke to mark the cruiser's course.

On the following day she seemed to be playing a game with us. First she would show herself clear and threatening on the horizon; then we lost her again and were just breathing freely when up she pops, like a squatting hare, and has a good look at us. The see-saw worked on the captain like an overdose of French absinthe. He couldn't rest a minute anywhere. He swore and cursed, prayed and threatened, until I thought the men would mutiny and have done with it. That, however, was to come later on, when the gold fever fairly got hold of them. They were willing enough for the time being.

[Illustration: "HE SWORE AND CURSED, PRAYED AND THREATENED."]

"What do you make of it now, Mr. Lorimer?" says the captain at supper-time. I answered him just as bluntly as he had asked me.

"She's got the legs of you, sir--it seems to me that she's waiting for something or other. Perhaps it's only a watching job," I put it to him.

"I was thinking the same. The little man in the cap waiting for the big man in the cocked hat. Well, I hope he'll keep himself cool. We'll give him a fever draught if he comes aboard. Just pass the whisky, will you?--my head's queer to-night; but there's a good deal in it--a great deal--Lorimer, and it's coming out by-and-by."

I had no doubt of it--he had taken enough whisky that afternoon to start a bar. As for what was in his head, a madder scheme never came to any man whom fear had robbed of nerve and sense.

"If the cocked hat wants to come aboard here, he shall," he said, presently; "that's my notion, Lorimer. Let him come aboard and hear the French lingo. We'll do the honours and then drum him out. You'll be standing by in the launch with as much gold as she'll carry in her coal-holes. The life-boats can take the rest. You and Nicolson and the 'fourth' must take charge of them. I'll pick you up next day and you'll have your compasses. There's not weather enough to hurt a toy yacht, and a night out will do you good. All this, mind you, if he has the heels of us and means to come aboard. But I don't believe he can make sixteen knots, and that's what we're making now."

Well, he chuckled away over this wild notion just as though it had been a sane man's plan; and, fuddled as he was with the whisky, he kept repeating it until I was tired of hearing it. When Billy Frost, our young fourth officer, came down presently to say that the cruiser had picked us up again and was using her search-light, it was a relief to go on deck and tot the position up. My belief all along had been that the cruiser had the legs of us, and what I saw from the bridge confirmed my judgment. She stood now upon our starboard quarter--her search-light ran all over us in silvery waves like water washing down a rock-side. And yet, mind you, she did not challenge us, did not ask us a question; but just followed us, patiently waiting, I did not doubt, for some further instructions to be received in European waters. This doubt and uncertainty plagued our captain to the last point. "They shall come aboard, by Heaven," he said; "ten days more of this would kill me." I knew then how much he had at stake, and that it was no mere captain's wage which had tempted him to carry gold from the Transvaal. He was playing for a bigger sum of money than he had ever played for in all his life, and the game had robbed him of his man's common sense.

The cruiser's search-light contrived for a good hour or more to play all over us like a hose. It made the captain dance, I can tell you; and when they dropped it just upon eight bells in the morning watch, I saw that he had come to a resolution and that nothing would turn him from it.

"We must get the brass overboard, Lorimer," he said; "this crew will turn ugly if the thing goes on. We'll make a beginning with the launch. Take Sam the nigger, Peter Barlow, and young Nicolson the engineer, and bear west for Ascension. I'll make them search us at dawn and turn back for you; keep your bearings as close as you can and take an observation every hour. We should pick you up by noon to-morrow--I'll mark the place on the chart. A cockle-shell could swim in this sea, and the launch will come to no harm. It's a great scheme, man, and there's few would have thought of it."

I tried to argue with him, putting it that, even if the cruiser did search us, she would have no authority to take the gold; moreover, it would be an international question for the two Governments. He wouldn't hear a word of it.

"Let 'em wrangle," he said; "I'll hold the dollars meanwhile. The men will turn on me if I don't. Why, just look at it. They come aboard and find nothing but silver spoons. The report goes in that we are all right, and we steam to Bremerhaven without let or hindrance. It's mighty, man, just mighty; and I'll not be turned from it."

