Part 36 (1/2)

”There's bombs about, and it's me that has been carrying them,” he concluded. ”That is what I have got to tell you.”

”How do you know?” asked Cartoner, in his gentle and soothing way.

The captain settled himself in his chair, and crossed one leg over the other.

”Know the Johannis Bulwark, in Hamburg?”

Cartoner nodded.

”Know the Seemannshaus there?”

”Yes. The house that stands high up among the trees overlooking the docks.”

”That's the place,” said Captain Cable. ”Well, one night I was up there, on the terrace in front of the house where the sailors sit and spit all day waiting to be taken on. Got into Hamburg short-handed. I was picking up a crew. Not the right time to do it, you'll say, after dark, as times go and forecastle hands pan out in these days. Well, I had my reasons.

You can pick up good men in Hamburg if you go about it the right way.

A man comes up to me. Remembered me, he said; had sailed with me on a voyage when we had machinery from the Tyne that was too big for us, and we couldn't get the hatches on. We sailed after nightfall, I recollect, with hatches off, and had the seas slopping in before the morning.

He remembered it, he said. And he asked me if it was true that I was goin'--well, to the port I was bound for. And I said it was G.o.d's truth.

Then he told me a long yarn of two cases outs.h.i.+pped that was lying down at the wharf. Transs.h.i.+pment goods on a through bill of lading. And the bill of lading gone a missing in the post. A long story, all lies, as I ought to have known at the time. He had a man with him--forwarding agent, he called him. This chap couldn't speak English, but he spoke German, and the other man translated as we went along. I couldn't rightly see the other man's face. Little, dark man--with a queer, soft voice, like a woman wheedlin'! Too d--d innocent, and I ought to have known it. Don't you ever be wheedled by a woman, Mr. Cartoner. Got a match?”

For the captain's cigar had gone out. But he felt quite at home, as he always did--this unvarnished gentleman from the sea--and asked for what he wanted.

”Well, to make a long yarn short, I took the cases. Two of them, size of an orange-box. We were full, so I had them in the state-room alongside of the locker where I lie down and get a bit of sleep when I feel I want it. And they paid me well. It was government stuff, the soft-spoken man said, and the freight would come out of the taxes and never be missed.

We went into heavy weather, and, as luck would have it, one of the cases broke adrift and got smashed. I mended it myself, and had to open it.

Then I saw that it was explosives. Lie number one! It was packed in wadding so as to save a jar. It was too small for sh.e.l.ls. Besides, no government sends loaded sh.e.l.ls about, 'cepting in war time. At the moment I did not think much about it. It was heavy weather, and I had a new crew. There were other things to think about. And, I tell you, when I got to port, a chap with gold lace on him came aboard and took the stuff away.”

Cartoner's attention was aroused now. There was something in this story, after all. There might be everything in it when the captain told what had brought these past events back to his recollection.

”I'm not going to tell you the port of discharge,” said Captain Cable, ”because in doing that I should run foul of other people who acted square by me, and I'll act square by them. I'll tell you one thing, though, I sighted the Scaw light on that voyage. You can have that bit of information--you, that's half a sailor. You can put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

And he glanced at Cartoner's cigarette with the satisfaction of a conversationalist who has pulled off a good simile.

”'Safternoon,” he continued, ”I went to see some people about a little job for the _Minnie_. She'll be out of dock in a fortnight. You will not forget to come down and see her?”

”I should like to see her,” said Cartoner. ”Go on with your story.”

”Well, this afternoon I went to see some parties that had a charter to offer me. Foreigners--every man Jack of them. Spoke in German, out of politeness to me. The Lord knows what they would have spoken if I hadn't been there. It was bad enough as it was. But it wasn't the lingo that got me; it was the voice. 'Where have I heard that voice?' thinks I.

And then I remembered. It was at the Seemannshaus, at Hamburg, one dark night. 'You're a pretty government official,' I says to myself, sitting quiet all the time, like a cat in the engine-room. I wouldn't have taken the job at any rate, owing to that voice, which I have never forgotten, and yet never thought to hear again. But while the parley voo was still going on, up jumps a man--the only man I knew there--name beginning with a K--don't quite remember it. At any rate, up he jumps, and says that that room was no place for me nor yet for him. Dare say you know the man, if I could remember his name. Sort of thin, dark man, with a way of carrying his head--quarter-deck fas.h.i.+on--as if he was a king or a Hooghly pilot. Well, we gets up and walks out, proudlike, as if we had been insulted. But blessed if I knew what it was all about. 'Who's that man!' I asks when we were in the street. And the other chap turns and makes a mark upon the door, which he rubs out afterwards as if it was a hanging matter. 'That's who that is,' he says.”

Cartoner turned, and with one finger made an imaginary design on the soft pile of the table-cloth. Captain Cable looked at it critically, and after a moment's reflection admitted in an absent voice that his hopes for eternity were exceedingly small.

”You are too much for me,” he said, after a pause. ”You that deal in politics and the like.”

”And the other man's name is Kosmaroff,” said Cartoner.

”That's it--a Russian,” answered Captain Cable, rising, and looking at the clock. His movements were energetic and very quick for his years. He carried with him the brisk atmosphere of the sea and the hardness of a life which tightens men's muscles and teaches them to observe the outward signs of man and nature.