. There are lots of men there, my friends too, who would have played
the game themselves if they had been sharp enough to think of it. We
have to be pretty keen in the speculation business if we want to make
money out of it."

Captain Kettle buttoned his coat, and stepped to the further end of the
bridge with an elaborate show of disgust. "You are on the Stock Exchange
yourself, sir?"

"Er--connected with it, Captain."

[Illustration: "YOU INSOLENT LITTLE BLACKGUARD, YOU DARE TO SPEAK TO ME
LIKE 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 for
visiting jails and carrying comfort to the afflicted."

"By gad!" said White, "you insolent little blackguard, you dare to speak
to me like that!"

"I use what words I choose," said Kettle, truculently. "I'd have said
the same to your late King Solomon if I hadn't liked his ways; but if I
was pocketing his pay, I should have carried out his orders all the
same." He bent down to the voice hatch, and gave a bearing to the black
quartermaster in the wheel-house below, and the little steamer, which
had by this time left behind her the vessels transhipping cargo in the
roads, 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 the
Atlantic.

But Sheriff and the Jew were visibly startled. Mr. Sheriff mopped at a
very damp forehead with his pocket handkerchief. "Have you heard
anything 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 done
will not be on my conscience. The shipmaster's blameless in these
matters; it's the owner who drives him that earns his punishment in the
hereafter; 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 his
finger on that island at once. That's the loneliest place where the
cable goes ashore all up and down the coast, and it isn't British, and
what more could you want?"

With these meagre assurances, Messieurs Sheriff and White had to be
content, as no others were forthcoming. Captain Kettle refused to be