So he had his way. The cruiser fell back at the dark hour before the dawn, and we began to get the ingots of gold into the launch. This was one of Simpson's larger boats, carried by us especially to transport bullion expeditiously--part of the whole affair planned out from the beginning. Willing hands passed up the golden bars--we packed a fortune on the deck, and the men stood round about shivering with greed of the treasure. Let the scheme be mad or sane, I had to go through with it then; and I own up to a better opinion of it as the time went on. Nothing could be easier to a trained seaman than to keep such a course as the captain laid down for us. We had compasses, sextants, and our navigation books. There was not wind enough to shake a judge's wig nor any omen of bad weather. Let us get away under cover of the darkness, and the rest would be child's play. The "if" was a big one. The light might strike upon us at any instant. I went about the deck with my heart in my mouth. Sometimes I covered my eyes with my arm, fearing to find the bright beams upon me. It was all or nothing--an hour's grace or a million sterling on board the British ship.

Well, we lowered the launch with her heavy cargo of ingots--as many of them as we dared to put into her--and getting her away under shelter of the steamer we headed due west toward Ascension Isle. True, there was an ugly red glimmer from our funnel, but the furnace was under a half-deck, and our memory didn't run to lights, be sure of it. I had Sam the nigger with me, together with Nicolson the young engineer, and Peter Barlow for quarter-master; these were the hands named for my crew; and I was not a little astonished when we were well away from the steamer's side to hear the loud voice of Mike the Irishman--a lazy rogue I would gladly have left behind me.

[Illustration: "THE BLINDING LIGHT SWEPT OVER THEM."]

"Why, Mike," cries I, "and how did you get here?"

"Please, your honour, I just dropped in," says he.

"Then, if I had a rope's end, I'd make you drop out again!" says I.

"Aye, but, your honour," says he, "when was the Irishman born that had any liking for the water? Sure, I always loved ye from the first day I clapped these blessed eyes upon ye! 'I'll go aboard to take care of him,' says I, 'for I feel like his own mother's son!'"

There was no time to argue with him. What with getting the launch away neatly, and being mortal afraid to find myself any minute in the path of the cruiser's search-light, I had too much to do to begin with a hullabaloo--and for that matter the situation was not one to set a man against companionship. There we were, the five of us, in a boat not built for ocean seas, running like a good one away from the ship that should have carried us to Europe and our homes. Let the search-light be clapped upon us, and the gold would be aboard the British cruiser within an hour. Or, in another case and a harder one, let the wind blow, and what then? The gold weighed us down as it was, until even gentle seas splashed us as we lifted to them. A hatful of wind would sink us; a shoreman would have known that. I believed that it was the spin of a coin anyway; and just as I was saying it the cruiser showed her light again, and a great white arc fixed itself upon the distant steamer like a mighty river of molten radiance flowing out upon a darkened sea.

"Look at that for a lantern now," says Mike the Irishman, cowering before it. "'Twould see ye home from a waking, and no mistake about it. Just douk your head, sir, if you please. 'Twould be as well not to be on speaking terms with them when next ye meet."

I smiled at his notion that any amount of "douking" would save us from the cruiser's light, but instinctively I crouched down with the others. To me it seemed impossible that any freak of fortune could hide us from the cruiser's observation. There we were in the still sea, a black speck, no doubt, but one that a clever eye on a warship's bridge would never fail to spy out. Our own steamer, the _Oceanus_, was running north as fast as honest engines could drive her. She, too, appeared now to be just a shimmer of dancing lights--the captain showed every lantern he had got to divert the chase from the launch, and here he succeeded only too well.

Though it was all Lombard Street to a china orange that the cruiser marked us, she held on obstinately after the bigger game. Perhaps she believed that it was all a sham and that we had put off to make a fool of her. I never learned; but I could scarcely believe my eyes when the blinding light swept over them and still nothing happened. Were they all daft aboard her? It was really incredible.

"The admiral's having his hair cut, I suppose," said Barlow the quarter-master, who watched the affair with me from a seat aft. "He's telling 'em to keep it short in the neck, sir--some day a dog will be leading him at the end of a string. Well, I don't make no complaint about that."

