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'veonly got the choice of two things. You can have a free passage home toEngland as a Distressed Seaman by the next steamer, and you know whatthat means. The steamer gets paid a shilling a day, and grubs and berthsyou accordingly, and you earn your 'bacca money by bumming around thegalley 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 methat, sir?"
"Don't get wrathful with me. I'm only telling you what you'll find outto be the square truth if you stay on long enough. The authorities herewill 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 asLiverpool, and I'm a respectable man."
"The trouble of it is," said Sheriff drily, "they say you are not. Thereare a limited number of white men here in Lagos--perhaps two hundred alltold--and their businesses and sources of income are all more or lessvisible to the naked eye. Yours aren't. In the language ofthe--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 alwaysgot tobacco; and apparently you must have meals now and again, though Ican't say you've got particularly fat on them."
"I've never been a rich man, sir. I've never earned high wages--onlyonce as much as fifteen pounds a month--and there's the missis and thefamily to provide for; and, as a consequence, I've never had much tospend on myself. It would surprise a gentleman who's been wealthy likeyou, 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," saidSheriff; "and as for the Lagos authorities I was speaking about, it'sdone more; it's made them suspicious. Hang it, man, be reasonable; youmust see they are bound to be suspicious."
Captain Kettle's brown face grew darker in tint, and he spoke withvisible shame. "I've come by a living, sir, honest, but I couldn't bearit to be told aloud here to all the world how it was done. I may bedown, Mr. Sheriff, but I have my pride still."
Sheriff spread his hands helplessly. "That's no kind of answer," hesaid. "They won't let you continue to stay here in Lagos on anexplanation like that. Come now, Kettle, be sensible: put yourself inthe authorities' place. They've got a town to administer--a bigtown--that not thirty years ago was the most murderous, fanatical, rowdydwelling of slave-traders on the West Coast of Africa. To-day, by dintof careful shepherding, they've reduced it to a city of quietrespectability, with a smaller crime rate than Birmingham; and in factmade it into a model town suitable for a story-book. You don't see theGovernment 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 theold days, and would like to be up to a bit of mischief every now andagain, just for old association's sake, which of course the Governmentis quite aware of.
"Now there's nothing that can stir up niggers into ructions against awhite man's government better than a white man, as has been proved tonsof times already, and here are you already on the carpet quite equal tothe 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 playfor safety and ship you off out of harm's way."
"I must admit," said Kettle ruefully, "that there's sense in what yousay, sir."
"Are you going to give a free and open explanation of your means ofemployment here in Lagos, and earn the right to stay on openly, or areyou going to still stick to the mysterious?"
The little sailor frowned. "No, sir," he said; "as I told you before, Ihave my pride."
"Very-well, then. Now, are you going to be the Distressed Seaman, and bejeered at all the run home as you cadge round for your 'baccy money, orare you going to do the sensible thing, and step into this billet I'veput in your way?"
"You corner me."
"I'm glad to hear it, and let me tell you it hasn't been for want oftrying. Man, if I hadn't liked you, I would not have taken all thistrouble to put a soft thing ready to your hand."
"I believe you want service out of me in return, sir," said Kettlestiffly.
Sheriff laughed. "You aren't the handiest man in the world to get onwith, and if I hadn't been an easy-tempered chap I should have biddenyou go to the deuce long enough ago. Of course, I want something out ofyou. A man who has just lost a fortune, and who is down on his luck likeI am, can't afford to go in for pure philanthropy without any possiblereturn. But, at the same time, I'm finding you a job at fifty pound amonth with a fortnight's wages paid in advance, and I think you might bedecently grateful. By your own telling, you never earned so much as foursovereigns a week before."
"The wages were quite to my taste from the beginning, sir; don't thinkme ungrateful there. But what I didn't like was going to sea withoutknowing 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 tastierto 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 standingin with me over this business, and as he insists on the whole thingbeing kept absolutely dark till we're away at sea, I've no choice but toobserve 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 Englisheducation, affected to be utterly prostrated by the heat) replied withlanguor that Mr. White was upstairs; upon which Sheriff, mopping himselfwith a handkerchief, went up briskly.
