Then, with a jump he was on his feet, and trembling violently. Another old friend was in his neighborhood—a steamer. Her masthead light had just twinkled into view. He got up and began walking nervously toward her along the hard, white sands. He saw her first in the northwest, coming from some port in the Bight of Biafra probably, and the odds were she was heading south along the Coast.

Presently he picked up her red port light. Yes, he admitted to himself with a sigh, she was making for one of the ports to southward, for Sette Camma perhaps, or Loango, or Landana, or Kabenda, and he calmed himself down with the discovery. Had she been heading north, he had it in him to have swum out to her through the surf and the sharks, and chanced being picked up. He was sick of this savage Africa which lay behind him. The sight of those two lights, the bright white, and the duller red, let him know how ravenous was his hunger to see once more a white man and a white man's ship, and to feel the sway of a deck, and to smell the smells of oil, and paint, and Christian cookery, from which he had been for such a weary tale of days divorced.

The steamer drew on till she came a-beam, and the red port light was eclipsed, and "carrying no stern light," was Captain Kettle's comment. There was a small glow from her deck and two or three of her ports were lit, but for the most part she crept along as a mysterious black ship voyaging into a region of blackness. It was too dark to make out more than her bare existence, but Kettle took a squint at the Southern Cross, which hung low in the sky like an ill-made kite, to get her bearings, and so made note of her course, and from that tried to deduce her nationality.

From the way she was steering he reckoned she came from Batanga or Cameroons, which are in German territory, and so set her down as sailing originally from Marseilles or Hamburg, and anyway decided that she was not one of the Liverpool boats which carry all the West Coast trade to England. But as he watched, she seemed to slew out of her course. She lengthened out before him across the night, as her bows sheered in toward the land, till he saw her broadside on, and then she hung motionless as a black blot against the greater blackness beyond.

Captain Kettle summed the situation: "Rounded up and come to an anchor. There'll be a factory somewhere on the beach there. But I don't know, though. That one-eyed head-man said nothing about a factory, and if there was one, why doesn't she whistle to raise 'em up so's they'd be ready to bring off their bit o' trade in the surf-boats when day breaks?"

A cloud slid away in the sky, and the moon shone out like the suddenly opened bulb of a dark lantern. The oily surface of the sea flashed up into sight, and on it sat the steamer—a picture in black and silver. She lay there motionless as the trees on the beach, and the reason for her state was clear. Her forefoot soared stiffly aloft till it was almost clear of the water; her stern was depressed; her decks listed to port till it was an acrobatic feat to make passageway along them.

Captain Kettle whistled to himself long and dismally. "Piled her up," he muttered, "that's what her old man has done. Hit a half-ebb reef, and fairly taken root there. He's not shoved on his engines astern either, and that means she's ripped away half her bottom, and he thinks she'll founder in deep water if he backs her off the ground." A tiny spit of flame, pale against the moonlight, jerked out from under the awnings of the steamer's upper bridge. The noise of the shot came some time afterward, no louder than the cracking of a knuckle. "By James! somebody's getting his gun into use pretty quick. Well, it's some one else's trouble, and not mine, and I guess I'm going to stay on the beach, and watch, and not meddle." He frowned angrily as though some one had made a suggestion to him. "No, by James! I'm not one of those that seeks trouble unnecessarily."

But all the same he walked off briskly along the sand, keeping his eyes fixed on the stranded steamer. That some sort of a scuffle was going on aboard of her was clear from the shouts and the occasional pistol shots, which became louder as he drew more near; and Captain Kettle, connoisseur as he was of differences of this sort on the high seas, became instinctively more and more interested. And at last when he came to a small canoe drawn up on the beach above high-water mark, he paused beside it with a mind loaded with temptation as deep as it would carry.

The canoe was a dug-out, a thing of light cotton-wood, with washboards forward to carry it through a surf. A couple of paddles and a calabash formed its furniture, and its owner probably lived in the village where he had sung for his dinner over-night. Of course, to borrow her—merely to borrow her, of course—without permission was—

Another splatter of pistol shots came from the steamer, and a yelping of negro voices. Captain Kettle hesitated no longer. He laid hands on the canoe's gunwale, and ran her down into the edge of the surf. He had barely patience to wait for a smooth, but, after three rollers had roared themselves into yeast and quietude, he ran his little craft out till the water was arm-pit deep, and then scrambled on board and paddled furiously.

But it is not given to the European to equal the skill of the black on African surf beaches, and, as might be expected, the next roller that swooped in overended the canoe, and sent it spinning like a toy through the broken water. But Captain Kettle had gained some way; and if he could not paddle the little craft to sea, he could at least swim her out; and this he proceeded to do. He was as handy as an otter in the water, and besides, there was something here which was dragging him to seaward very strongly. His soul lusted for touch with a steamer again with a fierceness which he did not own even to himself. Even a wrecked steamer was a thing of kinship to him then.

He swam the dug-out through the last drench and backtow of the surf, rocked her clear from part of her watery load, and then, with a feeling of relief, clambered gingerly on board and baled the rest over the gunwale with his hands. It is not good to stay over-long in these seas which fringe the West African beaches, by reason of the ground shark which makes them his hunting-ground. And then he manned the paddle, knelt in the stern, and went the shortest way to the steamer which perched on the rock.

The moon was still riding in the sky, but burnt with a pale light now, as dawn had jumped up from behind the shore forests. All things were shown clearly. Among other matters, Kettle noted from trifles in her garnishing, which read clear as print to a seaman's eye, that the steamer was not French or German as he had guessed before, but hailed from his own native islands. Moreover, her funnel told him that she was not one of the two regular lines from Liverpool, which do all the commerce of the coast. But he had no time for fresh speculations just then as to her business. The scuffling on board had been growing more and more serious, and it was clear that the blacks of her complement were giving the whites more than they cared about.

Kettle knew enough of the custom of the Coast to be able to sum the situation. "Her Krooboys have broken out of hand," he commented. "That's what's the trouble. You come down here from England with just enough white men to handle your vessel to Sierra Leone, and then you ship Krooboys to work cargo and surf-boats, and do everything except steer, and as long as nothing happens, your Krooboy is a first-class hand. Two cupfuls of rice and a bit offish is all the grub he wants; he'll work sixteen hours a day without a grunt; and he'll handle a winch or a steam crane with any Geordie donkey-man that has been grounded in the shops. But just put your steamboat on the ground where he thinks she can't get off, and there's a different tune to play. He's got a notion that the ship's his, and the cargo's his, to loot as he likes, and if he doesn't get 'em both, he's equal to making trouble. Seems to me he's making bad trouble now."

By this time it was plain that the black men had got entire possession of the lower parts of the ship. The small handful of whites were on the top of the fiddley, and while most were fighting to keep the Africans back, a couple were frenziedly working to get a pair of davits swung outboard, and a lifeboat which hung from them lowered into the water. It was clear they had given up all hope of standing by the ship; and presently they got the boat afloat, and slid down to her in hurried clusters by the davit falls, and then unhooked and rowed away from the steamer's side in a skelter of haste. Coals and any other missile that came handy were showered upon them by the Krooboys who manned the rail, to which they replied with a few vicious revolver shots; and then the boat drew out of range.

Captain Kettle, in his clumsy canoe, paddled up close to her and nodded, and gave the boat's people a "good-morning." The greeting was quaintly enough out of place, but nobody seemed to notice that. Each party was too occupied in staring at the other. Those in the lifeboat saw a little lean European, naked to the waist, clad only in a turban and native cloth, and evidently (from the color of his skin) long inured to that state. Kettle saw a huddle of fugitives, all of them scared, and many of them bloody with wounds.

The man who was steering the white boat, the steamer's mate he was, according to the gold lace on his cuff, spoke first.

"Well," he said, "you're a funny enough looking beachcomber. What do you want, anyway?"

Captain Kettle felt himself to redden all over under the tan of his skin. Neatness in clothes was always a strong point with him, and he resented the barbarism of his present get-up acutely. "If I wanted a job at teaching manners, I could find one in your boat, that's certain," was his prompt retort. "And when I'd finished with that, I could give some of you a lesson in pluck without much harm being done. I wonder if you call yourselves white men to let a crowd of niggers clear you out of your ship like that?"

"Now, look here, Robinson Crusoe," said the man at the steering oar, "our tempers are all filed up on the raw edge just now, and if you give much lip, this boat will be rowed over the top of your Noah's ark before you know what's hit it. You paddle back to your squaw and piccaninnies on the beach, Robinson, and don't you come out here to mock your betters when they're down on their luck. We've nothing to give you except ugly words, and you'll get them cheap."

"Well, Mr. Mate," said Kettle, "I haven't heard white man's English for a year, but if you can teach me anything new, I'm here to learn. I've come across most kinds of failure in my time, but a white man who lets himself be kicked off his ship by a parcel of Krooboys, and who disgraces Great Britain by being a blooming Englishman, is a specimen that's new to me. But perhaps I'm making a mistake? Perhaps you're a Dutchman or a Dago that's learnt the language? Or perhaps, to judge from that cauliflower nose of yours, you're something that's escaped out of a freak museum? You haven't a photo about you by any chance? I'd like to send one home to South Shields. My Missis is a great hand at collecting curiosities which you only see in foreign parts."

The mate bent on the steering gear with sudden violence, turned the lifeboat's head with a swirl, and began sculling her toward the canoe. But a tall, thin man sitting beside him in the stern-sheets said something to him in an undertone, and the Mate reluctantly let the oar drag limp in the water, and sat himself down, and ostentatiously made ready to roll a cigarette.

