COUNCIL OF WAR—CAPTAIN EVANS’S DECISION—I GO TO THE ROOMS AND CONFIDE IN MY SISTER

When the band of brothers in the saloon on board the Amaranth heard all, or rather so much as we thought fit delicately to tell them, they turned—collectively and individually—pale.

“Then there’s an end of it,” chattered Teddy. “It was a fool’s journey from the beginning, and the sooner we all go home again the better.”

“The sooner you go, sir,” retorted Brentin, “the easier we shall all breathe. Is there any other palpitating gentleman desires to climb down?”

“One moment, first,” said Hines; “before we decide to break up, can’t we consider whether there may not be a way of either stopping your friend Bailey Thompson en route, or at least rendering him powerless when he arrives? The fact is,” he diffidently continued, “I have lost a good deal of money here, and don’t altogether care about leaving it without an effort of some kind to get it back, to say nothing of the lark of the thing, which I take it has been one of its chief recommendations from the first.”

To say nothing, too, of the fact—as I knew—that before leaving Folkestone he had sent out a circular to the parents of his boys to announce the addition of a swimming-bath and a gymnasium to his establishment, the non-erection of which would surely cause him to look more foolish than a schoolmaster cares about. And what would the boys say who had cheered him loudly at the end of last term, when, in a neat speech, he had announced his generous intention?

“Spoken like ay white man!” cried Brentin. “Why, whoever supposed that in an enterprise of this magnitude there would not arise danger and difficulties? They are only just beginning, gentlemen; if any of you, therefore, still desire to shirk, he has only to say the word. Conveyance to the shore is immediately at his service; he can this moment go and pack his grip and be way off home. We shall be well rid of him.”

There was a pause, and then Forsyth said:

“Aren’t you going, Parsons?”

Teddy lighted a cigarette nervously and replied:

“Well, dash it all, let’s hear what’s proposed first.”

“No, sir!” shouted Brentin, thumping the table. “You go or you stay, one or the other; we will have no ha-alf measures. The time for them has elapsed.”

“Very well,” stammered the unhappy Parsons, “if you are all going to stay, of course I must stay too. I thought the affair was all over, that’s why I spoke. I wasn’t thinking, you know, of deserting my pals.”

“Bravo!” cried Hines, sardonically. “You ain’t exactly a hero, Parsons, but I dare say you’ll do very well.”

“There is just one thing I should like to point out,” Arthur Masters observed, “before we go any further. The affair is assuming a somewhat grave aspect, and it is of course possible that, in spite of all precautions, we may, after all, be captured, either on shore or, later, on board the yacht.”

“Hear! Hear!” Teddy murmured.

“Now, is it fair to get Captain Evans and the crew into difficulties without letting them know what we are going to do, and giving them the chance of refusing to join us first?”

“Well, sir,” objected Brentin, “we always meant to tell him, but not until the last moment, when we should have claimed their assistance, if only in removing the boodle. You see, gentlemen, the British sailor is a fine fellow, but he is apt to tank-up and get full—full as ay goat, gentlemen—and in that condition he is confiding. Now we have unfortunately been confiding when dry, but the British sailor—”

“We must risk that,” Masters replied. “And, after all, once they are told and have consented, they can be refused permission to go on shore again before we start.”

“Well,” said Forsyth, “why not have Captain Evans in and tell him now; then he can use his discretion as to telling the crew at all till the last moment, or selecting the most trustworthy and sober of them for his confidence at once.”

So we decided to send for Captain Evans before going any further.

When he stepped into the saloon, smart and sailor-like, peaked cap in hand, Brentin begged him to be seated, and gave him one of his longest and blackest cigars.

Then, “Captain Evans,” he said, “we have sent for you so that in case of this affair of ours going wrong you may not have any cause of complaint against us.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” said the captain, “and what affair may that be?”

He listened with the deepest attention and in complete silence while our scheme was unfolded.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said, when Brentin had finished, “I will be perfectly frank with you. Your scheme is your own, and you know best how far it is likely to fail or to succeed. But if it fails and we are all caught, I shall never be able to persuade the authorities I was an innocent party, and there will be an end to any future employment. I have a wife and a fine little boy to think of, gentlemen; how am I going to support them?”

“Your objection is perfectly fair, captain,” said Brentin. “My answer to it is, that if you get into trouble, I will personally undertake to make you an allowance of £150 per annum for the period dooring which you remain out of a berth. In the case of success, and the boodle being considerable, you must trust us to make you such a present or solatium as shall in my opinion repay you for any risks you may have run. How will that do?”

“That will do, gentlemen, thank you,” the captain replied. “And what about the crew?”

“We shall be glad if you will select six of the most elegant of your men, whose assistance will be needed in the rooms on the night. Clothes will be provided for them, and their duties will be explained in good time. As for the others, if they are to be told, they must not be allowed on shore. To-day is Wednesday; we propose to start Friday. Till Friday they must be confined on board.”

“With the exception of the cook, gentlemen,” urged the captain. “He has to go on shore marketing.”

