The Vultures Part 2

"Yes, my fren'," he said, "another of my little jobs. I hope you are well, Captain Cable?"

But Captain Cable was not a man to waste words over the social conventions. He was obviously well--as well as a hard, seafaring life will make a man who lives simply and works hard. He was a short man, with a red face washed very clean, and very well shaven, except for a little piece of beard left fantastically at the base of his chin. His eyes were blue and bright, like gimlets. He may have had a soft heart, but it was certainly hidden beneath a hard exterior. He wore a thick coat of blue pilot-cloth, not because the July day was cold, but because it was his best coat. His hat was carefully brushed and of hard, black felt. It had perhaps been the height of fas.h.i.+on in Sunderland five years earlier. He wore no gloves--Captain Cable drew the line there. As for the rest, he had put on that which he called his sh.o.r.e-going rig.

"And yourself?" he answered, mechanically.

"I am very well, thank you," replied the polite banker, who, it will have been perceived, was nameless to Captain Cable, as he is to the reader. The truth being that his name was so absurdly and egregiously Russian that the plain English tongue never embarked on that sea of consonants. "It is an affair, as usual. My friends are here to meet you, but I think they do not speak English, except your colleague, the other captain, who speaks a little--a very little."

As he spoke he led the way to the garden, where three gentlemen were awaiting them.

"This is Captain Cable," he said, and the three gentlemen raised their hats, much to the captain's discomfiture. He did not hold by foreign ways; but he dragged his hat off and then expectorated on the lawn, just to show that he felt quite at home. He even took the lead in the conversation.

"Tell 'em," he said, "that I'm a plain man from Sun'land that has a speciality, an' that's transs.h.i.+pping cargo at sea, but me hands are clean."

He held them out and they were not, so he must have spoken metaphorically.

The banker translated, addressing himself to one of his companions, rather markedly and with much deference.

"You're speakin' French," interrupted Captain Cable.

"Yes, my fren', I am. Do you know French?"

"Not me," returned Captain Cable, affably. "They're all one to me.

They're all d.a.m.n nonsense."

He was, it seemed, that which is called in these days of blatant patriotism a thorough Englishman, or a true Blue, according to the social station of the speaker.

The gentleman to whom the translation had been addressed smiled. He was a tall and rather distinguished-looking man, with bushy white hair and mustache. His features were square-cut and strong. His eyes were dark, and he had an easy smile. He led the way to some chairs which had been placed near a table at the far end of the lawn beneath a cedar-tree, and his manner had something faintly regal in it, as if in his daily life he had always been looked up to and obeyed without question.

"Tell him that we also are plain men with clean hands," he said.

And the banker replied:

"Oui, mon Prince."

But the interpretation was taken out of his mouth by one of the others, the youngest of the group--a merry-eyed youth, with a fluffy, fair mustache and close-cropped, flaxen hair.

"My father," he said, in perfect English, "says that we also are plain men, and that your hands will not be hurt by touching ours."

He held out his hand as he spoke, and refused to withdraw it until it had been grasped, rather shame-facedly, by Captain Cable, who did not like these effusive foreign ways, but, nevertheless, rather liked the young man.

The banker ranged the chairs round the table, and the oddly a.s.sorted group seated themselves. The man who had not yet spoken, and who sat down last, was obviously a sailor. His face was burned a deep brown, and was mostly hidden by a closely cut beard. He had the slow ways of a Northerner, the abashed manner of a merchant skipper on sh.o.r.e. The mark of the other element was so plainly written upon him that Captain Cable looked at him hard and then nodded. Without being invited to do so they sat next to each other at one side of the table, and faced the three landsmen. Again Captain Cable spoke first.

"Provided it's nothing underhand," he said, "I'm ready and willing.

Or'nary risks of the sea, Queen's enemies, act o' G.o.d--them's my risks!

I am uninsured. s.h.i.+p's my own. I don't mind explosives--"

"There are explosives," admitted the banker.

"Then they must be honest explosives, or they don't go below my hatches.

Explosives that's to blow a man up honest, before his face."

"There are cartridges," said the young man who had shaken hands.

"That'll do," said the masterful sailor. And pointing a thick finger towards the banker, added, "Now, mister," and sat back in his chair.

"It is a very simple matter," explained the banker, in a thick, suave voice. "We have a cargo--a greater part of it weight, though there is some measurement--a few cases of light goods, clothing and such. You will load in the river, and all will be sent to you in lighters.

There is nothing heavy, nothing large. There is also no insurance, you understand. What falls out of the slings and is lost overside is lost."

The banker paused for breath.

"I understand," said Captain Cable. "It's the same with me and my s.h.i.+p.

There is no insurance, no tricking underwriters into unusual risks. It's neck or nothing with me."

And he looked hard at the breathless banker, with whom it was, in this respect, nothing.

"I understand right enough," he added, with an affable nod to the three foreigners.

"You will sail from London with a full general cargo for Malmo or Stockholm, or somewhere where officials are not wide-awake. You meet in the North Sea, at a point to be fixed between yourselves, the _Olaf_, Captain Petersen--sitting by your side."

Captain Cable turned and gravely shook hands with Captain Petersen.

"Thought you was a seafaring man," he said. And Captain Petersen replied that he was "Vair pleased."

"The cargo is to be transs.h.i.+pped at sea, out of sight of land or lights.h.i.+p. But that we can safely leave to you, Captain Cable."

"I don't deny," replied the mariner, who was measuring Captain Petersen out of the corner of his eye, "that I have been there before."

"You can then go up the Baltic in ballast to some small port--just a sawmill, at the head of a fjord--where I shall have a cargo of timber waiting for you to bring back to London. When can you begin loading, captain?"

"To-morrow," replied the captain. "s.h.i.+p's lying in the river now, and if these gentlemen would like to see her, she's as handy a--"

"No, I do not think we shall have time for that!" put in the banker, hastily. "And now we must leave you and Captain Petersen to settle your meeting-place. You have your charts?"

By way of response the captain produced from his pocket sundry folded papers, which he laid tenderly on the table. For the last ten years he had been postponing the necessity of buying new charts of certain sections of the North Sea. He looked round at the high walls and the overhanging trees.

"Hope the wind don't come bl.u.s.tering in here much," he said, apprehensively, as he unfolded the ragged papers with great caution.

The fair-haired young man drew forward his chair, and Cable, seeing the action, looked at him sharply.

"Seafaring man?" he inquired, with a weight of doubt and distrust in his voice.

"Not by profession, only for fun."

"Fun? Man and boy, I've used the sea forty years, and I haven't yet found out where the fun comes in!"

"This gentleman," explained the banker, "his Ex--Mr.--" He paused, and looked inquiringly at the white-haired gentleman.

"Mr. Martin."