The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Pirate Submarine

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Pirate SubmarineThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Pirate SubmarineAuthor: Percy F. WestermanRelease date: April 23, 2020 [eBook #61899]Most recently updated: October 17, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by R.G.P.M. van Giesen*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PIRATE SUBMARINE ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The Pirate SubmarineAuthor: Percy F. WestermanRelease date: April 23, 2020 [eBook #61899]Most recently updated: October 17, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by R.G.P.M. van Giesen

Title: The Pirate Submarine

Author: Percy F. Westerman

Release date: April 23, 2020 [eBook #61899]Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by R.G.P.M. van Giesen

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PIRATE SUBMARINE ***

[Illustration: cover]

THE PIRATESUBMARINEPERCY WESTERMAN

THE CHAMPION SERIES

THE PIRATE SUBMARINE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

CAPTAIN CAIN

THE FLYING SUBMARINE

THE WINNING OF THE GOLDEN SPURS

02_alerte.jpg[Illustration: EVEN AS THE MESSAGE WAS BEING SIGNALLED THEALERTEBEGAN TO SETTLE]

THE PIRATESUBMARINEBYPERCY F. WESTERMAN03_logo.jpg[Illustration: logo]LondonNISBET & CO. LTD.22 BERNERS STREET, W. 1

03_logo.jpg[Illustration: logo]

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BYMORRISON AND GIBB LTD., LONDON AND EDINBURGHP 1980

"THAT'S done it! Scrap brass has fallen another thirty shillings a ton, Pengelly. The slump has knocked the bottom out of the market. We're in the soup."

Thus spoke Tom Trevorrick, senior partner of the firm of Trevorrick, Pengelly & Co., shipbreakers, of Polkyll, near Falmouth. He was a tall, powerfully-built man, standing six feet two and a half inches in his socks, red-haired, florid featured, with a high though receding forehead and a heavy protruding jaw. His rich deep voice had a plausible ring about it—a compelling, masterful yet persuasive tone, that had largely influenced the shareholders of Trevorrick, Pengelly & Co. to part with their money with the absolute certainty of a pre-war ten per cent. return.

Paul Pengelly, aged thirty-three, or three years older than the senior partner, was of different build and temperament. Trevorrick represented the Celtic strain of Cornishmen; Pengelly had dark curly hair and sallow features—legacies ofan Iberian ancestor, one of a handful of survivors from a vessel of the Spanish Armada that had been cast ashore on the rock-bound Lizard. History does not relate why the Cornish wreckers spared the lives of the olive-featured mariners, but it does record that the shipwrecked Spaniards took wives of the Cornish maids, and lived and died in the country of their adoption.

Pengelly was slow of speech, stolid in action save when roused to anger. Of an argumentative nature, he acted as a foil to his partner's exuberance. If Trevorrick suggested a certain course, Pengelly almost invariably went dead against it, not that he disapproved of the scheme, but simply as a matter of habit. He was secretive and cautious; but he never hesitated to do an underhand action if he felt reasonably secure from detection.

He was a man of many parts—a jack-of-all-trades and master of a few. Given to building castles in the air, he would soar to dizzy heights in planning fantastic schemes. Some of them might take definite shape; then, almost without warning, he would "chuck his hand in" and cast about for something else.

Eighteen months previously, Trevorrick and Pengelly had met for the first time. Trevorrick had just left the Royal Navy. He had been a lieutenant-commander attached to the Portsmouth submarine flotilla. He had not resigned under the favourable terms offered by My Lords to redundant officers; he had not been "axed" under the Geddes Scheme. He had been courtmartialled and dismissed from the Service under circumstances that could not be termed extenuating.

Trevorrick was at a loose end when he encountered Pengelly. He had a limited amount of capital. So had Pengelly. The latter's latest scheme appealed to the ex-lieutenant-commander. Just then, hundreds of ships of all sizes were being sold out of the Service for breaking-up purposes. There was money to be made out of the business, with very little capital required for plant, while surplus destroyers and submarines could be bought at a flat rate of one pound per ton, subject to the condition that they had to be broken up.