"Now, look here," said the tall man, "I don't suppose you want to quarrel."

"I've been in quarrels before for the sheer fun of the thing," said Kettle, who was determined that at any rate no apology should come from his side.

"So have I," said the tall man, "but I've no time for empty amusement just now. I'm down here on business. I'm trying to start a new steamer line to work this Coast and get away the monopoly from the other companies. That boat stuck yonder—the Indian Sheriff she's called—is my venture, and she represents about all I've got, and she isn't underwritten for a sixpence. I've been going nap or nothing on this scheme, and at present it looks uncommon like nothing. What I'm anxious about now, is to see if I can't make some arrangement for salvage."

"I can understand it would be useful to you."

"It might be useful to others besides me. Now, there's you, for instance. I dare say you've got a nice little establishment ashore, and some simple comforts, and a bit of influence in your village. But you spoke about your wife at home in South Shields just now, and I make no doubt that if you'd got a tidy sum of money in your pocket you'd be as pleased as not to get home to her again?"

Captain Kettle was on the point of breaking out into explanations and disavowals, but a thought came to him, and he refrained.

"Well," he said, "I'm waiting to hear your offer."

"Here it is, then. You go ashore now, raise your village, bring off every nigger you can scare up, swamp the Krooboys on that steamboat and keep her from being looted, and I solemnly promise you 25 per cent. of her value and the value of what she has in her."

"Yes," said Kettle thoughtfully. "That's a square enough offer, and it's made before witnesses, and I believe the courts would make you stick to it."

"Ho!" grunted the Mate, "Robinson's a sea lawyer, is he? Courts, he talks about."

Kettle ignored the suggestion. "Should I know your name, sir?" he asked of the tall man.

"I'm Nicholson Sheriff. If you know Liverpool, you'll have heard of me."

"You were with Kevendales?"

"That's me. I left there two years ago, to start on my own."

"H'm," said the little sailor in the canoe. "I was master of one of Kevendale's ships once. It was me that had misfortune with the Armenia."

"By gum! are you Captain Kettle that piled up the old Atrocity on that iceberg? I'm sorry to see you come down to this, Captain."

"Captain Kettle," said the sulky Mate, "that was in the Congo Pilot Service?"

"Yes," said Kettle.

"Then, Captain," said the Mate, "I take back what I said about you being Robinson Crusoe. You may have met with misfortune, but, by the Lord, you're a man all the way through. You've made the ports down there on the Congo just ring with the way you kept your end up with those beastly Belgians. And now when any Englishman goes ashore at Boma or Matadi or any place on the river, they're fit to eat him."

The compliment had its doubtful side, but Kettle bowed with pleasure. "Mr. Mate," he said, "I should have been more polite to you. I forgot you were a man who had just come through an anxious time."

"Anxious time! My holy grandmother! You should have just seen. It was my watch below when she took the ground, and I give you my word for it, there's deep water marked in the chart where she struck. Third mate had the bridge, and he rang for engines hard astern. Nothing happened. From the first moment she hit, the Krooboys got the notion she was their ship by all the rules of the Coast, and they played up to that tune like men. They bashed in the heads of the two engineers who tried to handle the reversing gear, and fairly took the ship below; and when the old man came out in his pyjamas and started his fancy shooting on deck, they just ran in on him and pulled him into kybobs.

"The second mate pegged out a week ago with black-water fever. So there was only me and Mr. Sheriff here, and the third left that were worth counting." He wagged a stubby finger contemptuously at the rest of his boat's crew. "Half this crowd don't know enough English to take a wheel, and the rest of them come from happy Dutchland, where they don't make soldiers, bless their silly eyes. I can tell you I'm not feeling sweet about it myself. I left a bran new suit of clothes and an Accra finger-ring on that blame' ship."

"Well, never mind the rest of the tale now," said Sheriff. "Here we are kicked overboard, and glad enough to save our bare skins, I'll own. We won't go into the question of manning British ships with foreigners just now. What's interesting me is the fact that those Krooboys have got hatches off already, and are standing by the cranes and winches. I've seen them work cargo before all up and down the coast, and know the pace they can put into it, and if we don't move quick they'll scoff that ship clear down to the ceilings of her holds." A winch chain rattled, and a sling load of cloth bales swung up to one of her derrick sheaves. "My faith, look at that! They've begun to broach cargo by now, and there are some of the beggars setting to lower the surf-boats to ferry it on to the beach."

The Mate rapped out sulphurous wishes for the Krooboys' future state.

"Yes, yes," said Sheriff, "but we're wasting time. Come now, Captain, you heard my offer, and you seemed to like it. I'm waiting for you to fill your part of the bargain. Away with you ashore, and bring off your army and take possession."

"I'm afraid, sir," said Kettle honestly, "you've been taking a little too much for granted. I've got no establishment ashore. I'm just what you see—a common tramp, or worse, seeing that I've been play-acting for my dinners of late. And as for any help those niggers ashore could give, why, I shouldn't recommend it. The one-eyed old son of a dog who's head-man, has served on ships according to his own telling, and he'll have the same notions about loot as your own Krooboys. The Coast nigger hereabouts has got a fancy that any ship on the beach is cumshaw for himself, and you'll not knock it out of him without some hard teaching. No, Mr. Sheriff, to call in that one-eyed head-man and his friends—who it makes me hot to think I had to sing and dance to not six hours back—would only pile up the work ahead of us. Much best tackle the ship as she is."

"What!" said Sheriff. "Do you mean to say we can retake her? You don't know what those boys are like. I tell you they were fair demons when we left, and they'll be worse now, because they are certain to have got liquor inside them by this. It's not a bit of use your counting on these deckhands and stokers in the boat. They're not a penn'oth of use, the whole lot of them."

"Well," said Kettle diffidently, "I'd got my eye on that packet of cartridge beside you on the thwart. If they were four-fiftys—"

"They are—let's look—four—five—nought. Yes, well?"

Captain Kettle pulled a well-cleaned revolver out of his waist-cloth. "I've carried this empty for a whole year now, sir, but I don't think I've forgot my shooting."

"I can speak here," said the Mate. "I've heard of his usefulness that way on the Congo. When Captain Kettle lets off his gun, Mr. Sheriff, it's a funeral. By gum, if he's a way of getting the ship again, I'm on for helping. Look! There's that steward's boy, Tins, going into my room this minute. I've a suit of clothes there that have never been put on, and he'll have them for a cert if we don't look quick."

"Now then, Captain," said Sheriff, "if there's anything going to be done, get a move on you."

Kettle paddled the dug-out alongside, and stepped into the lifeboat. His eye glittered as he tore open the wrapping of the cartridges and reloaded his revolver. It was long since he had known the complacent feel of the armed man.

"Now," he said, "there's one more thing. I'm not in uniform, but I hold a master's ticket, and I've got to be skipper."

"You can take the berth for me," said the Mate. "I'll say outright it's a lot above my weight."

"And I've offered it to you already," said Sheriff. "Go on, man, and give your orders."

Captain Kettle's first desire was to get back to the steamer whence the boat had come, and this the mixed crew of foreigners at the oars had scruples about carrying out. But Kettle and the Mate got furiously at work on them with their hands, and in less than a minute the men were doing as they were bidden, except, that is, a trio who were too badly wounded to sit up, and who were allowed to wallow on the floor gratings.

The Mate straddled in the stern and steered her with an oar, and the white painted boat pulled heavily toward the stranded vessel. The Krooboys in possession were quick to see her coming. A mob of them gathered on the bridge deck, gibbering and shouting, and threatening with their hands; and even before the boat drew within range, they commenced a vigorous fusilade of coal lumps. Kettle had all a cleanly man's dislike for these dirty missiles, and he halted the boat just beyond the limit of their fire, and stood up himself, and sighted the revolver over the crook of his left elbow.

He dropped one man, and the others raged at him. He dropped a second, and still with an impotent courage they stood their ground. He brought a third shrieking to the deck, and then, and not before, did the others turn to run, and he shot a fourth to hurry their going. Then he turned to the rowers in the lifeboat. "Give way, you thieves," he shouted at them; "set me aboard whilst the coast is clear.—Mr. Mate, round her up under those davit tackles."

Again the Krooboys tried to prevent the boarding, but again the fire of that terrible revolver drove them yelping to shelter, and the boat drew up with a bump and a swirl under the dangling ropes. Kettle clambered forward along the thwarts, and swarmed up one fall with a monkey's quickness, and the Mate, a man of wooden courage, raced him up the other. Sheriff could not climb; they had to haul him up the ship's side by brute force in a bowline; and providentially they were allowed to do this uninterrupted. The foreign crew of the lifeboat, limp with scare, would have been mere slaughter-pigs on board even if they could have been lured there, which was improbable, and so they were bidden to haul off out of shot, and wait till they were needed.

Now there was no question here of risking a hand-to-hand encounter. The Krooboys on board mustered quite fifty head, and most of them were men of enormous physical strength. So the three invaders went into the chart-house, from the ports of which they could command the bridge deck and the main fore deck, and shot the door-bolts by way of making themselves secure. The walls were of iron, and the roof was of iron; the place was a perfect stronghold in its way; and as there was no chance of its being stormed without due notice, they tacitly called a halt to recover breath.

