CHAPTER XXV.

THE THRASHER AND THE WHALE.

We Determine to Harass the Diamond Ship.

The steamer, driving on rapidly to the westward, showed her hull very plainly when a quarter of an hour had passed, and was immediately named by Cain, the quartermaster, who was at the wheel, for a collier he had seen some months back at Cardiff.

“She flew the Brazilian flag, sir, and carried a Russian skipper what had a picture nose,” said he cheerily enough. “I remember the boys said that someone tattoed a bit of a circus scene on his figure-head when he was took in drink at Rio last trip. I’d have knowed the ship anywheres by that doll’s house abaft the funnel. Leastwise, if there ain’t two of ’em, she’s the same.”

His logic was commendable and we questioned him.

“Had she any arms, Cain?”

“Nothing that I see, sir, saving the shovels.”

“And you didn’t know where she was bound to?”

“They gave it out as Rio, sir. I had a bit of a tumble-to with a Portuguese steward of theirs, and I gave him Port Arthur for himself. ‘You come to Rio,’ says he, ‘and I’ll d——n well pull your nose.’ It seemed to me a long way to go for the job, sir, and that I could get it done cheaper at home. I never see him again, and next day the ship sailed.”

We laughed at his manner of telling it, but the news proved acceptable enough. I had already come to a determination, and this I communicated immediately to Larry.

“We must stop them,” I said; “if we are to save Joan Fordibras; that steamer must not put her cargo on the deck of the Diamond Ship. The risk is small enough, Captain. I think that a signal will do it—if not a signal, then a gunshot anyway. Let us put it to the proof. The success or failure will mean more than any of you imagine.”

He obeyed me without question, and we steamed straight for the tramp, steering such a course that we overtook her on the port-quarter, and so were difficult to come at by any forward gun, should she carry one. My own impression was that she did not. Her safety from inquisitional officers in port would be better assured by the normal practice of ocean-going cargo-boats. I believed that the quartermaster had told us the truth, and upon that supposition I acted.

“Signal to her to bring to, Larry,” I said, and he assented immediately.

It was pretty to see our flags fluttering upon the breeze of morning, and to watch the commotion upon the deck of the tramp. We knew that she had sighted us almost as soon as we set our engines going. The far horizon disclosed no trace of the Diamond Ship. We two appeared alone in all that vista of the rolling waters.

Now, the ship answered by demanding our name and our business. We could make out the figures of two or three men upon her bridge; but the crew appeared an unusually small one and the aft decks were completely deserted. To their signal we replied immediately: (1.) That Imroth, the Jew, was flying from British warships; (2.) That their own safety depended upon their immediate submission.

Not the whole truth, perhaps, and yet as I hoped truth enough. It had been in my mind all along that the Government would send at least a patrol to the seas I had named. I could not believe that, after my revelations, ports would not be watched. So I signalled this message and waited, with not a little expectation, for an answer. To my astonishment, their Captain’s reply was to ask me to go aboard—meaning, of course, the master of the yacht.

“Come with me, Timothy,” said I to McShanus. “Don’t talk about pistols, men. Larry will stand by for danger. We could sink them in five minutes if we had the mind—it’s as safe as Rotten Row.”

“No safe place at all for a man who is susceptible to woman’s beauty. Go aboard, Ean, me bhoy, I’ll take your word for it when I come back.”

We put out a gangway and lowered the lifeboat from the starboard davits. The collier, lying some two hundred paces from our bows, let down a pilot’s ladder for me, and I caught it as it fell, and climbed to her decks. Far down below me now, the portly Timothy asked me if I thought he was a bird. I left him, full of strange oaths, in the boat, and presented myself immediately to the captain of the steamer.

“Do you speak English?” I asked.

He shook his head and said “Nitchevo” emphatically.

A phrase in German, however, obtained an immediate answer. I perceived him to be a coarsely built man of some fifty years of age, his nose scarred roughly by a seaman’s needle, as the quartermaster Cain had told me, and his manner as threatening and full of bluster as his master the Jew could have wished.