Of the hundreds, nay, thousands of people who patronise the little steamers plying between Falmouth and Truro—or Malpas, according to the state of the tide few are likely to notice a small creek on the starboard hand of the picturesque river Fal. Fewer still know it by name.

Its entrance is narrow, between steeply rising, heavily wooded ground. Although barely twenty-five yards in width across its mouth, it carries nearly thirty feet of water at Springs. Two hundred yards up, the creek widens out. One bank retains its precipitous, tree-clad nature. The other dips, forming a wide bay, with a flat belt of ground between the shore and the high ground beyond.

On this site, hidden from the Fal by a bend in the channel, stood a derelict shipyard. A century ago, when Falmouth was at the height of its prosperity as a packet-station, the shipyard teemed with activity. It enjoyed a brief and illusoryspell of life during the Great War, when it again sank into obscurity and neglect. The two slipways were left to rot, two tidal docks were allowed to silt up. The buildings were ruinous and leaky. The whole concern was in the hands of the Official Receiver.

To the delectable spot came Trevorrick and Pengelly. They looked at it. Trevorrick lost no time in declaring that it was "the" place; Pengelly asserted that it was not. The big man had his way, and thus the Polkyll Creek Shipbreaking Company came into being.

They started modestly upon their enterprise. The heaviest item for plant was the purchase of an oxygen-acetylene apparatus. At first, ten hands were engaged. Pengelly wanted to obtain them locally. Trevorrick, as usual, overruled him, and as a result inserted in a Plymouth paper an advertisement for ex-Naval and Mercantile Marine men. They received shoals of replies and could pick and choose, without having to pay Trade Union rates.

"We'll have unmarried men," declared the senior partner. "They won't be wanting to run away home every five minutes."

"Married men are more likely to stick to their jobs," objected Pengelly.

"No one but a born fool would chuck up a job nowadays," retorted Trevorrick. "They are none too plentiful."

In due course, the shipbreaking yard began to function. A destroyer and a submarine were purchased at Devonport and towed round toFalmouth and up the Fal to Polkyll. The scrap metal was sent up to Truro in barges and thence transferred to goods train for the Welsh smelting works. So profitable was the venture that three more vessels were bought for demolition, twenty additional hands taken on, and the firm of Trevorrick and Pengelly became a limited liability company.

So far, things were going smoothly. The two principals got on amicably, which was rather to be wondered at, since Trevorrick was apt to boast that he had had heaps of friends and had never been able to keep one of them. No doubt, the totally dissimilar physical and mental characteristics of each kept them in a state of mutual docility; but already Pengelly was tiring of the monotonous work, and Trevorrick was scheming to get away to a livelier spot than the dead-and-alive Polkyll Creek.

Then, slowly but surely, came the slump. The shareholders had their first dividends—ten per cent.—paid out of the capital. Another dividend was shortly due and there was no possible chance of it being forthcoming, unless Trevorrick and Pengelly drew upon their capital—a step that each was firmly determined not to take.

"Are we in the soup?" asked Pengelly, in reply to his partner's pessimistic declaration. "What do you suggest?"

"Pack up and clear off," replied the senior partner. "Lay hands on all the ready money we can possibly get hold of, and make ourselves scarce."

"How about the shareholders?" asked Pengelly. Trevorrick shrugged his shoulders.

"Shareholders have lost money before to-day," he remarked. "That's their affair."

"That's all right as far as we are concerned, if they take it lying down," objected the other. "S'posing they don't? What then? We wouldn't be safe for twenty-four hours in this country. We might try our luck abroad."

It was Trevorrick's turn to offer objections.

"Don't fancy the idea, especially with a warrant hanging over my head. Fellows who issue fraudulent balance sheets (Pengelly winced) get it in the neck pretty badly when they're caught. I've no fancy for seven years behind prison bars. And there's another thing. How long could either of us hang out abroad with what money we can lay our hands on? Six months. After that—phut!"

"Then what do you suggest?"

"Depends," replied Trevorrick. "Fifty thousand apiece and a snug hiding-place in one of the South American republics."

"Takes some doing."

"It can be done."

"How?"

The two men looked at each other, trying to fathom the depths to which either would be prepared to go.

"How?" asked Pengelly again. "Holding up a bank, for example.

"Try again."