“Then don’t tell the cook. Now, do we understand each other?”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“One question, captain,” said Brentin, as he rose. “The French corvette has left the harbor, I understand?”

“Yes, sir, she sailed to Villefranche yesterday.”

“And the Saratoga, what of her?”

“She’s away over at San Remo, sir, and returns some time to-night or to-morrow.”

“Thank you, Captain Evans; that will do. Good-evening.”

“My friends,” he said, as the captain closed the door, “this is going to cost a lot of money; let us hope we shall all come out right side up.”

“And now, what about Bailey Thompson?” Bob Hines asked.

“Our plan is obvious,” Brentin replied. “I must board the Saratoga first thing in the morning, reintrodooce myself to Van Ginkel, confide in him and beg him to take Thompson on board for us, and be off with him kindly down the coast. East or west, he can dump him where he pleases, so long as he does dump him somewhere and leave him there like dirt. How does that strike you, gentlemen?”

“If only he can be got to go!” I answered; “and Mrs. Wingham? You must remember it was he who advised us to go to the MonopÔle, no doubt giving the old lady instructions to keep an eye on us and report.”

“Well,” said Brentin, “Mr. Parsons here is her friend. He must manage to let her know we don’t start operations till Saturday. That will put her off the scent. And now, gentlemen, let us discuss details and positions.”

I left them to their discussion and went on shore to find my sister and Miss Rybot, who were at the rooms. My sister knew nothing whatever about Lucy—still less of her being at Monte Carlo. I had to make a clean breast of it all, and get her to take Lucy on board the yacht in the morning, so as to be out of Bailey Thompson’s way.

I found them without much difficulty, full as the rooms were. Miss Rybot was seated, playing roulette, rather unsuccessfully, if I might judge from her ill-humored expression. Facing her, standing staring at her pathetically, with a soft hat crushed under his arm, was a tall, blond, sentimental-looking young German.

“Tell that man to go away, please,” she said to me, crossly. “He’s been standing there staring at me the last half-hour, and he brings me bad luck. Tell him I hate the sight of him. Tell him to go away at once.”

I explained that I was scarcely sufficient master of German for all that.

“Keep my place, please,” she said, imperiously, and went round to the young man, who received her with a fascinating smile.

“Vous comprenez le FranÇais?” I heard her say to him, folding her arms and looking him resolutely full in the face.

“Oui, mademoiselle.”

“Alors, allez-vous-en, sivooplay,” she went on; “je n’aime pas qu’un homme me regarde comme Ça. Vous me portez de la guigne. Allez-vous-en, ou j’appelle les valets. C’est inouÏ! Allez-vous-en! Vous avez une de ces figures qui porte de la guigne toujours. Entendez-vous? toujours!”

With that, entirely unconcerned, she resumed her seat, while the young German, who had hitherto been under the impression he had made a conquest, strolled off somewhat alarmed to another table.

My sister I found in the farther rooms watching the trente-et-quarante. “Hullo, Vincent!” she said. “Council over? Dear me, I wish I hadn’t promised Frank not to play; my fingers are simply tingling. However, I’ve been playing in imagination and lost 40,000 francs, so perhaps it’s just as well.”

I drew her to a side seat and soon told her all about Lucy and her arrival, softening down the Bailey Thompson part for fear of alarming her unduly; giving other reasons for the dear girl’s sudden descent on us, all more or less true.

My good sister was as sympathetic as usual, only she entreated me to be sure I was really serious and in earnest this time.

“You know, Vincent,” she said, “you have so often come moaning to me about young ladies, and I have so often asked them to tea and taken them to dances for you, and nothing whatever has come of it.”

“But that hasn’t been my fault,” I answered. “I have simply got tired of them, that’s all. This time I am really in earnest.”

“So you always were!” she laughed, “up to a certain point. Why, you’re a sort of a young lady-taster.”

“Well,” I replied, “how are you to know what sort of cheese you like unless you taste several?”

“Rather hard on the cheese, isn’t it? The process of tasting is apt to leave a mark.”

“Oh, not in the hands of an adroit and respectable cheesemonger’s assistant.”

“Vincent,” said my sister, severely, “don’t be cynical, or I’ll do nothing.”

All the same, she knew what I said was true. Men would, I believe, always be faithful if only they could feel there was anything really to be faithful to. But they meet an angel at an evening party, and then, when they go to call, they find the angel fled and the most ordinary young person in her place; one scarcely capable of inspiring a school-boy in the fifth form to the mediocre height of the most ordinary verse-power.

But with Lucy! Sympathetic readers don’t, I am sure, look for protestations from me where she’s concerned. At least, not now.

The end of our talk was, it was arranged between us Lucy should go on board the Amaranth in the morning and there remain.

And the next morning there she was comfortably installed, and already looking forward to the Friday evening, when she was told we were going to make a move out of harbor, and probably go home by way of the Italian coast, and possibly by rail from Venice.

Everything else was kept from her carefully, which is, I think, the worst of an adventure of this kind; one is driven to subterfuge even with those one loves best.