"A man with three millions of money who dare not put a foot ashore is a study for a Greek philosopher," the Doctor remarked. I agreed with him, though the jest was not so welcome to Black.
"Name your shore to me," he said, "and I'll set foot on it to-morrow. But why should I stop their play-acting? Here, for as many months as I have fingers, have the fools been hunting Ice Haven for my money. It's been on this ship for five months now, and will stop there another fifty if I am of the mind to let it. When I choose to go different, and have a fancy for the land—why, then I'll ride in like a gentleman. There are new republics I could buy to-morrow—lock, stock, and barrel—if I had the fancy. But I've my work to do afloat first, and that's work to make the world talk. When that's done, I'll begin to tell you about the shore; but not before, not by an hour, not even to see you capering in Paris, Doctor, when, if I didn't know you better, I'd take you for a professor of dancing in a dime academy."
Osbart jibbed at this.
"Oh," says he, "to the devil with the dancing——"
"And a pretty warm floor for the feet," says the Captain, who knew where the shoe pinched. Osbart was hot in temper by this time, and he asked, almost with passion:
"Do you think I'm afraid——"
"I'm sure that you are. It's the warship and the drink, Doctor. Man, you see a hull on every skyline."
"There'll be more than one to see before the month has run——"
"One or twenty, what's that to me? Why, I'll tell you this: I'll be at Hull in ten days' time, and show you what a York ham is like. You shall board the guardship there and tip the Jack who shows you round a sovereign. I doubt not you'll see the dancing all right——"
We both looked up.
"Hull, Captain? You won't dare to go to Hull—Hull——"
"Aye, but I will. 'Hell, Hull and Halifax,' don't they say? Well, I'm going to No. 2 for a man I'm wanting badly. Why won't I go there?"
"That's rank madness," says Osbart.
Black roared with laughter.
"What goes so well in the world as rank madness? Answer me that. Would I leave Ned Jolly in the forts at the Humber's mouth when I can take him for the asking? Is it like me to do that? You know it isn't, Osbart. We'll just pick him up in the river, and then head south for the Bay. I've a mind to see the Mediterranean this time; and when I've the mind to do a thing it's as good as done. You'll be gleg at the prancing in Algiers, Doctor. By thunder, I see your feet shifting."
"And I see a man sailing as near the foot of the scaffold as ever he's likely to sail without catching his neck in a cord. It's stark insanity, Black; you would never have thought of it in the old days."
"I never think of what's gone. The old days are buried. Would you dig 'em up? I was afloat on a good ship then, but this is a better for such a man as me. If it goes under—well, half a dozen go with it. There were five hundred sank with me last time. Someday we'll drop down in those latitudes and see what the fish are doing with their bones, Osbart. That's a trip which should please you. Aye, man, to count the dead men's skulls on the floor of the sea. Will you come with me?"
He asked it almost fiercely, and the Doctor shrank back from him afraid. These moods, when he delighted to inspire terror, were very characteristic of Black, and he would play with his victim as a cat plays with a mouse. As it chanced, he pushed the matter no farther on this occasion, for the engineer, Dingo, came into the saloon to say that No. 1 was sighted, and we all went up to the platform immediately. Night was falling then, and the northern sky aflame with an arc of light, which stood above the sea in fan-shape glory of red and blue and the rarest purple. The swell had died down, and the waves lapped upon our bows as though all anger was gone from them. Near by stood a heavy tramp, from whose stumpy, black funnel foul smoke poured. Already she had lowered her boat and sent a foreword to us, but we ran the Zero right under her lee when Black came on deck, and immediately began to ship the stores she had carried to us.
Of the nature of these I am unable to tell you. In part, no doubt, they were provisions. I saw bags of biscuit and some fresh meat; they were luxuries in tin cases, and others in wooden boxes. These went aft to the galley, where the hunchback received them. Then I saw that the engine-room hatch forward was open, and that drums (I have learned since that they contained chemicals for our batteries) were passed along. After that I noticed that the batteries themselves were being charged, and that a large number of cells were lifted from one ship to the other: ours being those that had been used, theirs a new supply for us. Altogether, I suppose we stood by the tramp for three hours or more, and when she was gone the northern lights still blazed in the wonderful sky.
But we had already turned our bows southward, and ran with all the speed we could command to the shores of Scotland.
CHAPTER XIII
I SEE THE ENGLISH COAST AGAIN
Captain Black had ever been a solitary man. When I was upon the Nameless Ship, days and even weeks would find him living a life apart in his own cabin,, and here upon the Zero he was not changed. Sometimes he would dine with us in the saloon; he was often upon deck very early in the morning to see the sun rise; but for the most part of the day we never saw him at all. What he did or what brooding of the spirit kept him from his fellows, I make no pretence to say. The man was not as other men, and could not be judged by the common standards.
Of the rest of the crew I saw much during the ten days which followed the destruction of the Vespa. They were a wild lot, but most of them had brains. Black had picked them up in many ports, I learned, and more than one of them had been in prison. The silent Frenchman, whom they called the Leopard, had studied under Guichard and was a first-rate electrician. The great rogue Red Roger was a bully and the whip to keep the idlers going. Like most of his kind he was a coward at heart, and the crew soon discovered it. But he talked big all the time, and to hear him you would have thought him a match for all the fighting men in the world.
One night, I remember (it would have been about the twelfth day out from Ice Haven), I went up to the platform toward the hour of sunset and found this hulking fellow and the little Frenchman together there. The sea ran rather wild, and every hatch had a red disc outward to show that it must be shut fast by any who used it. The Zero herself was running well through the troubled waters and making light of them; in truth, the best part of her lay entirely below the surface; and when I stood upon the platform the waves rose often to the height of my head. There it ended, however, for the wind was behind us, and the seas fell heavily upon the spine of the ship and gave us no more than a dousing of fresh spray.
I had imagined that we must be somewhere near the coast of Scotland by this time, and looking round the horizon, I could make out a dim headland on the starboard quarter. Answering my inquiry, the fellow Red Roger replied, glibly enough, that it was Cape Wrath, which instantly set the little Frenchman chuckling, and he continued to chuckle in a way that irritated the big fellow beyond all bearing.
"Ho," cried Red Roger angrily, "and ain't it Cape Wrath, then? Who says different?"
"Jules, me, I say it. Not Cape Wrath at all;" and then turning to