"Better not, my man," said I, "if you wish to see the _Oceanus_ again."

"Oh, as to that, we're well enough off here, sir," he said, turning away his eyes from me; "though if we never saw Captain Castle again, I reckon we'd have meat and drink for the rest of our lives."

I looked at him sharply; he coughed and glanced down at the compass. This was the first time I quite understood how well the hands were acquainted with the cargo and its owners. The danger of the knowledge could not be hidden from me. Even the nigger Sam, with his blinking green eyes, ate up every word of our talk and smacked his lips over it.

"You buy barrel of rum and no mistake, sar," he chimed in, unasked. "You change your Sunday shirt on Monday and blarm the expense. We all very rich gentlemen, surely."

I turned it with a laugh, though I was well aware of the reservation behind it. Happily, but for a bottle of brandy of my own, there was no drink on the launch. I had a revolver in my pistol-pocket, and I said that at the worst, which was then but a suspicion, I could keep both the nigger and Peter in order. Mike the Irishman might go any way; but Nicolson, the young engineer, could certainly be counted upon. To him I said a word when two of the hands had been ordered to turn in. His answer was reassuring, but more ambiguous than I liked.

"Oh," he said, "anything to help the Dutchmen. They'll miss this odd lot if we lose it--and, of course, we're all honest, Lorimer. Don't you be uneasy. I've no fancy for gilded firesides myself; besides," he added, "if we took our oaths that we had to jettison it, who'd believe us? Better go straight under the circumstances."

I replied that there were no circumstances possible to make common rogues of us, and his cheery assent did much to deceive me. Counting upon him entirely, I let the launch simply drift while he lay down for a couple of hours' sleep, and afterwards I wrapped myself up in a blanket and managed to get some rest. When I awoke it was broad daylight. An immensely round sun fired the placid water with sheets of crimson splendour; the air came heavy from the Equator; a burning, intolerable day seemed before us. Restless and anxious already to be sure of our bearings, that the _Oceanus_ might find us at noon, I bustled up almost as soon as I was awake; but the first thing I saw took my breath away, and I just stood like a man in a wonder-world to watch it. There amidships, in the well where the money was stored, Sam the nigger, Mike the Irishman, and Nicolson the engineer were grouped about a box of golden ingots, and so transported with the sight of them that they scarcely heard me. One by one they had laid out those shimmering yellow bars, each a fortune to such men; and they watched the sunlight glittering upon them, and caressed them with gentle hands and feasted their eyes upon them. When I appeared, no man budged from his place or seemed in any way abashed. Evidently they were all agreed upon a purpose, and this Nicolson made known to me.

"Yes," he said, coolly; "we're counting up the dollars, old chap--divide on shore, you know--fair and square. Come, don't look blue. The Dutchman won't miss them, and old Joey's made his own bargain. We can rig up a tale between us and buy the crowd at Ascension--good joke, isn't it, Lorimer?"

"Why, yes," said I; "but, as my port's not Ascension, I don't quite see the point of it. Come, Nicolson, don't be a fool. Just put that lid on and help me to go over the chart. We mustn't keep the captain waiting--you know what he is."

Very lazily, I thought, he put the lid on the box of ingots, and, laughing at the others, he came aft with me. When I took up the chart to make a dead reckoning by the help of his own calculations during my watch off, he laughed again in his peculiar way. "It's all right," he said; "due west for Ascension, as you wished."

"Nicolson," I said, quietly, "you've been playing a fool's game; what does it mean?"

He sat on the gunnel and looked me full in the face.

"Means that our port is Ascension," he said.

I kept my temper.

"Nicolson," I said, "do you wish me to think you a scoundrel?"

"Think what you like; there are four in this launch who don't mean Joey Castle to touch these dollars again."

I turned away from him, wrestling with my temper.

"'Bout ship!" I cried. Barlow took no notice whatsoever. Then my hand went to my pistol-pocket and I knew the worst. They had taken the revolver while I slept. I was one against four, and the launch was running over a calm sea to Ascension Isle and the discovery which inevitably awaited us there.