"Here," said Sheriff, "is the poor old skipper's whisky. I guess a second mate's nip all round will do us no harm."

"Here," said Kettle, "are the old man's Canary cigars, nice and black and flavory, and I guess one of them's more in my line, sir, thanking you all the same. I haven't come across a Christian smoke for more dreary months than I care to think about."

The Mate was peering through one of the forward ports. "There's the door of my room wide open," he grunted. "I bet those new clothes of mine are gone. They're just the thing to take a nigger's eye—good thick blue broadcloth."

Captain Kettle wiped the perspiration from his forehead with a bare, sinewy arm. "Now," he said, "enough time's been wasted. We must keep those toughs on the move, or they'll find leisure to think, and be starting some fresh wickedness."

"If we go out of this chart-house," said Sheriff doubtfully, "they'll swamp us by sheer weight. You must remember we've only got two pistols, yours and mine. The poor old skipper's is lost."

"I'm going to try what a little quiet talking-to will do first, sir. I used to be a bit useful with my tongue, if I haven't lost the trick. But before that, I'm going to borrow this white drill coat and pants of your late old man's, if you don't mind. You'd hardly think it, sir, if you knew the trials I've gone through in that beastly Africa, but I believe it's the want of a decent pair of trousers that's hurt me more than anything."

Captain Kettle dressed himself with care, and put on a white-covered uniform cap; and then, happening to see a pair of scissors, he took them up and trimmed his beard before the glass. Sheriff looked on at these preparations with fidgeting impatience, and from without there was a clamor of negro voices taking counsel. But the little sailor was not to be hurried. He went through his toilet with solemn deliberation, and then he opened the chart-house door and went out beneath the baking sunshine of the bridge-deck beyond.

A cluster of Krooboys stood at the further end of it, cackling with talk, and at sight of him they called their friends on the main deck below, who began to come up as fast as they could get foot on the ladders. They showed inclinations for a rush, but Kettle held up his left hand for them to keep back, and they obeyed the order. They saw that vicious revolver gripped in his right fingers, and they respected its powers.

He addressed them with a fine fluency of language. He had a good command of sailor's English, and also of Coast English, both of which are specially designed for forcible comment; and he knew, moreover, scraps from a score of native dialects, which, having Arabic for a groundwork, are especially rich in those parts of speech-which have the highest vituperative value. The black man is proverbially tough, and a whip, moral or physical, which will cut the most hardened of whites to ribbons, will leave him unmoved. An artist in words may rail at him for an hour without making him flicker an eyelash, or a Yankee mate might hammer him with a packing-case lid (always supposing there was no nail in it) for a like period without jolting from him so much as a cry or a groan. And so I think it speaks highly for Captain Kettle's powers when, at the end of three minutes' talk, he caused many of those Krooboys to visibly wince.

You cannot touch a Krooboy's feelings by referring insultingly to his mother, because he has probably very dim recollections of the lady; you can not rile him by gibing comments on his personal appearance; but still there are ways of getting home to him, and Kettle knew the secret. "You make fight-palaver," he said, "you steal, you take ship, you drink cargo gin, and you think your ju-ju fine ju-ju. But my ju-ju too-plenty-much better, and I fit for show it you again if dis steal-palaver no stop one-time."

They began to move threateningly toward him. "Very well," he said, "then I tell you straight; you no fit to be called black boys. You bushmen. Bah! you be bushmen."

The maddened Krooboys ran in, and the wicked revolver spoke out, and then Kettle nipped into the deck-house and slammed the door to on his heels. The black ape-like faces jabbered and mowed at the window ports, and brawny arms were thrust in, grappling viciously, but the Mate drew out camp-stools from a locker, and with these the three white men stabbed and hit at every face or arm which showed itself. There was no more shooting, and there was no need for it. By sheer weight of blows the whites kept the enemy from climbing through the windows, and so long as the windows were not stormed, the iron house was safe to them. And presently one of the head-men blew his boatswain's whistle, and the attack drew off.

Promptly Kettle reloaded his revolver and stepped out into the open. "Now," he said, "you seen my ju-ju? You savvy him too-big ju-ju? You want any more of it? No. Then get away aft with you. You hear? You lib for bottom deck back there, one-time." He rushed at them, one slight, slim, white-clad white man against all that reeking, shining mob, and they struggled away before him in grotesque tumblings and jostlings, like a flock of sheep.

But at the break of the deck he paused and looked below him, and the fight all dropped away from his face. No. 3 hatch lay open before him, with the covers thrown here and there. From it was creeping up a thin blue smoke, with now and then a scarlet trail of flame. Here was a complication.

"So you gluttonous, careless brutes have set fire to her, have you? Here, who was in the engine room?"

Discipline was coming back. A man in black trousers, with a clout round his neck, stepped out.

"You? Well, slip below, and turn steam into the donkey."

"Steam no lib, sar. Cranes die when we try to work him just now."

"Oh, you holy crowd of savages! Well, if we can't use the hose, you must hand buckets—and sharp, too. That fire's gaining. Now then, head-men, step out."

"I second head-man, sar."

"I head-man, sar."

"Get buckets, tubs, tins—anything that'll hold water, and look sharp. If you boys work well now, I'll overlook a lot that's been done. If you don't, I'll give you fits. Try and get below, some of you, and pull away what's burning. Probably you'll find some of your dear relations down there, drunk on gin and smoking pipes. You may knock them on the head if you like, and want to do a bit more murder. They deserve it."

But though half a dozen of the Krooboys, who were now thoroughly tamed, tried to get down the hatch, the fire was too strong for them. Even the water when it came did little to check the burning, for though it sent up great billows of steam, the flames shot out fiercer and higher every moment. In that sweltering climate it does not take very much inducement to make a fire settle down thoroughly to work, once it gets anything like a tolerable start.

To add to the trouble, news of the wreck had been carried to the village behind the beach where Captain Kettle had sung for his lodging over-night, and the one-eyed head-man there and his friends were coming off to share in the spoil as fast as canoes could bring them. They, too, would have their theories as to the ownership of wrecked cargoes on the West African Coast, and as they were possessed of trade guns, they were not like to forego what they considered their just rights without further fighting.

But as it happened, a period was put to the scene on the steamer with considerable suddenness. Sheriff, who had been making sure that there were no Krooboys lurking forward who could take them from the rear, came up and looked upon the fire with a blanched face. "Excuse me, Skipper," he said, and turned and bawled for the lifeboat to come alongside.

"No hurry for that yet," said Kettle, angrily. "Don't scare the men, sir. And don't you give orders without my sanction. You made me Captain here, and, by James! Captain I'll be. We're handicapped for want of the hose, but we're going to try and get this fire under without. Anyway, there's no question of leaving the ship yet."

"Good God, man, don't niggle about that now. I know what I'm saying. There's eight tons of powder in that hold."

"And we may be blown up against the sky as a thin kind of rain any minute? Well, sir, you're owner, and as you seem to have acted as purser on board, you ought to know. But hadn't we better ask the Mate for his cargo-book first, so as to make sure?"

He turned and looked, but Sheriff had gone, and was sliding down into the lifeboat which had come alongside. "Well, I don't like leaving the ship, and I suppose for that matter he wouldn't either, being owner, and being uninsured. But as Mr. Sheriff's gone in such a blazing hurry, it's probably time for me to go too, if I'm to land home any time in South Shields again." He hailed the lower deck with a sharp order. "You boys, there, knock off. Knock off work, I say, and throw down your buckets. There's powder stowed down below, and it'll be going off directly. Gunpowder, you savvy, shoot-powder, go fizz—boosh—bang!"

There was a sharp clatter of understanding and explanation, but no movement. The African is not great at making deductions. Captain Kettle had to give a definite order. "Now, overboard with you, all hands, and lib for beach. No time for lower boats. You all fit for swim."

They took the hint, and began leaping the bulwark rail like a swarm of black frogs. "Good-by, boys," he said, in valediction. "You'll find it cheaper to be good and virtuous next time. You haven't stay enough in you for a real good fight." And then he went to where the davits dangled over the water, and slid down to the boat, while the frightened crew cursed him aloud for keeping them waiting.

Not much was said as they rowed away. The all-nation rowers were openly terrified; the Mate had all his attention used up in steering to a hair; and Sheriff sat with his shoulders humped beside his ears in the position of a man who expects a blow. Captain Kettle held his peace. He knew that mere words could not urge the sweating crew to heavier effort, and he puffed at his treasured cigar as any smoker would who had been divorced from tobacco for so many a month, and does not know when he will meet with his next indulgence.

And in due time the powder was fired, and the steamer was turned into a vast volcano of steam and smoke and flame, which vomited iron and human limbs, and which sent forth an air blast which drove the boat before it like the hurricane of a tornado. And then the debris from the sky foamed down into the water, and then there was a long, long silence. Save for some inconsiderable flotsam, the steamer and all that was in her had vanished eternally. The canoes from the village were paddling for the beach again. They were alone on a lonely sea. No man seemed to have a thought he wished to share.

The Mate was the first to speak. He patted a bundle whose outer housing was a pillow-case, which lay on the thwart beside him. "Well," he said, "it's been a close thing. I darn nearly lost those new clothes of mine."

"It might have been worse," said Sheriff; "we might well all have been killed. But as it is," he added with a sigh, "we've merely got to start fresh from the bottom again. Anyway, Kettle, I'm obliged to you for what you have done."

