Part 24 (1/2)
”Is it wrong?” she asked.
”Well--no, provided we kill no one. We are justified in saving our own lives, and the average German or Italian s.h.i.+pmaster would hand us over to the Brazilians without scruple.”
Iris was far from Bootle and its moralities.
”I don't care what happens so long as you are not hurt,” she whispered.
”Mr. Hozier,” said c.o.ke thickly.
”Yes, sir.”
”You've got good eyes an' quick ears. Lay out as far forrard as you can, an' pa.s.s the word for steerin'.”
Hozier obeyed. The discordant bleat of a foghorn came again, apparently right ahead. In a few seconds he caught the flapping of a propeller, and silenced the launch's engines.
”We are close in now,” he said to c.o.ke, after a brief and noiseless drift. ”Why not try a hail!”
”s.h.i.+p ahoy!” shouted c.o.ke, with all the force of brazen lungs.
The screw of the unseen s.h.i.+p stopped. The sigh of escaping steam reached them.
”_Holla_! _Wer rufe_?” was the gruff answer.
”Sink me if it ain't a German!” growled c.o.ke, _sotto-voce_, ”Norrie, you must stick here till I sing out to you. Then open your exhaust an'
unscrew a sea-c.o.c.k. . . . Wot s.h.i.+p is that?” he vociferated aloud.
Some answer was forthcoming--what, it mattered not. The launch b.u.mped into the rusty ribs of a twelve-hundred ton tramp. A rope ladder was lowered. A round-faced Teuton mate--fat and placid--was vastly surprised to find a horde of nondescripts pouring up the s.h.i.+p's side in the wake of a short, thick, bovine-looking person who neither understood nor tried to understand a word he was saying.
These extraordinary visitors from the deep brought with them a girl and three wounded men. By this time the captain was aroused; he spoke some English.
”Vas iss diss?” he asked, surveying the newcomers with amazement, and their bizarre costumes with growing nervousness. ”Vere haf you coomed vrom?”
c.o.ke pushed him playfully into the cook's galley.
”This is too easy,” he chortled. ”Set about 'em, you swabs. Don't hurt anybody unless they ax for it. Round every son of a gun into the fo'c'sle till I come. Mr. Watts, the bridge for you. Olsen, take the wheel. Mr. Hozier, see wot you can find in their flag locker. _Now_, Mr. Norrie! Sharp for it. You're wanted in the engine-room.”
And that is how ex-President Dom Corria Antonio De Sylva acquired the nucleus of his fleet, though, unhappily, an accident to a sea-c.o.c.k forthwith deprived him of a most useful and seaworthy steam launch.
CHAPTER XI
A LIVELY MORNING IN EXCHANGE BUILDINGS
c.o.ke and his merry men became pirates during the early morning of Thursday, September 2d; the curious reader can ascertain the year by looking up ”Brazil” in any modern Encyclopedia, and turning to the sub-division ”Recent History.” On Monday, September 6th, David Verity entered his office in Exchange Buildings, Liverpool, hung his hat and overcoat on their allotted pegs, swore at the office boy because some spots of rain had come in through an open window, and ran a feverish glance through his letters to learn if any envelopes bearing the planetary devices of the chief cable companies had managed to hide themselves among the ma.s.s of correspondence.
The act was perfunctory. Well he knew that telephone or special messenger would speedily have advised him if news of the _Andromeda_ had arrived since he left the office on Sat.u.r.day afternoon. But it is said that drowning men clutch at straws, and the metaphor might be applied to Verity with peculiar aptness. He was sinking in a sea of troubles, sinking because the old buoyancy was gone, sinking because many hands were stretched forth to push him under, and never one to draw him forth.
There was no cablegram, of course. d.i.c.key Bulmer, who had become a waking nightmare to the unhappy s.h.i.+powner, had said there wouldn't be--said it twelve hours ago, after wringing from Verity the astounding admission that Iris was on board the _Andromeda_. It was not because the vessel was overdue that David confessed. Bulmer, despite his sixty-eight years, was an acute man of business. Moreover, he was blessed with a retentive memory, and he treasured every word of the bogus messages from Iris concocted by her uncle. They were lucid at first, but under the stress of time they wore thin, grew disconnected, showed signs of the strain imposed on their author's imagination.
Bulmer, a typical Lancas.h.i.+re man, blended in his disposition a genial openhandedness with a shrewd caution. He could display a princely generosity in dealing with Verity as the near relative and guardian of his promised wife; to the man whom he suspected of creating the obstacles that kept her away from him he applied a pitiless logic.