White, a gorgeously handsome young Hebrew, read success from his face atonce. "I can see you've hooked your man," said he. "That's goodbusiness; we couldn't have got another as good anywhere. Have acocktail?"
"Don't mind if I do. It's been tough work persuading him. He's such asuspicious, conscientious little beggar. Shout for your boy to bring thecocktail, 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--gota 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 afan. He sketched in the account of his embassage with humorous phrase.
The Hebrew had been liberal with his cocktail. He said himself that hemade them so beautifully that no one could resist a second; and so, witha sigh of gusto, Sheriff gulped down number two and put the glass on thefloor. "No," he said; "no more. They're heavenly, I'll grant, but nomore. We shall want very clear heads for what's in front of us, and I'mnot going to fuddle mine for a commencement. I can tell you we have beenvery nearly wrecked already. It was only by the skin of my teeth Imanaged to collar Master Kettle. I only got him because I happened toknow 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 inthe lagoon, and I worked on that. Look out of that window; it's a bitglary with the sun full on, but do you see those rows of stakes the netsare made fast on? Well, one of those belongs to Captain Owen Kettle, andhe works there after dark like a native, and dressed as one. You knowhe's been so long living naked up in the bush that his hide's nearlyblack, and he can speak all the nigger dialects. But I guessed he'dnever 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 whatwas his trade, or clear out of the colony one-time. It was quite a neatbit 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 intalk to get what he wants. But look here, Mr. White, now we've gotKettle, I want to be off and see the thing over and finished as soon aspossible. It's the first time I've been hard enough pushed to meddlewith this kind of racket, and I can't say I find it so savory that I'mkeen 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, whenyou have it."
Keen though Sheriff was to get this venture put to the trial, brimmingwith energy though he might be, it was quite out of the question that astart could be made at once. A small steamer they had already secured oncharter, but she had to be manned, coaled, and provisioned, and allthese things are not carried out as quickly in Lagos as they would be inLiverpool, even though there was a Kettle in command to do the driving.And, moreover, there were cablegrams to be sent, in tedious cypher, toLondon and elsewhere, to make the arrangements on which the success ofthe scheme would depend.
The Jew was the prime mover in all this cabling. He had abundance ofmoney in his pocket, and he spent it lavishly, and he practically livedin the neighborhood of the telegraph office. He was as affable as couldbe; he drank cocktails and champagne with the telegraph staff wheneverthey were offered; but over the nature of his business he was as closeas 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 asthere was in Africa.
But preparations were finished at last, and one morning, when the tideserved, the little steamer cast off from her wharf below the Marina, andsteered 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 ofspray to moisten the dry deck planks, and Sheriff pointed to the mastsof a branch-boat which had struck the sand a week before, and had beatenher bottom out and sunk in ten minutes, and from these he drew goodomens about this venture, and at the same time prettily complimentedKettle on his navigation.
But Kettle refused to be drawn into friendliness. He coldly commentedthat luck and not skill was at the bottom of these matters, and that ifthe bar had shifted, he himself could have put this steamer on theground as handily as the other man had piled up the branch-boat. Herefused to come below and have a drink, saying that his place was on thebridge till he learned from observation that either of the two mates wasa man to be trusted. And, finally, he inquired, with acid formality, asto whether his employers wished the steamer brought to an anchor in theroads, 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," andthen 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 onhis temper, and if he doesn't hear the plan of campaign, he's quiteequal to making himself nasty."
"I don't mind telling him some, but I'm hanged if I'm going to tell himall. There are too many in the secret already, what with you and the twoin London; and as I keep on telling you, if one whiff of a suspiciongets abroad, the whole thing's busted, and a trap will be set that youand I will be caught in for a certainty."
"Poof! We're at sea now, and no one can gossip beyond the walls of theship. Besides Kettle is far too staunch to talk. He's the sort of manwho can be as mum as the grave when he chooses. But if you persist inrefusing to trust him, well, I tell you that the thought of what he maybe up to makes me frightened."