The little sailor frowned. "It's kind of you, sir, to say that. But I hate being beaten. And it's no excuse to say I did my best. I hadn't figured on that fire and the powder, and that's a fact."

"I wonder," said the Mate thoughtfully, "which of those beggars scoffed that gold zodiac ring of mine. That steward's boy, Tins, I expect. Took the ring and left the new blue suit. Well, by gum, they're a funny lot, those boys."



CHAPTER VI

THE WIRE-MILKERS

"Look here," said Sheriff, "you compel me to be brutal, but the fact is, they've had enough of you here in Lagos. So far as I can see, you've only got the choice of two things. You can have a free passage home to England as a Distressed Seaman by the next steamer, and you know what that means. The steamer gets paid a shilling a day, and grubs and berths you accordingly, and you earn your 'bacca money by bumming around the galley and helping the cook peel spuds. Or else, if you don't like that, you can do the sensible thing, and step into the billet I offer you."

"By James!" said Kettle, "who's going to turn me out of Lagos; tell me that, sir?"

"Don't get wrathful with me. I'm only telling you what you'll find out to be the square truth if you stay on long enough. The authorities here will be equal to handling you if you try to buck against them."

"But, sir, they have no right to touch me. This isn't French territory, or German, or any of those clamped-down places. The town's as English as Liverpool, and I'm a respectable man."

"The trouble of it is," said Sheriff drily, "they say you are not. There are a limited number of white men here in Lagos—perhaps two hundred all told—and their businesses and sources of income are all more or less visible to the naked eye. Yours aren't. In the language of the—er—well—the police court, you've no visible means of subsistence, and yet you always turn out neat, and spruce, and tidy; you've always got tobacco; and apparently you must have meals now and again, though I can't say you've got particularly fat on them."

"I've never been a rich man, sir. I've never earned high wages—only once as much as fifteen pounds a month—and there's the missis and the family to provide for; and, as a consequence, I've never had much to spend on myself. It would surprise a gentleman who's been wealthy like you, Mr. Sheriff, to see the way I can make half-a-crown spin out."

"It surprises me to see how you've made nothing at all spin out," said Sheriff; "and as for the Lagos authorities I was speaking about, it's done more; it's made them suspicious. Hang it, man, be reasonable; you must see they are bound to be suspicious."

Captain Kettle's brown face grew darker in tint, and he spoke with visible shame. "I've come by a living, sir, honest, but I couldn't bear it to be told aloud here to all the world how it was done. I may be down, Mr. Sheriff, but I have my pride still."

Sheriff spread his hands helplessly. "That's no kind of answer," he said. "They won't let you continue to stay here in Lagos on an explanation like that. Come now, Kettle, be sensible: put yourself in the authorities' place. They've got a town to administer—a big town—that not thirty years ago was the most murderous, fanatical, rowdy dwelling of slave-traders on the West Coast of Africa. To-day, by dint of careful shepherding, they've reduced it to a city of quiet respectability, with a smaller crime rate than Birmingham; and in fact made it into a model town suitable for a story-book. You don't see the Government much, but you bet it's there, and you bet it isn't asleep. You can bet also that the nigger people here haven't quite forgotten the old days, and would like to be up to a bit of mischief every now and again, just for old association's sake, which of course the Government is quite aware of.

"Now there's nothing that can stir up niggers into ructions against a white man's government better than a white man, as has been proved tons of times already, and here are you already on the carpet quite equal to the job. I don't say you are up to mischief, nor does the Government, but you must see for yourself that they'd be fools if they didn't play for safety and ship you off out of harm's way."

"I must admit," said Kettle ruefully, "that there's sense in what you say, sir."

"Are you going to give a free and open explanation of your means of employment here in Lagos, and earn the right to stay on openly, or are you going to still stick to the mysterious?"

The little sailor frowned. "No, sir," he said; "as I told you before, I have my pride."

"Very-well, then. Now, are you going to be the Distressed Seaman, and be jeered at all the run home as you cadge round for your 'baccy money, or are you going to do the sensible thing, and step into this billet I've put in your way?"

"You corner me."

"I'm glad to hear it, and let me tell you it hasn't been for want of trying. Man, if I hadn't liked you, I would not have taken all this trouble to put a soft thing ready to your hand."

"I believe you want service out of me in return, sir," said Kettle stiffly.

Sheriff laughed. "You aren't the handiest man in the world to get on with, and if I hadn't been an easy-tempered chap I should have bidden you go to the deuce long enough ago. Of course, I want something out of you. A man who has just lost a fortune, and who is down on his luck like I am, can't afford to go in for pure philanthropy without any possible return. But, at the same time, I'm finding you a job at fifty pound a month with a fortnight's wages paid in advance, and I think you might be decently grateful. By your own telling, you never earned so much as four sovereigns a week before."

"The wages were quite to my taste from the beginning, sir; don't think me ungrateful there. But what I didn't like was going to sea without knowing beforehand what I was expected to do. I didn't like it at first, and I refused the job then; and if I take it now, being, as you say, cornered, you're not to understand that it's grown any the tastier to me."

"We shouldn't pay a skipper a big figure like that," said Sheriff drily, "if we didn't want something a bit more than, the ordinary out of him. You may take it you are getting fifteen pounds a month as standard pay, and the extra thirty-five for condescending to sail with sealed orders. But what I told you at first I repeat now: I've got a partner standing in with me over this business, and as he insists on the whole thing being kept absolutely dark till we're away at sea, I've no choice but to observe the conditions of partnership."

Some thirty minutes later than this, Mr. Sheriff got out of his 'rickshaw on the Marina and went into an office and inquired for Mr. White. One of the colored clerks (who, to do credit to his English education, affected to be utterly prostrated by the heat) replied with languor that Mr. White was upstairs; upon which Sheriff, mopping himself with a handkerchief, went up briskly.

White, a gorgeously handsome young Hebrew, read success from his face at once. "I can see you've hooked your man," said he. "That's good business; we couldn't have got another as good anywhere. Have a cocktail?"

"Don't mind if I do. It's been tough work persuading him. He's such a suspicious, conscientious little beggar. Shout for your boy to bring the cocktail, and when we're alone, I'll tell you about it."

"I'll fix up your drink myself, old man. Where's the swizzle-stick? Oh, here, behind the Angostura bottle. And there's a fresh lime for you—got a basket of them in this morning. Now you yarn whilst I play barmaid."

Mr. Sheriff tucked his feet on the arms of a long-chair and picked up a fan. He sketched in the account of his embassage with humorous phrase.

The Hebrew had been liberal with his cocktail. He said himself that he made them so beautifully that no one could resist a second; and so, with a sigh of gusto, Sheriff gulped down number two and put the glass on the floor. "No," he said; "no more. They're heavenly, I'll grant, but no more. We shall want very clear heads for what's in front of us, and I'm not going to fuddle mine for a commencement. I can tell you we have been very nearly wrecked already. It was only by the skin of my teeth I managed to collar Master Kettle. I only got him because I happened to know something about him."

"Did you threaten to get him into trouble over it? What's he done?"

"Oh, nothing of that sort. But the man's got the pride of an emperor, and it came to my knowledge he'd been making a living out of fishing in the lagoon, and I worked on that. Look out of that window; it's a bit glary with the sun full on, but do you see those rows of stakes the nets are made fast on? Well, one of those belongs to Captain Owen Kettle, and he works there after dark like a native, and dressed as one. You know he's been so long living naked up in the bush that his hide's nearly black, and he can speak all the nigger dialects. But I guessed he'd never own up that he'd come so low as to compete with nigger fishermen, and I fixed things so that he thought he'd have to tell white Lagos what was his trade, or clear out of the colony one-time. It was quite a neat bit of diplomacy."

"You have got a tongue in you," said White.

"When a man's as broke as I am, and as desperate, he does his best in talk to get what he wants. But look here, Mr. White, now we've got Kettle, I want to be off and see the thing over and finished as soon as possible. It's the first time I've been hard enough pushed to meddle with this kind of racket, and I can't say I find it so savory that I'm keen on lingering over it."

The Jew shrugged his shoulders. "We are going for money," he said. "Money is always hard to get, my boy, but it's nice, very nice, when you have it."

Keen though Sheriff was to get this venture put to the trial, brimming with energy though he might be, it was quite out of the question that a start could be made at once. A small steamer they had already secured on charter, but she had to be manned, coaled, and provisioned, and all these things are not carried out as quickly in Lagos as they would be in Liverpool, even though there was a Kettle in command to do the driving. And, moreover, there were cablegrams to be sent, in tedious cypher, to London and elsewhere, to make the arrangements on which the success of the scheme would depend.

The Jew was the prime mover in all this cabling. He had abundance of money in his pocket, and he spent it lavishly, and he practically lived in the neighborhood of the telegraph office. He was as affable as could be; he drank cocktails and champagne with the telegraph staff whenever they were offered; but over the nature of his business he was as close as an oyster.

A breath of suspicion against the scheme would wreck it in an instant, and, as there was money to be made by carrying it through, the easy, lively, boisterous Mr. White was probably just then as cautious a man as there was in Africa.

But preparations were finished at last, and one morning, when the tide served, the little steamer cast off from her wharf below the Marina, and steered for the pass at the further side of the lagoon.

The bar was easy, and let her through with scarcely so much as a bit of spray to moisten the dry deck planks, and Sheriff pointed to the masts of a branch-boat which had struck the sand a week before, and had beaten her bottom out and sunk in ten minutes, and from these he drew good omens about this venture, and at the same time prettily complimented Kettle on his navigation.