“What’s your business with me?” he asked—while his clumsy fingers fondled a revolver he carried in his breeches pocket.

“To keep your neck out of the noose,” said I, without any preface whatever. “Your game is up and Val Imroth taken. That’s what brought me here.”

He spat on the deck and called a mate to him—another Russian no more beautiful than he. For a few moments they conversed together in a dialect I could make nothing of. It was plain that while my story astounded them beyond measure, they were by no means ready to believe it. And so they fell to bluff, which would not have deceived a child.

“What’s this man to me?” the Captain asked; “am I his servant?”

“Undoubtedly, since you carry coal to his ship.”

“Suppose I tell you to go to h—ll and mind your own business?”

“In that case, you might arrive at the destination before me. I am going to give you ten minutes. If you are not steaming eastward at the end of that time, I promise you that I will most certainly send you to the bottom. Reflect upon it calmly. You cannot help the Jew, but may save yourselves. I’ll tell you something else. If you have any coal to sell, I am a buyer. Now do not finger that pistol of yours, for it might go off, and as sure as God’s in heaven, if it did, this crew would be on the floor of the Atlantic in less than five minutes. Rattle your senses, my man, and speak up. If yonder warship spies us out, she’ll not deal so tenderly with you. What is the Jew to you, and why should you sell your liberty for him? Come, think of it. I am not a patient man, but I will give you time enough not to make a fool of yourself.”

They were brazen words, upon my life. When I pointed westward to a loom of smoke upon the horizon scarcely bigger than a man’s hand—when I did this, and spoke in the same breath of a warship, then, surely, the ingenuity of suggestion could go no further. As for the rascally Russian, I saw that he was struck all of a heap. His eyes had already told him that the yacht, White Wings, carried machine guns and a torpedo tube. Perhaps he argued that even if he raced for it, we could sink him before the Diamond Ship so much as sighted him—and this was to assume that a haze of smoke upon the horizon indicated the presence of the Jew’s vessel, and not of a British warship. In either case he found himself between the devil and the deep sea; and, be sure, I lost no minute of a precious opportunity.

“The game is up,” I resumed, “and your friend, the Jew, is about to pay the price of it. If you wish to contribute your share, go on and join the fun. I don’t suppose the police care much about such riff-raff as you have on board here. Get them back to Cardiff and let them find new ships. You are thinking of the money—well, if you can fill my bunkers yonder, I will pay a long price for the stuff you carry—down on your table in English sovereigns.”

At this he regarded me very curiously. A dull head is often obstinate in suspicion. The fellow perceived his advantage and would have pressed it.

“Oh,” said he, “then you are short of coal?”

“We are short of coal,” I rejoined, my frankness astounding him. “The others have none to spare, and if we buy none of you, we must run to Porto Grande. In that case you will carry this cargo back to Europe, and be arrested when you step ashore. I shall see to that, my man, when I touch at the islands. The police will be waiting for you, and you will get nothing—paid down and counted out. Better take my money—and ten pounds apiece for your crew—not to mention a little deal between us, which you may not find unsatisfactory.”

In such a manner we wrangled and argle-bargled for the best part of an hour. Providentially, the Diamond Ship, whose smoke had at one time been visible, stood upon a westerly course, and disappeared from our ken as we talked. I found the Russian to be a low-witted, covetous fellow, not greatly to be overawed by threats, but exceedingly susceptible to the substantial facts of money. In the end, I bought what coal we could carry from him at a price which I would cheerfully have doubled. And, indeed, I do think that it was one of the best day’s work I ever did in all my life. To cut off the Jew’s patrol, to fill our own bunkers with his precious steam coal, carried at such risk from Cardiff; to send the tramp steamer back again whence she came—even the matter-of-fact Larry could find no word to fit it. As for my poor friend Timothy, his emotions were altogether too much for him.