"Now look here, my boy," said White, "you force me to remind you thatI'm senior partner here, and to repeat that what I say on this matter'sgoing to be done. I flatly refuse to trust this Kettle with the wholeyarn. We've hired him at an exorbitant fee--bought him body and soul, infact, as I've no doubt he very well understands--and to my mind he'sengaged to do exactly as he's told, without asking questions. But as youseem set on it, I'll meet you here; he may be told a bit. Fetchhim down."
But as Kettle refused to come below, on the chilly plea of business, thepartner went out under the awnings of the upper bridge, where thehandsome White, with boisterous, open-hearted friendliness, did his bestto hustle the little sailor into quick good humor.
"Don't blame me, Skipper, or Sheriff here either, for the matter ofthat, 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 mouthsshut till the right time. There's nothing wrong with this caution, I'msure you'll be the first to say. You see they couldn't tell from thatdistance what sort of man we should be able to pick up at Lagos. I guessthey never so much as dreamed that we'd have the luck to persuade a chaplike 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 anincompetent man. Now look here, Captain. We're on for making a big pilein a very short time, and you can stand in to finger your share ifyou'll, only take your whack of the work."
"There's no man living more capable of hard work than me, sir, and noman keener to make a competence. I've got a wife that I'd like to see alot 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 shallhave it."
"But it isn't every sovereign that might be put in her way," said thesailor meaningly, "that Mrs. Kettle would care to use."
"I guess I find every sovereign that comes to my fingers contains twentyuseful shillings."
"I will take your word for it, sir. Mrs. Kettle prefers to know that thefew she handles are cleanly come by."
Mr. White gritted his handsome teeth, shrugged his shoulders, and madeas 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 longenough, and you've got to be put on the ground floor, like the rest ofus. 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 thepulpit on the Stock Exchange, and those who do business there. Theminister of our chapel, sir, is a man I always agree with."
This was sufficiently unpromising, but Sheriff went doggedly on. "I seeyour way of looking at it: the whole crowd of stock operators are a gangof 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 atseveral places on the road, and we want to get hold of one of thestations and work it for our own purposes for an hour or so. If we cando that, our partners in London will bring off a speculation in SouthAfrican 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 profitcome from?"
White was quicker than Sheriff to grasp the situation. "From inside thefour walls of the Stock Exchange. S'elp me, Captain, you needn't pitythem. There are lots of men there, my friends too, who would have playedthe game themselves if they had been sharp enough to think of it. Wehave to be pretty keen in the sp
eculation business if we want to makemoney out of it."
Captain Kettle buttoned his coat, and stepped to the further end of thebridge with an elaborate show of disgust. "You are on the Stock Exchangeyourself, sir?"
"Er--connected with it, Captain."
"YOU INSOLENT LITTLE BLACKGUARD, YOU DARE TO SPEAK TO MELIKE THAT!"]
"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 forvisiting jails and carrying comfort to the afflicted."
"By gad!" said White, "you insolent little blackguard, you dare to speakto me like that!"
"I use what words I choose," said Kettle, truculently. "I'd have saidthe same to your late King Solomon if I hadn't liked his ways; but if Iwas pocketing his pay, I should have carried out his orders all thesame." He bent down to the voice hatch, and gave a bearing to the blackquartermaster in the wheel-house below, and the little steamer, whichhad by this time left behind her the vessels transhipping cargo in theroads, 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 theAtlantic.
But Sheriff and the Jew were visibly startled. Mr. Sheriff mopped at avery damp forehead with his pocket handkerchief. "Have you heardanything 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 donewill not be on my conscience. The shipmaster's blameless in thesematters; it's the owner who drives him that earns his punishment in thehereafter; 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 hisfinger on that island at once. That's the loneliest place where thecable goes ashore all up and down the coast, and it isn't British, andwhat more could you want?"