But Kettle refused to be drawn into friendliness. He coldly commented that luck and not skill was at the bottom of these matters, and that if the bar had shifted, he himself could have put this steamer on the ground as handily as the other man had piled up the branch-boat. He refused to come below and have a drink, saying that his place was on the bridge till he learned from observation that either of the two mates was a man to be trusted. And, finally, he inquired, with acid formality, as to whether his employers wished the steamer brought to an anchor in the roads, or whether they would condescend to give him a course to steer.

Sheriff bade him curtly enough to "keep her going to the s'uth'ard," and then drew away his partner into the stifling little chart-house. "Now," he said, "you see how it is. Our little admiral up there is standing on his temper, and if he doesn't hear the plan of campaign, he's quite equal to making himself nasty."

"I don't mind telling him some, but I'm hanged if I'm going to tell him all. There are too many in the secret already, what with you and the two in London; and as I keep on telling you, if one whiff of a suspicion gets abroad, the whole thing's busted, and a trap will be set that you and I will be caught in for a certainty."

"Poof! We're at sea now, and no one can gossip beyond the walls of the ship. Besides Kettle is far too staunch to talk. He's the sort of man who can be as mum as the grave when he chooses. But if you persist in refusing to trust him, well, I tell you that the thought of what he may be up to makes me frightened."

"Now look here, my boy," said White, "you force me to remind you that I'm senior partner here, and to repeat that what I say on this matter's going to be done. I flatly refuse to trust this Kettle with the whole yarn. We've hired him at an exorbitant fee—bought him body and soul, in fact, as I've no doubt he very well understands—and to my mind he's engaged to do exactly as he's told, without asking questions. But as you seem set on it, I'll meet you here; he may be told a bit. Fetch him down."

But as Kettle refused to come below, on the chilly plea of business, the partner went out under the awnings of the upper bridge, where the handsome White, with boisterous, open-hearted friendliness, did his best to hustle the little sailor into quick good humor.

"Don't blame me, Skipper, or Sheriff here either, for the matter of that, for making all this mystery. We're just a couple of paid agents, and the bigger men at the back insisted that we should keep our mouths shut till the right time. There's nothing wrong with this caution, I'm sure you'll be the first to say. You see they couldn't tell from that distance what sort of man we should be able to pick up at Lagos. I guess they never so much as dreamed that we'd have the luck to persuade a chap like you to join."

"You are very polite, sir," said Kettle formally.

"Not a bit of it. I'm not the sort of boy to chuck civility away on an incompetent man. Now look here, Captain. We're on for making a big pile in a very short time, and you can stand in to finger your share if you'll, only take your whack of the work."

"There's no man living more capable of hard work than me, sir, and no man keener to make a competence. I've got a wife that I'd like to see a lot better off than I've ever been able to make her so far."

"I'm sure Mrs. Kettle deserves affluence, and please the pigs she shall have it."

"But it isn't every sovereign that might be put in her way," said the sailor meaningly, "that Mrs. Kettle would care to use."

"I guess I find every sovereign that comes to my fingers contains twenty useful shillings."

"I will take your word for it, sir. Mrs. Kettle prefers to know that the few she handles are cleanly come by."

Mr. White gritted his handsome teeth, shrugged his shoulders, and made as if he intended to go down off the bridge. But Sheriff stopped him. "We'd better have it out," Sheriff suggested; "as well now as later."

"Put it in your own words, then. I don't seem able to get started. You," he added significantly, "know as well as I do what to say."

"Very well. Now, look here, Kettle. This mystery game has gone on long enough, and you've got to be put on the ground floor, like the rest of us. Did you ever dabble in stocks?"

"No, sir."

"But you know what they are?"

"I've heard the minister I sit under ashore give his opinion from the pulpit on the Stock Exchange, and those who do business there. The minister of our chapel, sir, is a man I always agree with."

This was sufficiently unpromising, but Sheriff went doggedly on. "I see your way of looking at it: the whole crowd of stock operators are a gang of thieves that no decent man would care to touch?"

"That's much my notion."

"And they are quite unworthy of protection?"

"They can rob one another to their heart's content for all I care."

Sheriff smiled grimly. "That's what I wanted to hear you say, Captain. This cruise we are on now is not exactly a pleasure trip."

"I guessed that, of course, from the pay that was offered."

"What we are after is this: the Cape to England telegraph cable stops at several places on the road, and we want to get hold of one of the stations and work it for our own purposes for an hour or so. If we can do that, our partners in London will bring off a speculation in South African shares that will set the whole lot of us up for life."

"And who pays the piper? I mean where will the money for your profit come from?"

White was quicker than Sheriff to grasp the situation. "From inside the four walls of the Stock Exchange. S'elp me, Captain, you needn't pity them. There are lots of men there, my friends too, who would have played the game themselves if they had been sharp enough to think of it. We have to be pretty keen in the speculation business if we want to make money out of it."

Captain Kettle buttoned his coat, and stepped to the further end of the bridge with an elaborate show of disgust. "You are on the Stock Exchange yourself, sir?"

"Er—connected with it, Captain."



"I can quite understand our minister's opinion of stock gamblers now. Perhaps some day you may hear it for yourself. He's a great man for visiting jails and carrying comfort to the afflicted."

"By gad!" said White, "you insolent little blackguard, you dare to speak to me like that!"

"I use what words I choose," said Kettle, truculently. "I'd have said the same to your late King Solomon if I hadn't liked his ways; but if I was pocketing his pay, I should have carried out his orders all the same." He bent down to the voice hatch, and gave a bearing to the black quartermaster in the wheel-house below, and the little steamer, which had by this time left behind her the vessels transhipping cargo in the roads, canted off on a new course to the southward.

"Hullo," said Sheriff, "what's that mean? Where are you off to now?"

Kettle mentioned the name of a lonely island standing by itself in the Atlantic.

But Sheriff and the Jew were visibly startled. Mr. Sheriff mopped at a very damp forehead with his pocket handkerchief. "Have you heard anything then?" he asked, "or did you just guess?"

"I heard nothing before, or I should not have signed on for this trip, sir. But having come so far I'm going to earn out my pay. What's done will not be on my conscience. The shipmaster's blameless in these matters; it's the owner who drives him that earns his punishment in the hereafter; and that's sound theology."

"But how did you guess, man, how did you know where we were bound?"

"A shipmaster knows cable stations as well as he knows owners' agents' offices ashore. Any fool who had been told your game would have put his finger on that island at once. That's the loneliest place where the cable goes ashore all up and down the coast, and it isn't British, and what more could you want?"

With these meagre assurances, Messieurs Sheriff and White had to be content, as no others were forthcoming. Captain Kettle refused to be drawn into further talk upon the subject, and the pair went below to the stuffy little cabin more than a trifle disconsolate. "Well, here's the man you talked so big about," said White, bitterly. "As soon as we get out at sea, he shows himself in his true colors. Why, he's a blooming Methodist. But if he sells us when it comes to the point, and there's a chance of my getting nabbed, by gad I'll murder him like I would a rat."

"If he offers a scrimmage," said Sheriff, "you take my tip, and clear out. He's a regular glutton for a fight; I know he's armed; and he could shoot the buttons off your coat at twenty yards. No, Mr. White; make the best or the worst of Captain Kettle as you choose, but don't come to fisticuffs with him, or as sure as you are living now, you'll finish out on the under side then. And mind, I'm not talking by guess-work. I know."

"I shall not stick at much if this show's spoiled. Why, the money was as good as in our pockets, if he hadn't cut up awkward."

"Don't throw up the sponge till some one else does it for you. Look here, I know this man Kettle a lot better than you do. He wants the pay very badly. And when it comes to sticking up the cable station, you'll see him do the work of any ten like us. I tell you, he's a regular demon when it comes to a scuffle."

It was in this attitude, then, that the three principal members of the little steamer's complement voyaged down over those warm tropical seas which lay between Lagos and the isle of their hopes and fears. Two of them kept together, and perfected the detail of their plans for use in every contingency; but the other kept himself icily apart, and for an occupation, when the business of the ship did not require his eye, wrapped himself up in the labor of literary production. He even refused to partake of meals at the same table with his employers.

The island first appeared to them as a huddle of mountains sprouting out of the sea, which grew green as they came more near, and which finally showed great masses of foliage growing to the crown of the splintered heights, with a surf frilling the bays and capes at their foot. There was a town in the hug of one of these bays, and toward it the little steamer rolled as though she had been an ordinary legitimate trader. She brought up to an anchor in the jaws of the bay, half-way between the lighthouse and the rectangular white building on the further beach, and after due delay, a negro doctor, pulled up by a surf-boat full of other negroes, came off and gave her pratique.

The rectangular white building, standing in the sea breeze by itself away from the town beyond, was the cable station, but for the present they faced it with their backs. Kettle had seen it before; the other two acted as though it were the last thing to trouble their minds. There was no going ashore for any of them yet; indeed, the less they advertised their personal identity, the more chance there was of getting off untraced afterward.

Night fell with such suddenness that one could almost have imagined the sun was permanently extinguished. Round the rim of the bay lights began to kindle, and presently (when the wind came off the land) strains of music floated out to them.

"Some saint's day," Sheriff commented.

"St. Agatha's," said Kettle with a sigh.

"Hello, Kettle. I thought you were a straight-laced chapel goer. What have you to do with saints and their days?"

