"Why Humming Top?" asked Madame Gilbert. It was early in March, and the devastation wrought by the Admiralty in the yacht's graceful interior had been obliterated by the skilled hands of White of Cowes. Her upper and main decks had been entirely refashioned, and nothing remained of her armament except a brass signal gun forward. At the main mast head waved in the breeze the burgee of the Royal Thames Yacht Club, and from the inclined jackstaff at her stern hung the Blue Ensign which it is the privilege of that Club to wear. The Humming Top lay in the Test above Southampton just where the magazines of Marchwood front the river. Madame Gilbert leaned upon the bridge rail, and beside her, as close beside her as Madame would permit, stood the Baronet of Wigan. Sir John Toppys had been presented to Madame some weeks earlier, and between them a friendship had ripened. In due course, when the Humming Top, completed and ready for sea, had been towed to her moorings off Marchwood, Sir John had pressed Madame to honour the vessel with her presence. She, not unwilling to inspect the yacht in which she was to traverse the seas of the wide world, and not unwilling to double-lock her chains "My room is splendid," said she, "and I am so glad that you have given me a proper spring bed instead of a snuffy bunk. If you will have a light fitted at the head of my bed, and a bell push so that I can switch off the light or summon my maid without moving more than my hand, the room will be just perfect." "I will give orders at once," declared Sir John Toppys. "You are sure that there is no further way in which I may meet your wishes?" "None at present," said Madame. "If I think of anything else, I will let you know. She is a lovely boat, but why do you call her the Humming Top?" Sir John Toppys had not succumbed so far to the spells of Madame as to have wholly lost his earlier suspicion that the Toppys Family and fortunes were in her eyes objects of derision. She was so frank in her laughter at their ancestral pretensions, she proclaimed so openly that she embarked on her voyage to the South Seas as a glorious rag, that in time he had become disarmed. If she felt as she professed to feel, surely she would be less open in profession. Still now and then Madame would shoot out a question which did awaken in the baronet's mind a feeling that his leg was about to be pulled. Before, therefore, answering her Even to him the explanation was rather absurd. "The epithet 'humming' suggests the whirr of the turbines," muttered he. "There is no hammer, hammer, hammer, clank, clank, clank, about this yacht. She whirrs, hums, just like a top." "Quite so," assented Madame drily. "Nevertheless, I do not think——" "You are right," put in Toppys hastily—it was better to be frank in confession. "We should not have chosen this name had we not desired it to suggest a Family Possession." "Toppys, pronounced Tops," whispered Madame wickedly. "Plural Tops, singular Top. Humming Top—the Top that Hums. What extraordinary worshippers of the Family gods you are. I fully expect to find that Willatopy is a faithful student of the Family Tree. He probably keeps it stuck up in his hut." "God forbid!" cried the Baronet of Wigan. He was not a Bad Baronet, and certainly not Bold in the presence of Madame. She, expecting to meet the typical fat-bellied profiteer of the popular cartoons, had at their first introduction been struck almost speechless with surprise. This the King of Coal and Iron, the Maker of Guns and Shells, the Wallower in unholy War Profits! She saw before her a small thin gentleman, whose careful dress and trimmed white moustache suggested a military club. When he spoke, Winchester and Oxford spoke. This a Baronet of Wigan! Madame rubbed her eyes. Further acquaintance revealed the explanation. John Toppys possessed the caste "Now that I have seen the Humming Top," said Madame, "I know that I am blessed among women. At no cost to myself—though at very much to you, Sir John Toppys—I am going to have the time of my life. From May to September in the Torres Straits the climate is divine. A day temperature between 75 and 85, no rain, a perpetual trade wind from the cool south-east, nights in which one may sleep comfortably and days in which one may revel "The expense to me is nothing," said the Baronet. "I am smothered in ill-gotten wealth. And if some of my money can give you pleasure, it is well spent, Madame. I would do more than write cheques to give you pleasure. And as for your enterprise, is it destined to be empty of result? I think more highly of your resource than that. Dawson says that there is nothing which you dare not do if your interest be stimulated." He saw the angry flush spring out on Madame's forehead. "You mistake my meaning, Madame. It was not the stimulus of money that I had in mind. It was the overwhelming impulse of your artistic genius. When you confront a problem, however bleakly impossible it may be, you never fail of solution. Dawson says so. You have not concerned yourself with our family affairs because of any interest in our troubles. You laugh at them. It is because no man or woman alive, except Madame Gilbert, could resolve a skein so hopelessly entangled." "I see no solution. Sir John. And though I sail at your expense, I am not on your side. I am free to help or to hinder, at my pleasure." "We are all at Madame Gilbert's pleasure," said Toppys, smiling. "We know, you and I, that Roger Gatepath is two parts flunkey, one quarter fool, and the other quarter unscrupulous lawyer. He cares for nothing except for the connections and profits of his firm. He would lick the new Lord Topsham's tawny feet if he did not fear to lose some handfuls from my golden pile. I do not value the Barony at a rush for myself, but there is in my blood a centuries-old reverence for my Family. Rather than that coloured brat yonder