With these meagre assurances, Messieurs Sheriff and White had to becontent, as no others were forthcoming. Captain Kettle refused to bedrawn into further talk upon the subject, and the pair went below to thestuffy little cabin more than a trifle disconsolate. "Well, here's theman you talked so big about," said White, bitterly. "As soon as we getout at sea, he shows himself in his true colors. Why, he's a bloomingMethodist. But if he sells us when it comes to the point, and there's achance 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 clearout. He's a regular glutton for a fight; I know he's armed; and he couldshoot the buttons off your coat at twenty yards. No, Mr. White; make thebest or the worst of Captain Kettle as you choose, but don't come tofisticuffs with him, or as sure as you are living now, you'll finish outon 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 asgood 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. Lookhere, I know this man Kettle a lot better than you do. He wants the payvery badly. And when it comes to sticking up the cable station, you'llsee him do the work of any ten like us. I tell you, he's a regular demonwhen it comes to a scuffle."
It was in this attitude, then, that the three principal members of thelittle steamer's complement voyaged down over those warm tropical seaswhich lay between Lagos and the isle of their hopes and fears. Two ofthem kept together, and perfected the detail of their plans for use inevery contingency; but the other kept himself icily apart, and for anoccupation, when the business of the ship did not require his eye,wrapped himself up in the labor of literary production. He even refusedto partake of meals at the same table with his employers.
The island first appeared to them as a huddle of mountains sprouting outof the sea, which grew green as they came more near, and which finallyshowed great masses of foliage growing to the crown of the splinteredheights, with a surf frilling the bays and capes at their foot. Therewas a town in the hug of one of these bays, and toward it the littlesteamer rolled as though she had been an ordinary legitimate trader. Shebrought up to an anchor in the jaws of the bay, half-way between thelighthouse and the rectangular white building on the further beach, andafter due delay, a negro doctor, pulled up by a surf-boat full of othernegroes, came off and gave her pratique.
The rectangular white building, standing in the sea breeze by itselfaway from the town beyond, was the cable station, but for the presentthey faced it with their backs. Kettle had seen it before; the other twoacted as though it were the last thing to trouble their minds. There wasno going ashore for any of them yet; indeed, the less they advertisedtheir personal identity, the more chance there was of getting offuntraced afterward.
Night fell with such suddenness that one could almost have imagined thesun was permanently extinguished. Round the rim of the bay lights beganto kindle, and presently (when the wind came off the land) strains ofmusic 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. Whathave you to do with saints and their days?"
"I was told that one once, sir, and I can't help remembering it. You seethe 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, andthen, when I go back with plenty in my pocket, I can begin to think offamily pleasures and cares again. Come now, have you thought out what wecan 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-boatat some place where the cable doesn't call, and leave that as soon aspossible for somewhere else."
"It will be a big saving of necks," said Kettle drily. "Why sir, you'vebeen 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 intoanother port in the whole wide world without papers, and as far asforging a new set, why that's a thing that hasn't been done this thirtyyears 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 regardedSheriff as a gull, and pitied him accordingly; but White he recognizedas principal knave, and disliked him accordingly.
But when the start was made for the raid, some hour and a half beforethe dawn, Kettle was not backward in fulfilling his paid-for task.Himself he saw a surf-boat lowered into the water and manned by blackKrooboy paddlers; himself he saw his two employers down on the thwarts,and then followed them; and himself he sat beside the head-man whostraddled in the stern sheets at the steering oar, and gave him minutedirections.
The boat was avoiding the bay altogether. She was making for the stripof sand in front of the cable station, and except when she wasshouldered up on the back of a roller, the goal was out of sight allthe 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 areyou'll have to do it inside the next ten minutes."
"If we are spilt getting ashore," said White, "how do you say we'll getoff 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 thingswhich weren't true. But if you don't fancy the prospect, go back and trya trade that's less risky. You mayn't like honest work, but it strikesme this kind of contract's out your weight anyway."
The Jew looked as if he would like to let loose his tongue, and perhapshandle a weapon, but his motto was "business first," and he coul
d notafford to have an open fracas with Kettle then. So he swallowed hisresentment, and said, "Get on," and clung dizzily on to his thwart.