"I was told that one once, sir, and I can't help remembering it. You see the date is February 5th, and that's my eldest youngster's birthday."

Sheriff swore. "I wish you'd drop that sort of sentimental bosh, Skipper; especially now. I want to get this business over first, and then, when I go back with plenty in my pocket, I can begin to think of family pleasures and cares again. Come now, have you thought out what we can do with the steamer after we've finished our job here?"

"Run up with the coast and sink her, and then go ashore in the surf-boat at some place where the cable doesn't call, and leave that as soon as possible for somewhere else."

"It will be a big saving of necks," said Kettle drily. "Why sir, you've been a steamer-owner in your time, and you must know how we're fixed. You've given up your papers here, and you're known. You can't go into another port in the whole wide world without papers, and as far as forging a new set, why that's a thing that hasn't been done this thirty years outside a story-book."

Mr. White came up to hear. "I don't see that," he said.

"You fellows don't understand everything in Jerusalem," said Kettle, with a cheerful insult, and walked away. Captain Kettle regarded Sheriff as a gull, and pitied him accordingly; but White he recognized as principal knave, and disliked him accordingly.

But when the start was made for the raid, some hour and a half before the dawn, Kettle was not backward in fulfilling his paid-for task. Himself he saw a surf-boat lowered into the water and manned by black Krooboy paddlers; himself he saw his two employers down on the thwarts, and then followed them; and himself he sat beside the head-man who straddled in the stern sheets at the steering oar, and gave him minute directions.

The boat was avoiding the bay altogether. She was making for the strip of sand in front of the cable station, and except when she was shouldered up on the back of a roller, the goal was out of sight all the time.

"There's a rare swell running, and it's a mighty bad beach to-night," Kettle commented. "I hope you gentlemen can swim, for the odds are you'll have to do it inside the next ten minutes."

"If we are spilt getting ashore," said White, "how do you say we'll get off again?"

"The Lord knows," said Kettle.

"Well, you're a cheerful companion, anyway."

"I wasn't paid for a yacht skippering job and asked to say nice things which weren't true. But if you don't fancy the prospect, go back and try a trade that's less risky. You mayn't like honest work, but it strikes me this kind of contract's out your weight anyway."

The Jew looked as if he would like to let loose his tongue, and perhaps handle a weapon, but his motto was "business first," and he could not afford to have an open fracas with Kettle then. So he swallowed his resentment, and said, "Get on," and clung dizzily on to his thwart.

As each roller passed tinder her, the surf-boat swooped higher and higher, and the laboring paddles seemed to give her less and less momentum. The head-man strained at the steering oar. The Krooboys had hard work to keep their perches on the gunwale.

At last the head-man shouted, and the paddles ceased. They were waiting for a smooth. Roller after roller swept under them, and the boat rode them dizzily, but kept her place just beyond the outer edge of the surf. From over his shoulder, the head-man watched the charging seas with animal intentness. Then with a sudden shriek he gave the word, and the paddles stabbed the water into spray. The heavy boat rushed forward again, and a great towering sea rushed after her. It reared her up, stern uppermost, and passed, leaving her half swamped by its foaming passage; and then came another sea, and the boat broached to and spilt. The Krooboys jumped like black frogs from either gunwale, and Kettle jumped also, and made his way easily to the sand, being used to this experience. But Sheriff was pulled on to the beach with difficulty, and the Jew was hauled there in a state verging on the unconscious. He looked at the fearsome surf, and shuddered openly. "How shall we get off again?" he gasped.

"More swimming," said Kettle tersely. "And perhaps not manage it at all. You'd better give up the game, and go off decently to-morrow morning from the Custom House wharf."

But Mr. White, whatever might be the list of his failings, was certainly possessed of dogged pluck, and as he had got that far with his enterprise, did not intend to desert it. He got rid of the sea-water that was within him, and resolutely led the way to the cable station, which loomed square and solid through the dusk. Sheriff followed, and Captain Kettle, with his hands in his pockets, brought up the rear. The Krooboys, according to their orders, stayed on the beach, brought in the boat, collected her furniture, and got all ready for relaunching.

White seemed to know the way as if he had been there before. He went up to the building, entered through an open door, and strode quietly in his rubber-soled shoes along a dark passage. At the end was a room in partial darkness, and a man who watched a spot of light which darted hither and back, and between whiles wrote upon paper. To him White went up, and clapped a cold revolver muzzle against the nape of his neck.

"Now," he said, "I want the loan of your instrument for about an hour. If you resist, you'll be shot. The noise of the shot will bring out the other men on the station, and they'll be killed also. There are plenty of us here, and we are well armed, and we intend to have our own way. If you are not anything short of a fool, you'll go and sit on that chair, and keep quiet till you're given leave to talk."

"I don't think I'll argue it with you," said the operator coolly. He got up and sat where he was told, and Kettle, according to arrangement, stood guard over him. "I suppose you malefactors know," he added, "that there are certain pains and penalties attached to this sort of amusement, and that you are bound to get caught quite soon, whether you shoot me or let me go?"

Nobody answered him. White had sat down at the instrument table, and was tapping out messages like a man well accustomed to the work.

"Of course with those black mask things over your faces I couldn't recognize you again, even if I was put in the box; but, my good chaps, your steamer's known, there's no getting over that. Much better clear out before any mischief's done, and own up you've made a mistake."

White turned on the man with a sudden fury. "If you don't keep your silly mouth shut, I'll have you throttled," he threatened, and after that the only noise that broke the silence was the tap—taptap—taptapping of the telegraph instrument.

Only two men in that darkened room knew what message was being dispatched, and these were White and the dispossessed operator. The one worked with cool, steady industry, and the other listened with strained intentness. Sheriff was outside the door keeping guard on the rest of the house. But Kettle, from his station behind the operator's chair, listened with a strange disquietude. He had been told that the object of the raid was to arrange a stock exchange robbery, and to this he had tacitly agreed. According to his narrow creed (as gathered from the South Shields chapel) none but rogues and thieves dealt in stocks and shares, and if these chose to rob one another, an honest man might well look on non-interferent. But what guarantee had he that this robbery was not planned to draw plunder from the outside public as well? The pledged word of Mr. White. And that was worth? He smiled disdainfully when he thought of the slenderness of its value.

Tap—taptap—tap—tap—taptap, said the tantalizing instrument, going steadily on with its hidden speech.

The stifling heat of the room seemed to get more oppressive. The mystery of the thing beat against Kettle's brain.

Of course he could not read the deposed operator's thoughts, though he could see easily that the man was reading the messages which White was so glibly sending off. But it was clear that the man's agitation was growing; growing, too, out of all proportion to the coolness he had shown when his room was first invaded. At last an exclamation was forced from him, almost, as it seemed, involuntarily. "Oh, you ghastly scoundrel," he murmured, and on that Kettle spoke. He could not stand the mystery any longer.

"Tell me," he said, "exactly what message that man's sending."

"But I forbid you to do any such thing," said White, and reached for his revolver. But before his fingers touched it, he looked up and saw Kettle's weapon covering him.

"You put that down," came the crisp order, and White obeyed it nervously enough.

"And now go and stand in the middle of the room till I give you leave to shift."

White did this also. He grasped the fact that Captain Kettle was not in a mood to be trifled with.

"Now, Mr. Telegraph Clerk, as you understand this tack-hammer language, and as I could see you've been following all the messages that's been sent, just tell me the whole lot of it, please, as near as you can remember."

"He called up London first, and gave what sounded like a registered address, and sent the word 'corruscate.' That's probably code; anyway I don't know what it meant. Then he called the Cape, and sent a message to the Governor. He hadn't got to the end, and there was no signature, but it was evidently intended to make them believe that it was sent from the Colonial Office at home."

"Well," said Kettle, "what was the message?"

"Good Lord, man, he's directing the Governor to declare war on the Transvaal. You know there's been trouble with them lately, and they'll believe that it comes from the right place. If this is some stock-jobbing plant—"

"It is."

"Then, by heavens, it'll be carried through unless you let me stop it at once. The thing's plausible enough—"

But here White recovered from his temporary scare, and cut in with a fine show of authority. "S'help me, Kettle, you're making a pretty mess of things. You make me knock off in the middle of a message, and they'll not know what's up at the other end if I don't go on. Look at that mirror."

"I see the spot of light winking about."

"That's the operator at the next station calling me."

"But is it true what this gentleman's been telling me?"

"I suppose it is, more or less. But what of that? What did you lose your temper for like this? You knew quite well what we came here for."

"I knew you came to steal money from stockbrokers. I knew nothing about going to try and run my country in for a war."

"Poof, that's nothing. The war would not hurt you and me. Besides, it must go on now. I've cabled my partner in London to be a bear in Kaffirs for all he's worth. We must smash all the instruments here so they can't contradict the news, and then be off."

"Your partner can be a bear or any other kind of beast, in any sort of niggers he chooses, but I'm not going to let you run England into war at any price."

"Pah, my good man, what does that matter to you? What's England ever done for you?"

"I live there," said Kettle, "when I'm at home, and as I've lived everywhere else in the world, I'm naturally a bit more fond of the old shop than if I'd never gone away from her beach. No, Mr. White, England's never done anything special for me that I could, so to speak, put my finger on, but—ah would you!"

White, in desperation, had made a grab at the revolver lying on the instrument table, but with a quick rush Kettle possessed himself of it, and Mr. White found himself again looking down the muzzle of Captain Kettle's weapon.