should be recognised as the Head of my House, I would strangle him with my own hands. If you can save us from that horror, Madame, there is nothing which is in my power to grant that I would not lay at your feet." "Absurd as it may seem, Sir John, I have a conscience. Madame Gilbert is not for sale." "No. I should not value you if you were. And believe me I rate you very highly. You will go out in this yacht to the Torres Straits, and you will follow your conscience. Maybe you will bring back the Twenty-Eighth Baron in your train and set him yourself upon his seat. There is no contract between us; you are free to do even this. Be just to me, Madame. I have offered you nothing except a free passage; I have never sought to bribe you. In my heart I knew that it would be useless. Whatever may be the end, Madame, I shall always cherish these weeks of our friendship." "As a Toppys you are not a little ridiculous," She held out her hand to him there on the bridge of the Humming Top, and Toppys, stooping, kissed her fingers. "Thank you," said he, simply. Although Madame had made a sketchy inspection of the yacht in the company of Sir John Toppys, she learned very little of its fascinating merits until she came aboard in act to sail. The crew were already at their quarters when Madame was ceremoniously received on board by Captain Ching the skipper, and the Chief Engineer, Ewing. She had already given orders—Sir John Toppys had assigned to her his full powers and prerogatives as owner—she had already given orders that the chief officers should mess with her in the pretty little saloon on the upper deck, aft of which was a snug "Owner's Room"—equipped with writing-table and bookcases—which she reserved for her own private occupation. Whenever their duties permitted of social relaxation, Madame had determined that the Captain and Chief Engineer should be her intimate companions. It was no new experience for Madame to be the one woman in a company of men—her maid did not count—and she who had the free outlook and high courage of a man, enjoyed the privileges of a double sex. In repose she was a woman; in action a man. Toppys had chosen his officers with judgment. The skipper, R.N.R., a man of Devon, sprang from the salt stock which had roamed uncharted seas with Drake and Cook. The Chief Engineer, a man of Glasgow, was of that hybrid race of deep water mechanicians which had come into existence with They cast off in the late afternoon of March 15th, and in the evening were running out towards the Needles, the rapid whirr of the geared turbines scarcely conveying a flicker of vibration to the long slender hull. The yacht, on bridge and down in the engine-room, was in charge of the junior ranks, and both Ching and Ewing sat at dinner with Madame in the bright saloon. "Hark to yon turbines," said Ewing. "Did ye ever hear the like? Just a wee whisper down below and a bit quiver along the decks. Yet they are pushing the boat along at eleven good knots." "Eleven point four," corrected Ching. "What could you hammer out, Ewing, in case of necessity?" "We never hammer," replied the Chief with dignity. "We just spin a wee bit faster when more boilers are fired and the steam pressure is raised. "I don't understand machinery," said Madame, "though I can run a five-ton motor lorry with any man born. What is all this talk of oil? I thought that steam yachts burned coal and yet I haven't seen a sign of coal dust in the vessel. My sitting-room and my cabin, like this saloon here, are warmed by electric radiators, and when I was down below, one might have eaten off the spickspan decks. Are we a motor yacht and no steamer at all?" "Coal," said Ewing, "belongs to the carboniferous epoch. This is the Twentieth Century and the Age of Oil. The Humming Top is an oil-fired steamship and years before her time. Didn't you know that she was built by Denny's of Dumbarr-r-ton regarr-r-dless of expense? Her original triple-expansion reciprocating engines, driving twin screws, were put on the scrap heap in 1913, the year before the war, and high-speed turbines put in. Their incredible speed of revolution is reduced down to the propeller shafts by helical spur gearing. There were vairy few destroyers in the King's service in 1913 which wouldn't have squirmed with jealousy at the sight of our engine-room. At the same time, Madame, our ancient Scotch boilers with their coal fire-boxes were ripped out, and water-tube boilers, oil fired, installed in place of them. We don't shovel heavy dirty coal, Madame; we simply squirt atomised oil upon the glowing fires. And when "This is most interesting," said Madame. "Though I don't understand machinery, I love it tremendously. And I am nothing if not up-to-date." "You are up-to-date in the Humming Top; you couldn't be up-to-dater in the Hood. We are a small craft, only a thousand tons yacht measurement, but at this moment we have 155 tons of oil in our side bunkers, and a resairve of 75 tons more in our double bottom in case of emairgency. At this easy toddle of eleven knots we can run seven thousand miles, more than half-way over the big bulge of the world, without replenishment. Which is an advantage, Madame, that later on you will greatly appreciate. If we were coal fired we should need to go under those dirty wagon tips every two thousand miles or thereby. We can steam from here to Panama, or from Panama to Auckland without anxiety about our bunkers—always provided that Captain Ching doesn't get impatient and doesn't try to shove us along at more than eleven knots. If we steam fast there will be a terrible waste, and a great reduction in our radius." "I shan't hurry," said the Skipper, "though Sir John told me to obey Madame's orders about speed. If he don't mind paying for forced draught, it is no business of mine to spare his pocket." "Sir John may be rich as Pierpont Morgan," declared the