"Highway robbery, perhaps."

"Sort of," admitted Trevorrick. "For 'highway' substitute 'high seas,' and you've got it."

"Piracy, by Jove!" ejaculated Pengelly, with a gleam in his eyes. It was a case of blood will tell, and Pengellys had in bygone days sailed under the Jolly Roger; more than one had made a public spectacle at Execution Dock. "'That's funny, deuced funny," he added after a pause.

"I've been thinking of that myself."

"It'll require a jolly sight more than thinking," remarked Trevorrick grimly.

"It's risky."

"Course it is. So's everything, if you go the wrong way about it. Take shipbreaking: you might get cut in two by a chunk of steel plate, or you might try the business end of an oxygen-acetylene flame. That's happened before to-day."

"You—I mean, we—would probably be caught inside of a week," said Pengelly, resuming his habit of raising objections. "Aircraft and wireless don't give a fellow much of a chance."

"Not if we played our cards properly."

"Don't see how," rejoined the little man petulantly. "And when we're collared——"

He completed the sentence by a double gesture—a circular motion of his right hand in a horizontal plane followed by a rapid vertical movement.

"Better that than seven years," said Trevorrick coolly. "But you're showing the white feather already."

"Surely you're joking about it?"

"Never more serious in all my life," the senior partner hastened to assure him. "The audacityof the thing is in our favour. Ask any naval expert. He'll tell you that piracy, except in the Red Sea and the China Station, is as dead as Queen Anne. I'm going to show the blamed experts that they're talking through their hats."

"But——"

"Don't start butting in with your confounded 'buts,'" exclaimed Trevorrick, with a tinge of asperity. "You say you've been considering the matter. How far have you gone into the practical side of it? I can make a pretty shrewd guess. You haven't even scratched the epidermis of the problem. I have. Cast your eyes over this."

From his pocket-box, Trevorrick produced a leaf of a notebook. On it was written in small, carefully-formed letters, the following:

1. The vessel.2. Crew.3. Maintenance.4. Cruising limits.5. Communication with shore.

"Now," continued Trevorrick briskly, "I've gone deeply into the question. We'll run over the various items. Then we can discuss details; but remember, I want constructive, not destructive criticism. Here I am trying to put you on to a get-rich-quick scheme. That's the main idea. It's for your benefit—and mine. First, the ship. I propose adopting R 81."

R 81 was the Polkyll Creek Shipbreaking Yard's latest acquisition. She had been towed round from Devonport only a couple of days previously and had been placed in the mud-dock alongsidethe rapidly-disintegrating hull of her former sister-submarine R 67.

"Bless my soul, man!" interrupted Pengelly, heedless of the senior partner's caution. "You'd never get her outside Falmouth Harbour."

"You're bearing in mind the Admiralty inspector," declared Trevorrick, purposely refraining from showing displeasure at the interruption. "He'll be here to-morrow or Friday. After that, it will be three months before he shows up again. Then I can manage him all right. No, I don't intend to offer him half a crown to look the other way. But there's not the slightest reason why we shouldn't hoodwink him. The moment he goes after his next visit, we'll start operations. R 81 goes under the covered shed; R 67 will be moved into R 81's berth. It's not altogether a stroke of luck that we haven't started cutting into R 67's hull below the waterline. When the inspector comes again he won't see R 67. She'll be broken up entirely as far as he's concerned. R 67 will assume R 81's number. We'll leave enough of the hull for that. The pirate submarine, ex-R 81, will already be nearing completion well out of the sight of the official eye."

"Trevorrick, I always thought I had the bump of imagination," declared Pengelly. "I give you best."

"Imagination isn't of much use, unless you put it to a practical purpose," rejoined the other. "What I'm proposing can be done; more, it's going to be done."

"But——"

"There you go again," interrupted Trevorrick tolerantly. "Carry on, then. Trot out your objections. We'll argue all along the line as we go. What were you about to remark?"

"We'll assume that you've bamboozled the Admiralty Nosey Parker, whose business it is to bind us to our contract," said Pengelly. "You've got the submarine fit, more or less, for sea. You'd have to take her down the Fal on the surface. There's not enough water to submerge. Day or night, you'd be spotted; and there'd be questions asked."