But a moment later the aim was changed. Sheriff, hearing the whispered talk, had come in through the doorway to see what it was about, and promptly found himself favored in his turn.

"Shift your pistol to muzzle end, and bring it here."

Sheriff obeyed the order promptly. He had seen enough of Captain Kettle's usefulness as a marksman not to dispute his wishes.

"Did you know that we came here to stir up a war between our folks at home and the Transvaal?"

"I suppose so."

"And smash up the telegraph instruments afterward, so that it could not be contradicted till it was well under way?"

"That would have been necessary."

"And you remember what you told me on that steamboat? Oh! you liar!" said Kettle, and Sheriff winced.

"I'm so beastly hard up," he said.

Captain Kettle might have commented on his own poverty, but he did not do this. Instead, he said: "Now we'll go back to the ship, and of course you'll have to scuttle her just as if you'd brought off your game here successfully. Run England in for a bloody war, would you, just for some filthy money? By James! no. Come, march. And you, Mr. Telegraph Clerk, get under weigh with that deaf and dumb alphabet of yours, and ring up the Cape, and tell them what's been sent is all a joke, and there's to be no war at all."

"I'll do that, you may lay your heart on it," said the operator. "But Mr. I-don't-know-what-your-name-is, look here. Hadn't you better stay? I'll see things are put all right. But if you go off with those two sharks, it might be dangerous."

"Thank you, kindly, sir," said Kettle; "but I'm a man that's been accustomed to look after myself all the world over, and I'm not likely to get hurt now. Those two may be sharks, as you say, but I'm not altogether a simple little lamb myself."

"I shall be a bit uneasy for you. You're a good soul whoever you may be, and I'd like to do something for you if I could."

"Then, sir," said Kettle, "just keep quiet, here, and get on with your work contradicting that wire, and don't send for any of those little Portuguese soldiers with guns to see us off. It's a bad beach, and we mayn't get off first try, and if they started to annoy us whilst we were at work, I might have to shoot some of them, which would be a trouble."

"I'll see to that," said the operator. "We'll just shake hands if you don't mind, before you go. There's more man to the cubic inch about you than in any other fellow I've come across for a long time. I've no club at home now, or I'd ask you to look me up. But I dare say we shall meet again some time. So long."

"Good-by, sir," said Kettle, and shook the operator by the hand. Then he turned, and drove the other two raiders before him out of the house, and down to the beach, and, with the Krooboys, applied himself to launching the surf-boat through the breakers.

"Run the old shop into a war, would you?" he soliloquized to two very limp, unconscious figures, as the Krooboys got the surf-boat afloat after the third upset. "It's queer what some men will do for money." And then, a minute later, he muttered to himself: "By James! look at that dawn coming up behind the island there; yellow as a lemon. Now, that is fine. I can make a bit of poetry out of that."



CHAPTER VII

THE DERELICT

"Her cargo'll have shifted," said the third mate, "and when she got that list her people will have felt frightened and left her."

"She's a scary look to her, with her yard-arms spiking every other sea," said Captain Image, "and her decks like the side of a house. I shouldn't care to navigate a craft that preferred to lie down on her beam ends myself."

"Take this glass, sir, and you'll see the lee quarter-boat davit-tackles are overhauled. That means they got at least one boat in the water. To my mind she's derelict."

"Yard-arm tackles rigged and overhauled, too," said Captain Image. "She'll have carried a big boat on the top of that house amidships, and that's gone, too. Well, I hope her crew have got to dry land somewhere, or been picked up, poor beggars. Nasty things, those old wind-jammers, Mr. Strake. Give me steam."

"But there's a pile of money in her still," said the third mate, following up his own thoughts. "She's an iron ship, and she'll be two thousand tons, good. Likely enough in the 'Frisco grain trade. Seems to me a new ship, too; anyway, she's got those humbugging patent tops'ls."

"And you're thinking she'd be a nice plum if we could pluck her in anywhere?" said Image, reading what was in his mind.

"Well, me lad, I know that as well as you, and no one would be pleaseder to pocket L300. But the old M'poso's a mailboat, and because she's got about a quarter of a hundredweight of badly spelt letters on board, she can't do that sort of salvage work if there's no life-saving thrown in as an extra reason. Besides, we're behind time as it is, with smelling round for so much cargo, and though I shall draw my two and a-half per cent, on that, I shall have it all to pay away again, and more to boot, in fines for being late. No, I tell you it isn't all sheer profit and delight in being skipper on one of those West African coast boats. And there's another thing: the Chief was telling me only this morning that they've figured it very close on the coal. We only have what'll take us to Liverpool ourselves, without trying to pull a yawing, heavy, towing thing like that on behind us."

Strake drummed at the white rail of the bridge. He was a very young man, and he was very keen on getting the chance of distinguishing himself; and here, on the warm, windless swells abeam, the chance seemed to sit beckoning him. "I've been thinking, sir, if you can lend me half a dozen men, I could take her in somewhere myself."

"I'm as likely to lend you half a dozen angels. Look at the deck hands; look at the sickly trip this has been. We've had to put some of them on double tricks at the wheel already, and as for getting any painting done, or having the ship cleaned up a bit, why, I can see we shall go into Liverpool as dirty as a Geordie collier. Besides, Mr. Strake, I believe I've told you once or twice already that you're not much use yourself, but anyway you're the best that's left, and I'm having to stand watch and watch with you as it is. If the mate gets out of his bed between here and home, it'll be to go over the side, and the second mate's nearly as bad with that nasty blackwater fever only just off him; and there you are. Mr. Strake, if you have a penn'oth of brains stowed away anywhere, I wish to whiskers you'd show 'em sometimes."

"Old man's mad at losing a nice lump of salvage," thought Strake. "Natural, I guess." So he said quietly: "Ay, ay, sir," and walked away to the other end of the bridge.

Captain Image followed him half-way, but stopped irresolutely with his hand on the engine-room telegraph. On the fore main deck below him his old friend, Captain Owen Kettle, was leaning on the rail, staring wistfully at the derelict.

"Poor beggar," Image mused, "'tisn't hard to guess what he's thinking about. I wonder if I could fix it for him to take her home. It might set him on his legs again, and he's come low enough, Lord knows. If I hadn't given him a room in the first-class for old times' sake, he'd have had to go home, after his trouble on the West Coast, as a distressed seaman, and touch his cap to me when I passed. I've not done badly by him, but I shall have to pay for that room in the first-class out of my own pocket, and if he was to take that old wind-jammer in somewhere, he'd fork out, and very like give me a dash besides.

"Yes, I will say that about Kettle; he's honest as a barkeeper, and generous besides. He's a steamer sailor, of course, and has been most of these years, and how he'll do the white wings business again, Lord only knows. Forget he hasn't got engines till it's too late, and then drown himself probably. However, that's his palaver. Where we're going to scratch him up a crew from's the thing that bothers me. Well, we'll see." He leaned down over the bridge rail, and called.

Kettle looked up.

"Here a minute, Captain."

Poor Kettle's eye lit, and he came up the ladders with a boy's quickness.

Image nodded toward the deserted vessel. "Fine full-rigger, hasn't she been? What do you make her out for?"

"'Frisco grain ship. Stuff in bulk. And it's shifted."

"Looks that way. Have you forgotten all your 'mainsail haul' and the square-rig gymnastics?"

"I'm hard enough pushed now to remember even the theory-sums they taught at navigation school if I thought they would serve me."

"I know. And I'm as sorry for you, Captain, as I can hold. But you see, it's this: I'm short of sailormen; I've barely enough to steer and keep the decks clean; anyway I've none to spare."

"I don't ask for fancy goods," said Kettle eagerly. "Give me anything with hands on it—apes, niggers, stokers, what you like, and I'll soon teach them their dancing steps."

Captain Image pulled at his moustache. "The trouble of it is, we are short everywhere. It's been a sickly voyage, this. I couldn't let you have more than two out of the stokehold, and even if we take those, the old Chief will be fit to eat me. You could do nothing with that big vessel with only two beside yourself."

"Let me go round and see. I believe I can rake up enough hands somehow."

"Well, you must be quick about it," said Image. "I've wasted more than enough time already. I can only give you five minutes, Captain. Oh, by the way, there's a nigger stowaway from Sarry Leone you can take if you like. He's a stonemason or some such foolishness, and I don't mind having him drowned. If you hammer him enough, probably he'll learn how to put some weight on a brace."

"That stonemason's just the man I can use," said Kettle. "Get him for me. I'll never forget your kindness over this, Captain, and you may depend upon me to do the square thing by you if I get her home."

Captain Kettle ran off down the bridge and was quickly out of sight, and hard at his quest for volunteers. Captain Image waited a minute, and he turned to his third mate. "Now, me lad," he said, "I know you're disappointed; but with the other mates sick like they are, it's just impossible for me to let you go. If I did, the Company would sack me, and the dirty Board of Trade would probably take away my ticket. So you may as well do the kind, and help poor old Cappie Kettle. You see what he's come down to, through no fault of his own. You're young, and you're full to the coamings with confidence. I'm older, and I know that luck may very well get up and hit me, and I'll be wanting a helping hand myself. It's a rotten, undependable trade, this sailoring. You might just call the carpenter, and get the cover off that smaller lifeboat."

"You think he'll get a crew, then, sir, and not our deckhands?"