Scot. "But I don't waste good Asiatic oil for anybody's wealth—not at 150 shillings the ton. Oil once burnt doesn't grow again, and posterity will starve for our lustful rapeedity. The cost of this trip is just awful. And for pleasure, too. I am a judeecious, reflective man. Here we are in an empty ship idling across the world when we could have stuffed the yacht full of high-priced cargo at any damn freights we chose to extort. Ching, my commercial conscience racks me like a raging blister. A cabin load each of drugs or dyestuffs would have made our fortunes in South America, yet here we are with half a dozen cabins empty. The wickedness of it scares me. The Humming Top will come to no good when owners fly like yon in the face of the bountiful freights of a kindly Providence. If I may say so without irreverence, we are sacrileegiously biffing the Providential eye." Captain Ching laughed. He was willing to venture freight on private account when granted an opportunity. But this was a private yachting cruise and orders were orders. If Sir John chose to burn money to please Madame Gilbert—for that is how the long sea trip presented itself to his mind—well, he had plenty to burn, and Madame was well worth pleasing. He, as skipper, was handsomely paid for his job, and that was enough for him. So was Ewing very well paid. But the lost opportunities of plundering South American Dagoes which slid unregarded past the easy-going Devonian just exasperated the Scot from Glasgow. "Please explain," put in Madame. "How can The Engineer explained. He pointed out that here was a yacht with half her cabins empty and stowage spaces unoccupied beneath their very feet. Here also was a world bereft of shipping and every scrap of space afloat worth almost as much as habitable houses ashore. It would do no one any harm, least of all Sir John Toppys, the Owner, if by judicious private trading Ching and Ewing could accumulate a pile of wealth. "Of course Sir John would get his share—and you too, Madame," explained Ewing, anxiously. "Please leave me out," cried Madame, greatly to the relief of Ewing, to whom an Owner's idle share gave pain sufficient, "I stand in with Sir John. Is there any real reason, Captain Ching, why Mr. Ewing should not do what he proposes? Would Sir John object?" It had occurred to Madame that the Humming Top as a trader would be accepted in the South Seas without comment, whereas a private yacht, cruising at large upon an unexplained purpose, might excite curiosity the most unwelcome. "Not at all, I think," said Ching. "My orders are to take you to the Torres Straits and to place myself and the yacht unreservedly at your disposal. Sir John was most positive. I have among the ship's papers written instructions directing me to obey any orders from you which are consistent with the laws of British shipping. Sir John has very complete confidence in your judgment, Madame." "The more reason why I should not strain my temporary authority," said Madame. "Still in this "Madame Gilbert," said Ewing solemnly, "you are the maist sensible wumman it has ever been my fortune to encounter. Not excepting Mrs. Ewing. I may add," he went on with enthusiasm, "that if I were not a man happily married to a gude Scots leddy I would throw my hairt into your bonnie lap." "This is very sudden," said Madame. "For all you know I may be married myself." "No matter," cried the Engineer. "If you, a foreign leddy, are so ripe with sense now what would you become with a gude Scotsman beside ye? You and I together would scrape the jewels off the airth. Meantime, with your permission, we will get busy. I take it that the yacht will call at Plymouth and maybe stay two three days whiles I communicate with my friends in Glasgow." "If you are going to load the Humming Top with valuable stores, Mr. Ewing, you will need a lot of ready money." Ewing grinned. "We Scots folk are cautious, vairy cautious. Especially when we deal with one another." "Perhaps you need the more caution then," suggested Madame, smiling. "Maybe aye, maybe no. We don't push in our fingers farther than we can draw the hand back. But in these days it is scarcely possible to make a mistake. If we load up with opium, cocaine, and "We must have creditable stores for the manifest," said Ching, "but I don't suppose the Dago Customs will peer closely at a private yacht. And a few honest dollars will blind their eyes I reckon. The Law is not obtrusive on the West Coast, Ewing. But go easy with contraband. We mustn't get Madame here into trouble." "Don't worry about me," said Madame cheerfully. "I already feel like a buccaneer. A bit of smuggling will give zest to a voyage which threatens to be tedious. So let us stop in Plymouth for so long as Mr. Ewing requires for his nefarious operations." "I never thought to see the day," declared Ewing, beaming upon her, "when my gude wife in Paisley would seem to be a sore encumbrance. And after Plymouth could we not touch at Bordeaux? French wines are always good mairchandise on the West Coast, and the profits thereof would seduce old Pussyfoot himself." "I clearly see," said Madame, smiling, "that when the Humming Top leaves Europe for her long trail to the Panama Canal she will be laden to her utmost capacity. We shall burn a power of oil to knock out even eleven knots then." "It will be worth it," cried Ewing, smacking his lips. "Even with fuel oil at one hundred and fifty shillings the ton, there will still be a margin. If we "For rank buccaneers and smugglers," observed Madame contemplatively, "we seem to be indifferently honest. Go ahead, my good but disreputable friends. And if you should require any cash I am in this thing with you up to my fair neck." "Madame," declared Ewing gloomily, "you make the recollection of my gude wife fair burdensome to me, fair burdensome. We should ha' made a bonny pair of pirates, you and I." |