As each roller passed tinder her, the surf-boat swooped higher andhigher, and the laboring paddles seemed to give her less and lessmomentum. The head-man strained at the steering oar. The Krooboys hadhard work to keep their perches on the gunwale.
At last the head-man shouted, and the paddles ceased. They were waitingfor a smooth. Roller after roller swept under them, and the boat rodethem dizzily, but kept her place just beyond the outer edge of the surf.From over his shoulder, the head-man watched the charging seas withanimal intentness. Then with a sudden shriek he gave the word, and thepaddles stabbed the water into spray. The heavy boat rushed forwardagain, and a great towering sea rushed after her. It reared her up,stern uppermost, and passed, leaving her half swamped by its foamingpassage; and then came another sea, and the boat broached to and spilt.The Krooboys jumped like black frogs from either gunwale, and Kettlejumped also, and made his way easily to the sand, being used to thisexperience. But Sheriff was pulled on to the beach with difficulty, andthe Jew was hauled there in a state verging on the unconscious. Helooked at the fearsome surf, and shuddered openly. "How shall we get offagain?" 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 morningfrom the Custom House wharf."
But Mr. White, whatever might be the list of his failings, wascertainly possessed of dogged pluck, and as he had got that far with hisenterprise, did not intend to desert it. He got rid of the sea-waterthat was within him, and resolutely led the way to the cable station,which loomed square and solid through the dusk. Sheriff followed, andCaptain Kettle, with his hands in his pockets, brought up the rear. TheKrooboys, according to their orders, stayed on the beach, brought in theboat, collected her furniture, and got all ready for relaunching.
White seemed to know the way as if he had been there before. He went upto the building, entered through an open door, and strode quietly in hisrubber-soled shoes along a dark passage. At the end was a room inpartial darkness, and a man who watched a spot of light which dartedhither and back, and between whiles wrote upon paper. To him White wentup, 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 theother men on the station, and they'll be killed also. There are plentyof us here, and we are well armed, and we intend to have our own way. Ifyou 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 gotup and sat where he was told, and Kettle, according to arrangement,stood guard over him. "I suppose you malefactors know," he added, "thatthere are certain pains and penalties attached to this sort ofamusement, and that you are bound to get caught quite soon, whether youshoot me or let me go?"
Nobody answered him. White had sat down at the instrument table, and wastapping out messages like a man well accustomed to the work.
"Of course with those black mask things over your faces I couldn'trecognize 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 clearout 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 keepyour 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 beingdispatched, and these were White and the dispossessed operator. The oneworked with cool, steady industry, and the other listened with strainedintentness. Sheriff was outside the door keeping guard on the rest ofthe house. But Kettle, from his station behind the operator's chair,listened with a strange disquietude. He had been told that the object ofthe raid was to arrange a stock exchange robbery, and to this he hadtacitly agreed. According to his narrow creed (as gathered from theSouth Shields chapel) none but rogues and thieves dealt in stocks andshares, and if these chose to rob one another, an honest man might welllook on non-interferent. But what guarantee had he that this robbery wasnot planned to draw plunder from the outside public as well? The pledgedword of Mr. White. And that was worth? He smiled disdainfully when hethought of the slenderness of its value.
_Tap--taptap--tap--tap--taptap_, said the tantalizing instrument, goingsteadily on with its hidden speech.
The stifling heat of the room seemed to get more oppressive. The mysteryof the thing beat against Kettle's brain.
Of course he could not read the deposed operator's thoughts, though hecould see easily that the man was reading the messages which White wasso glibly sending off. But it was clear that the man's agitation wasgrowing; growing, too, out of all proportion to the coolness he hadshown when his room was first invaded. At last an exclamation was forcedfrom him, almost, as it seemed, involuntarily. "Oh, you ghastlyscoundrel," he murmured, and on that Kettle spoke. He could not standthe 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 hisrevolver. But before his fingers touched it, he looked up and sawKettle's weapon covering him.
