"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.