"Pengelly, your Christian name ought to be Thomas, not Paul," remarked Trevorrick, in a bantering tone. He could afford to try to be facetious. He knew enough of his partner by this time to realise that the greater the objections the latter raised, the more chance he, Trevorrick, had of gaining his case—as he almost invariably did. "I'm going to take her out of Falmouth as a surface ship. I'd defy any one to think her to be otherwise than an old tramp without they actually came on board, which I don't intend that they should. We've got the materials. In a couple of months we'll build up a superstructure, rig dummy masts and funnels, and there you are. What have you to say against that?"

"Top-hamper," declared Pengelly bluntly. What do you propose doing when she dives? Ditch the lot? If you don't, she'll roll over when she's submerged. And what speed do you expect you'll get when running beneath the surface, assuming she doesn't turn turtle?"

"Top-hamper judiciously constructed will make no difference to her stability when submerged," replied the other. "All that requires to be done is to see that the superstructure, taken as a whole, weighs the same as the quantity of water it displaces—fairly simple matter if we make use of air-tight tanks and compartments packed with cork. Speed under the surface doesn't count for much in our case. Storage batteries are a nuisance at the best of times. No, I mean to submerge and rest on the bottom in the event of an attack. She's built to withstand, with an ample margin of safety, a depth of twenty-five fathoms."

"Armament—guns and torpedoes—then," resumed Pengelly. "That's going to knock you. Torpedoes don't grow on blackberry bushes, and you can't go trotting about with a six-inch quick-firer under your arm. Supposing Elswicks or Vickers did accept your order for a quick-firer, you'd have the police knocking you up to know what your little game is."

"Torpedoes are out of the question, I'm afraid," admitted Trevorrick. His fellow-partner grinned with satisfaction. It was one of those rare occasions when he scored a point with his objections. "It's a pity; they might have come in handy, especially as they've left the tubes in the ship. Nothing like a tinfish' to settle an argument. Guns—no difficulty there. I can buy a 15.2 centimetre quick-firer of the latest pattern—that's practically six-inch—at Liége and get it delivered afloat outside Dutch or Belgian territorial waters for a mere song, with as much ammunition aswe're likely to want. You see, I've made inquiries all along the line already. Next item: Crew. I'll skip that for the present; but, let me tell you, there was method in my madness when I was so mighty particular in the choice of the hands here. Maintenance—that's easily disposed of. We'll help ourselves, supplementing our store with purchases from the shore. Now, Cruising Limits. No need to go very far from home. West Coast of Europe between Finisterre and Bergen offers enough scope for our little stunt; but it's in the Channel that I hope to play Cain. No, don't get alarmed, Pengelly. I'm not out for British shipping unless I'm forced. Hoist German colours and capture a French vessel; collar a German and tell him we're a Frenchman. Spin a yarn to a Dutchman while you're going through his pockets. Bless my soul, man, we'll have our fifty thousand apiece in no time. That brings me to the last item: Communication with the shore. We'll have to lay by for a rainy day, Pengelly—show a clean pair of heels before it's too late. We'll have to travel light. Can't carry a pantechnicon of booty with us. We must arrange to have it sent ashore and transferred to a trustworthy agent in South America. I know of at least half a dozen."

"How about the crew?" asked Pengelly. "We can't show up at some port with thirty fellows tacked on to us."

"No need," replied Trevorrick with a grin. "We're not sentimentalists, nor philanthropists."

ON the following day, Mr. Chamfer, the Admiralty inspector, arrived.

He was a short, slim-built man with a totally disproportionate sense of his own importance. Thirty years of Civil Service life had got him into a rut. It mattered little how he performed his duties as long as he did them somehow; a monthly visit to the cashier's office at Devonport Dockyard to draw his salary was an assured thing. At the end of every year his salary was subject to a fixed increase. Whether he earned it or not, whether he possessed higher or lower qualifications than his confrères mattered not at all—the annual "rise" came with unfailing certainty. Mr. Chamfer was a firm believer in the principle of following the line of least resistance, namely, to get through his perfunctory duties with the minimum of trouble. Provided he was treated with due deference to his position by the principals of the various shipbreaking firms with whom he had to deal, the former had no cause to complain of irritating demands on the part of the Admiralty inspector.