"You put that down," came the crisp order, and White obeyed it nervouslyenough.
"And now go and stand in the middle of the room till I give you leave toshift."
White did this also. He grasped the fact that Captain Kettle was not ina 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 beensent, just tell me the whole lot of it, please, as near as you canremember."
"He called up London first, and gave what sounded like a registeredaddress, and sent the word 'corruscate.' That's probably code; anyway Idon't know what it meant. Then he called the Cape, and sent a message tothe Governor. He hadn't got to the end, and there was no signature, butit was evidently intended to make them believe that it was sent from theColonial Office at home."
"Well," said Kettle, "what was the message?"
"Good Lord, man, he's directing the Governor to declare war on theTransvaal. You know there's been trouble with them lately, and they'llbelieve that it comes from the right place. If this is somestock-jobbing plant--"
"It is."
"Then, by heavens, it'll be carried through unless you let me stop it atonce. The thing's plausible enough--"
But here White recovered from his temporary scare, and cut in with afine show of authority. "S'help me, Kettle, you're making a pretty messof things. You make me knock off in the middle of a message, and they'llnot know what's up at the other end if I don't go on. Look atthat 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 yourtemper for like this? You knew quite well what we came here for."
"I knew you came to steal money from stockbrokers. I knew nothing aboutgoing to try and run my country in for a war."
"Poof, that's nothing. The war would not hurt you and me. Besides, itmust go on now. I've cabled my partner in London to be a bear in Kaffirsfor all he's worth. We must smash all the instruments here so they can'tcontradict the news, and then be off."
"Your partner can be a bear or any other kind of beast, in any sort ofniggers he chooses, but I'm not going to let you run England into war atany price."
"Pah, my good man, what does that matter to you? What's England everdone for you?"
"I live there," said Kettle, "when I'm at home, and as I've livedeverywhere else in the world, I'm
naturally a bit more fond of the oldshop 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 theinstrument table, but with a quick rush Kettle possessed himself of it,and Mr. White found himself again looking down the muzzle of CaptainKettle's weapon.
But a moment later the aim was changed. Sheriff, hearing the whisperedtalk, had come in through the doorway to see what it was about, andpromptly 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 CaptainKettle'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 athome and the Transvaal?"
"I suppose so."
"And smash up the telegraph instruments afterward, so that it could notbe 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 notdo this. Instead, he said: "Now we'll go back to the ship, and of courseyou'll have to scuttle her just as if you'd brought off your game heresuccessfully. Run England in for a bloody war, would you, just for somefilthy money? By James! no. Come, march. And you, Mr. Telegraph Clerk,get under weigh with that deaf and dumb alphabet of yours, and ring upthe Cape, and tell them what's been sent is all a joke, and there's tobe no war at all."
"I'll do that, you may lay your heart on it," said the operator. "ButMr. 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 twosharks, it might be dangerous."
"Thank you, kindly, sir," said Kettle; "but I'm a man that's beenaccustomed to look after myself all the world over, and I'm not likelyto get hurt now. Those two may be sharks, as you say, but I'm notaltogether 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 yourwork contradicting that wire, and don't send for any of those littlePortuguese soldiers with guns to see us off. It's a bad beach, and wemayn't get off first try, and if they started to annoy us whilst we wereat 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 youdon't mind, before you go. There's more man to the cubic inch about youthan in any other fellow I've come across for a long time. I've no clubat home now, or I'd ask you to look me up. But I dare say we shall meetagain some time. So long."
"Good-by, sir," said Kettle, and shook the operator by the hand. Then heturned, and drove the other two raiders before him out of the house, anddown to the beach, and, with the Krooboys, applied himself to launchingthe surf-boat through the breakers.
"Run the old shop into a war, would you?" he soliloquized to two verylimp, unconscious figures, as the Krooboys got the surf-boat afloatafter the third upset. "It's queer what some men will do for money." Andthen, a minute later, he muttered to himself: "By James! look at thatdawn coming up behind the island there; yellow as a lemon. Now, that isfine. I can make a bit of poetry out of that."