“Docther,” said he, “I doubt your salvation, and that’s the truth of it. Say that we are going back to dine on the Jew’s ship and I’ll believe ye entirely. ’Twould not be more wonderful than that which these poor old eyes are showing me.”

I told him not to make a fool of himself, but to serve his turn as sentinel while we brought the yacht alongside the collier, and took in coal from her. Treachery might yet be planned against us, though I doubted it. We posted an armed guard upon the bridge, and stripped our forward guns of their covers—the swell ran kindly and the sea was like a mirror. Hardly believing their own eyes but obeying me nevertheless, our good fellows set to work like niggers, and filled our bunkers with the precious stuff. It had been at seven bells of the morning watch when they began; it was three of the afternoon before they had done. The coal shoots with which the tramp was provided to fill the Jew’s bunkers now filled our own admirably. I paid the Russian Captain honestly, and sent him at all speed to the eastward when the business was done.

“Return as you came, and keep your mouth shut,” I said: “I will answer for you to the police should the need arise. It will be your own fault if it does.”

He thanked me with some civility, and I could see that he now considered himself a very fortunate fellow. To be frank, I had dismissed him utterly from my mind half-an-hour after he cast off; and the excitement of the deal having passed, I called to our steward to bring me tea to the cabin, and there we held a council, vital beyond any in its significance and its earnestness. For now we must decide, instantly and finally, what steps must be taken to save my little Joan from the devils of the Diamond Ship. How were we, the crew of a puny yacht, to bring that great hive of ruffians to book? What course dare we risk? What hope had we of any assistance from the British or other Governments? This is what we discussed when we had lighted our cigars and the tea was poured out. And this is much how the talk went:

(Myself.)—“We must first consider the threat. I believe that they are capable both of torturing and of killing Joan Fordibras if they are driven to it. But they will only do so in an extremity. She is their hostage. The moment that they harm her, they have done all that they can against us. If she be subject to insult meanwhile—well, they will have to deal with one of singular courage and resource. It is a callous argument, but that much we must ignore. My own idea is to lead them to the belief that we are watching them. Let us play the part of a thrasher to the whale—hang on to them, day and night, track them to their port, and cable news to Europe when we can. If they run for South America, we shall fall in with ships bound to Rio and Monte Video. The mails to the Argentine have the Marconi instrument. We can hardly fail to catch one of them. I would sooner burn this yacht than turn back now. If you, my friends, are of another opinion, do not be afraid to tell me so. We have lost one poor fellow and may lose others. It is for the men, and for them firstly, to say how far we shall go and what risks we shall take.”

(Larry.)—“The men are of one mind, sir. Don’t think more about them. Poor Holland’s death has settled it. They would go through fire to be up with yonder ruffians. Of course, I see how you are fixed. We could sink their hulk with a torpedo and make no bones about it. But that’s not to be thought of. Just stand by and tease them, say I, and as near out of gunshot as may be.”

(McShanus.)—“The docther says the lady must put up with their insults, but ye can see the blood going and coming from his cheeks while he says it. I honour him for it. We want to get the girl off the ship, and not to lose the Jew in the doing of it. ’Tis an employment for a Japanese wizard, faith. Here’s yon rogue running for a South American port, and when he’s ashore, he’ll make monkey faces at ye. Tell yourselves that, and cry out against the Governments. It’s all ye can do that I can see.”

(Myself.)—“I am far from sure of it, Timothy, but prophecy is of little help to us. We must follow these people and let them know that we are following them. Impudence has stopped one of their fleet and may stop another. I am going to see how far it helps me with the Jew himself.”

More I said to the same end, but there would be no purpose in repeating it. Let it be sufficient that we decided ultimately upon a plan of pursuit which would keep these people aware of our presence by night and day, and provoke them to every attack which it lay in their power to make upon us. The rest was beyond us. We could but face the issue calmly, accepting that which was decreed both for ourselves and for her whose safety we so ardently desired.