"Ah, good morning, Mr. Trevorrick!" he exclaimed. "Fine morning. Business going strong,I hope? Let me see: R 81 arrived here this week. Started on her yet?"

"No, sir," replied Trevorrick, with his tongue in his cheek. "We're engaging ten additional hands for that job. Next time you pay us a visit you'll find that there's not very much left of her."

"And R 67?" inquired Mr. Chamfer, consulting an official form.

"She's practically demolished," was the reply. "Do you wish to make an inspection?"

The inspector gave a quick glance out of the office window. Eighty yards away lay the object under discussion, the gaunt skeleton of a mammoth, the steel ribs of which were being attacked by a swarm of workmen, who gave the onlooker the impression that they were Lilliputians clambering over Gulliver's recumbent form.

"No, thanks; I won't trouble you," he hastened to reply, as he scribbled, "R 81—work in hand; R 67 practically demolished," in column six of the official document. "Well, since you suggest it, I will—just a nip. And soda, please. Well, Mr. Trevorrick, your good health and success to your work."

Two minutes later, Mr. Chamfer's car was tearing along the Tregony Road on its way back to Devonport. It would be three months at least before the official repeated the visit, and much was to happen at Polkyll Creek before those three months were up.

"Fancy, that little worm draws as much pay as a full-blown captain!" remarked Trevorrick to his partner. "You and I have to keep blighters ofthat sort. Well thank goodness that's over. We'll have the men up now."

The yard-bell uttered its warning notes. Although it wanted half an hour to "knock-off time," the thirty employees of the firm of Trevorrick, Pengelly & Co., promptly left their work and trooped up to the office, wondering whether the bell had been rung in mistake or whether something of an unusual nature was on the boards. There had been rumours, originating goodness only knows where, that the works might have to close down, and that prospect, with winter only a few weeks off, was a dismal one.

They trooped into the large office and found Mr. Trevorrick looking cheerful and self-possessed, with Mr. Pengelly, with a frown on his face, toying nervously with a paper-knife.

Trevorrick wasted no time in preliminaries.

"Men!" he began. "Present-day conditions of the metal market have forced us to make preparations for the closing-down of the works. If there were any indications of a recovery during the next three or four months we would hold on. Unfortunately, there are none."

He paused, rapidly scanning the features of the dejected men. There was no doubt about their being downcast. He realised that figuratively he held them in the hollow of his hand.

"However," he continued, "there is no reason why the amicable relations between us as employers and employees should not be maintained; but, let me hasten to remind you that amicable relations won't fill empty stomachs. Mr. Pengellyand myself are anxious to put our sincerity to a practical test. It rests with you whether you decide to take advantage of our offer.

"Before going deeper into the matter, I can assure you of a constant job, paid for at the same rates that you are receiving at present with the addition of a bonus, which might be anything up to a couple of hundred pounds, at the termination of the first year's work. It may entail discomfort, it is of a hazardous nature, although with due precautions there is no danger that cannot be avoided. There is one stipulation I must make—each and every man must be under the strictest pledge of secrecy."

He paused again. The men shuffled uneasily. Several at the back of the room whispered hoarsely to each other.

"Is the job straight and above-board, sir?" inquired an anxious voice.

Trevorrick looked straight at the speaker.

"Naturally," he replied.

His tone carried conviction. Had he said more in reply, the men might have "smelt a rat."

"Very good, sir; I'm in it," announced the cautious one. Others joined in accepting the decidedly indefinite offer.

"Any one not wishing to sign on can go," exclaimed Trevorrick. "I won't blame him for refusing a job about which he knows nothing, but there are other people's interests to be safeguarded. What! All agreed? Excellent! Now, Mr. Pengelly, will you please read out the declaration and obtain every man's signature, please?"

The document binding each employee to secrecy was cleverly worded, concluding with the affirmative that each man admitted his liability to be summarily dismissed for insufficiency of work, bad workmanship, insubordination, turbulence, inebriety or other offence or misconduct contrary to the rules and regulations of thePosidonSalvage Company.

