Our Casualty, and Other Stories Part 17

"You'll have the captain's cabin," said McMunn. "Him and me will sleep in the saloon."

"Oh, you're coming too?"

"I am. Have you any objection?"

"None whatever. I'm delighted. We'll have a jolly time."

"I'll have you remember," said McMunn, "that it's not pleasuring we're out for."

"It's serious business. Smuggling rifles in the teeth of a Royal Proclamation is----"

"When I understand," said McMunn, "and you understand, where's the use of saying what we're going for? I'm taking risks enough anyway, without unnecessary talking. You never know who's listening to you."

"About paying for the--er--the--er--our cargo? Is that all arranged?"

"They'll be paid in bills on a Hamburg bank," said McMunn.

"Won't they expect cash? I should have thought that in transactions of this kind----"

"You're not a business man, my lord; but I'd have you know that a bill with the name of McMunn to it is the same as cash in any port in Europe."

"Well, that's your part of the affair. I am leaving that to you."

"You may leave it What I say I'll do. But there's one thing that I'm no quite easy in my mind about."

"If you're thinking about the landing of the guns----"

"I'm no asking what arrangements you've made about that. The fewer there is that knows what's being done in a business of this kind, the better for all concerned. What's bothering me is this. There's a man called Edelstein."

"Who's he? I never heard of him before."

"He's the Baron von Edelstein, if that's any help to you."

"It isn't. He's not the man we're buying the stuff from."

"He is not. Nor he wasn't mentioned from first to last till the letter I got the day."

He turned to the safe beside him and drew out a bundle of papers held together by an elastic band.

"That's the whole of the correspondence," he said, "and there's the last of it."

He handed a letter to Lord Dunseverick, who read it through carefully.

"This baron," he said, "whoever he is, intends to pay his respects to us before we leave Hamburg. Very civil of him."

"It's a civility we could do without. When I'm doing business I'd rather do it with business men, and a baron, you'll understand, is no just----"

"I'm a baron myself," said Lord Dunseverick.

"Ay, you are."

McMunn said no more. He left it to be understood that his opinion of barons in general was not improved by his acquaintance with Lord Dunseverick.

"I don't think we need bother about Von Eddstein, anyway," said Lord Dunseverick. "What harm can he do us?"

"I'm no precisely bothering about him," said McMunn; "but I'd be easier in my mind if I knew what he wanted with us."

"We sail to-night, anyway," said Lord Dunseverick.

"Ay, we do. I tell't Ginty. He's the captain of _The McMunn Brothers_, and a good man."

"I've met him. In fact----"

"If you've met Ginty you've met a man who knows his business, though I wish he'd give over drinking whisky. However, he's a strong Protestant and a sound man, and you can't expect perfection."

"Capital!" said Lord Dunseverick. "It's a great comfort to be sure of one's men."

"I wish I was as sure of every one as I am of Ginty," said McMunn. "I'm no saying that your lords.h.i.+p's not sound. The speech you made last night at Ballymena was good enough, and I'm with you in every word of it; but----"

"Oh, speeches!" said Lord Dunseverick.

He was uneasily conscious that he had allowed himself to be carried away by the excitement of the occasion when speaking at Ballymena. It was right and proper to threaten armed resistance to Home Rule. It was another thing to offer a warm welcome to the German Emperor if he chose to land in Ulster. The cold emphasis with which McMunn expressed agreement with every word of the speech made Lord Dunseverick vaguely uneasy.

"Ay," said McMunn; "your speeches are well enough, and I don't say, mind you, that you're not a sound man; but I'd be better pleased if you were more serious. You're too fond of joking, in my opinion."

"Good heavens!" said Lord Dunseverick. "I haven't ventured on the ghost of a joke since I came into your office!" He looked round him as he spoke, and fixed his eyes at last on the fireproof safe. "n.o.body could."

"It's no what you've said, it's your lords.h.i.+p's appearance. But it's too late to alter that, I'm thinking."

"Not at all," said Lord Dunseverick. "I'll join you this evening in a suit of yellow oilskins, the stickiest kind, and a blue fisherman's jersey, and a pair of sea-boots. I'll have----"

"You will," said McMunn, "and you'll look like a play actor. It's just what I'm complaining of."

II

_The McMunn Brothers_ lay, with steam up, at a single anchor a mile below the Hamburg quays. The yellow, turbid waters of the Elbe swept past her sides. Below her stretched the long waterway which leads to the North Sea. The lights of the buoys which marked the channel twinkled dimly in the gloom of the summer evening. Shafts of brighter light swept across and across the water from occulting beacons set at long intervals among buoys. Above the steamer lay a large Norwegian barque waiting for her pilot to take her down on the ebb tide. Below _The McMunn Brothers_ was an ocean-going tramp steamer. One of her crew sat on the forecastle playing the "Swanee River" on a melodeon.

McMunn, Ginty, and Lord Dunseverick were together in the cabin of _The McMunn Brothers_. McMunn, dressed precisely as he always dressed in his office, sat bolt upright on the cabin sofa. In front of him on the table were some papers, which he turned over and looked at from time to time.

Beside him was Ginty, in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, with his peaked cap pushed far back on his head. He sat with his elbows on the table. His chin, thrust forward, rested on his knuckles. He stared fixedly at the panelling on the opposite wall of the cabin. Lord Dunseverick, who had a side of the table to himself, leaned far back. His legs were stretched out straight in front of him. His hands were in his pockets. He gazed wearily at the small lamp which swung from the cabin roof.

For a long time no one spoke. It was Lord Dunseverick who broke the silence in the end. He took his cigarette-case from his pocket.

"You may say what you like about tobacco, McMunn," he said, "but it's a comfort to a man when he has no company but a bear with a sore head."

"Ay," said McMunn, "you'll smoke and you'll smoke, but you'll no make me any easier in my mind by smoking."