"Him? He'll get some things with legs and arms to them, if he has to whittle 'em out of kindling-wood. It's not that that'll stop Cappie Kettle now, me lad."

The third mate went off, sent for the carpenter, and started to get a lifeboat cleared and ready for launching. Captain Image fell to anxiously pacing the upper bridge, and presently Kettle came back to him.

"Well, Captain," he said, "I got a fine crew to volunteer, if you can see your way to let me have them. There's a fireman and a trimmer, both English; there's a third-class passenger—a Dago of some sort, I think he is, that was a ganger on the Congo railway—and there's Mr. Dayton-Philipps; and if you send me along your nigger stonemason, that'll make a good, strong ship's company."

"Dayton-Philipps!" said Image. "Why, he's an officer in the English Army, and he's been in command of Haussa troops on the Gold Coast, and he's been some sort of a Resident, or political thing up in one of those nigger towns at the back there. What's he want to go for?"

"Said he'd come for the fun of the thing."

Captain Image gave a grim laugh. "Well, I think he'll find all the fun he's any use for before he's ashore again. Extraordinary thing some people can't see they're well off when they've got a job ashore. Now, Mr. Strake, hurry with that boat and get her lowered away. You're to take charge and bring her back; and mind, you're not to leave the captain here and his gang aboard if the vessel's too badly wrecked to be safe."

He turned to Kettle. "Excuse my giving that last order, old man, but I know how keen you are, and I'm not going to let you go off to try and navigate a sieve. You're far too good a man to be drowned uselessly."

The word was "Hurry," now that the final decision had been given, and the davit tackles squeaked out as the lifeboat jerked down toward the water. She rode there at the end of her painter, and the three rowers and the third mate fended her off, while Kettle's crew of nondescripts scrambled unhandily down to take their places. The negro stowaway refused stubbornly to leave the steamer, and so was lowered ignominiously in a bowline, and then, as he still objected loudly that he came from Sa' Leone, and was a free British subject, some one crammed a bucket over his head, amidst the uproarious laughter of the onlookers.

Captain Kettle swung himself down the swaying Jacob's ladder, and the boat's painter was cast off; and under three oars she moved slowly off over the hot sun-kissed swells. Advice and farewells boomed like a thunderstorm from the steamer, and an animated frieze of faces and figures and waving headgear decorated her rail.

Ahead of them, the quiet ship shouldered clumsily over the rollers, now gushing down till she dipped her martingale, now swooping up again, sending whole cataracts of water swirling along her waist.

The men in the boat regarded her with curious eyes as they drew nearer. Even the three rowers turned their heads, and were called to order therefor by the mate at the tiller. A red ensign was seized jack downward in her main rigging, the highest note of the sailorman's agony of distress. On its wooden case, in her starboard fore-rigging, a dioptric lens sent out the faint green glow of a lamp's light into the sunshine.

The third mate drew attention to this last "Lot of oil in that lamp," he said, "or it means they haven't deserted her very long. To my mind, it must have been in yesterday's breeze her cargo shifted, and scared her people into leaving her."

"We shall see," said Kettle, still staring intently ahead.

The boat was run up cannily alongside, and Kettle jumped into the main chains and clambered on board over the bulwarks. "Now, pass up my crew, Mr. Strake," said he.

"I'm coming myself next, if you don't mind," said the third mate, and did so. "Must obey the old man's orders," he explained, as they stood together on the sloping decks. "You heard yourself what he said, Captain."

"Well, Mr. Mate," said Kettle grimly, "I hope you'll decide she's seaworthy, because, whatever view you take of it, as I've got this far, here I'm going to stay."

The mate frowned. He was a young man; he was here in authority, and he had a great notion of making his authority felt. Captain Kettle was to him merely a down-on-his-luck free-passage nobody, and as the mate was large and lusty he did not anticipate trouble. So he remarked rather crabbedly that he was going to obey his orders, and went aft along the slanting deck.

It was clear that the vessel had been swept—badly swept. Ropes-ends streamed here and there and overboard in every direction, and everything movable had been carried away eternally by the sea. A goodly part of the starboard bulwarks had vanished, and the swells gushed in and out as they chose. But the hatch tarpaulins and companions were still in place; and though it was clear from the list (which was so great that they could not walk without holding on) that her cargo was badly shifted, there was no evidence so far that she was otherwise than sound.

The third mate led the way on to the poop, opened the companion doors and slide, and went below. Kettle followed. There was a cabin with state rooms off it, littered, but dry. Strake went down on his knees beneath the table, searching for something. "Lazaret hatch ought to be down here," he explained. "I want to see in there. Ah, it is."

He got his fingers in the ring and pulled it back. Then he whistled. "Half-full of water," he said. "I thought so from the way she floated. It's up to the beams down here. Likely enough she'll have started a plate somewhere. 'Fraid it's no go for you, Captain. Why, if a breeze was to come on, half the side of her might drop out, and she'd go down like a stone."

Now to Kettle's honor be it said (seeing what he had in his mind) he did not tackle the man as he knelt there peering into the lazaret. Instead he waited till he stood up again, and then made his statement coldly and deliberately.

"This ship's not too dangerous for me, and I choose to judge. And if she'll do for me, she's good enough for the crew I've got in your boat. Now I want them on deck, and at work without any more palaver."

"Do you, by God!" said the mate, and then the pair of them closed without any further preliminaries. They were both of them well used to quick rough-and-tumbles, and they both of them knew that the man who gets the first grip in these wrestles usually wins, and instinctively each tried to act on that knowledge.

But if the third mate had bulk and strength, Kettle had science and abundant wiriness; and though the pair of them lost their footing on the sloping cabin floor at the first embrace, and wriggled over and under like a pair of eels, Captain Kettle got a thumb artistically fixed in the bigger man's windpipe, and held it there doggedly. The mate, growing more and more purple, hit out with savage force, but Kettle dodged the bull-like blows like the boxer he was, and the mate's efforts gradually relaxed.

But at this point they were interrupted. "That wobbly boat was making me sea-sick," said a voice, "so I came on board here. Hullo, you fellows!"

Kettle looked up. "Mr. Philipps," he said, "I wish you'd go and get the rest of our crew on deck out of the boat."

"But what are you two doing down there?"

"We disagreed over a question of judgment. He said this ship isn't safe, and I shouldn't have the chance to take her home. I say there's nothing wrong with her that can't be remedied, and home I'm going to take her, anyway. It might be the one chance in my life, sir, of getting a balance at the bank, and I'm not going to miss it."

"Ho!" said Dayton-Philipps.

"If you don't like to come, you needn't," said Kettle. "But I'm going to have the stonemason and the Dago, and those two coal-heavers. Perhaps you'd better go back. It will be wet, hard work here; no way the sort of job to suit a soldier."

Dayton-Philipps flushed slightly, and then he laughed. "I suppose that's intended to be nasty," he said. "Well, Captain, I shall have to prove to you that we soldiers are equal to a bit of manual labor sometimes. By the way, I don't want to interfere in a personal matter, but I'd take it as a favor if you wouldn't kill Strake quite. I rather like him."

"Anything to oblige," said Kettle, and took his thumb out of the third mate's windpipe. "And now, sir, as you've so to speak signed on for duty here, away with you on deck and get those four other beauties up out of the boat."

Dayton-Philipps touched his hat and grinned. "Ay, ay, sir," he said, and went back up the companion.

Shortly afterward he came to report the men on board, and Kettle addressed his late opponent. "Now, look here, young man, I don't want to have more trouble on deck before the hands. Have you had enough?"

"For the present, yes," said the third mate huskily. "But I hope we'll meet again some other day to have a bit of further talk."

"I am sure I shall be quite ready. No man ever accused me of refusing a scrap. But, me lad, just take one tip from me: don't you go and make Captain Image anxious by saying this ship isn't seaworthy, or he'll begin to ask questions, and he may get you to tell more than you're proud about."

"You can go and get drowned your own way. As far as I am concerned, no one will guess it's coming off till they see it in the papers."

"Thanks," said Kettle. "I knew you'd be nice about it."

The third mate went down to his boat, and the three rowers took her across to the M'poso, where she was hauled up to davits again. The steamer's siren boomed out farewells, as she got under way again, and Kettle with his own hands unbent the reversed ensign from the ship's main rigging, and ran it up to the peak and dipped it three times in salute.

He breathed more freely now. One chance and a host of unknown dangers lay ahead of him. But the dangers he disregarded. Dangers were nothing new to him. It was the chance which lured him on. Chances so seldom came in his way, that he intended to make this one into a certainty if the efforts of desperation could do it.

Alone of all the six men on the derelict, Captain Kettle had knowledge of the seaman's craft; but, for the present, thews and not seamanship were required. The vessel lay in pathetic helplessness on her side, liable to capsize in the first squall which came along, and their first effort must be to get her in proper trim whilst the calm continued. They knocked out the wedges with their heels, and got the tarpaulins off the main hatch; they pulled away the hatch covers, and saw beneath them smooth slopes of yellow grain.

As though they were an invitation to work, shovels were made fast along the coamings of the hatch. The six men took these, and with shouts dropped down upon the grain. And then began a period of Homeric toil. The fireman and the coal-trimmer set the pace, and with a fine contempt for the unhandiness of amateurs did not fail to give a display of their utmost. Kettle and Dayton-Philipps gamely kept level with them. The Italian ganger turned out to have his pride also, and did not lag, and only the free-born British subject from Sierra Leone endeavored to shirk his due proportion of the toil.