"There you are, men," exclaimed Trevorrick, after the last signature had been obtained. "You now know what is the nature of the work—salvage. I will briefly relate the history of thePosidon. Ten or twelve years ago—in 1916, to be exact—thePosidon, bound from Quebec for the United Kingdom with a cargo consisting mainly of copper and silver ingots, was torpedoed by a Hun submarine when about six miles S.S.W. of the Lizard.

"An attempt was made to beach her on Looe Bar, but she turned turtle and sank in fifteen fathoms. After the Armistice attempts were made to salve the cargo. Divers went down, found the wreck lying over on her beam ends. There were a few bars of copper found, but of silver not a solitary ingot. The explosion of the torpedo had blown away one side of the strong-room. That discovery brought the salvage work to an abrupt termination.

"Now then. This is where we come in. From a most trustworthy source, I found out what actually did happen to the ingots. ThePosidonturned turtle and sank, but between the two operations there was an interval. She drifted bottom-upwards for perhaps half an hour. Inthat position the weight of the copper burst open the hatches and nearly the whole lot was strewn on the bed of the sea. The silver, too, fell through the blown-in face of the strong-room. Consequently, when the ship did make her final plunge, she was two hundred yards away from the spot where she had dumped her precious cargo. Is that clear?"

A murmur of assent came from the interested listeners. Tales of sunken treasure waiting to be picked up from a veritable Tom Tiddler's ground appeal to most people; and Trevorrick's breezy, convincing manner did not fail to impress the simple-minded audience.

"You know it's there, sir?" inquired one of the employees, an ex-seaman diver.

"Certainly, Hunt," replied Trevorrick. "I've seen it. I cannot produce better proof than that?"

"Any difficulties, sir, in the way of other people being on the same lay?" asked another.

"The Admiralty, by whom the vessel was chartered, have abandoned her; the underwriters have settled up and written her off as a bad debt, although it may be possible that they might want to chip in. That's why we must conduct our operations in secret. It's all aboveboard, you'll understand. I wouldn't defraud any one. I have taken counsel's opinion and have been informed that we have a moral, legal and every other jolly old right to stick to what we can find. But we must guard ourselves against others who may try to jump our claim.

"How? I will tell you. As you know, theAdmiralty inspector has just been here. I took the opportunity to sound him, and he assured me that there would be no objection on his part against our employing R 81 as a salvage craft. Being fitted with airlocks, enabling a diver to leave and enter at will, she is an ideal proposition for the job. The only difficulty is getting her in and out of Falmouth Harbour. Officious busy-bodies might write to the Admiralty asking why she was being employed instead of being broken up. I mentioned this to Mr. Chamfer. He was most sympathetic and hinted—hinted, mind you —that if R 81 could be sufficiently disguised, there ought to be no further difficulty. That, with your co-operation, I propose to do."

The men's enthusiasm was rapidly rising. Pengelly gave a glance of admiration at his partner. There was no doubt about it: Trevorrick held them in the palm of his hand.

"There's no time to be lost," continued the promoter. "We'll start this afternoon.... Carry on, men. Barnard and Marchant, will you remain, please?"

The workmen hurried gleefully out of the office, leaving the two foremen with whom the principals conferred over certain details in connection with the fitting out of the submarine.

At length Barnard and Marchant were dismissed, and Trevorrick and Pengelly found themselves alone.

"Well?" queried the former abruptly. "What do you think of the yarn I've just been pitching? That got 'em, didn't it?"

Pengelly nodded.

"So far, I admit," he replied. "But——"

"Go on, man; get it off your chest," prompted the senior partner, now in high good humour.

"S'posing we get R 81 under way. How do you propose to switch over from salvaging to piracy? That'll take some doing."

"Possibly," admitted Trevorrick. "But I'll do it. You wait and see. By the bye," he continued, abruptly changing the subject. "What was that yarn you were telling me about Chamfer?—Something about him coming into a pot of money."

"Yes, lucky bounder," replied Pengelly enviously. "Some misguided relative of his shuffled off this mortal coil about two years ago and left him thirty thousand pounds."

"Hanged if I'd stop in the Admiralty service with that little lot," remarked Trevorrick. "Even though he's got a soft billet. I'd blow the lot in a couple of years. 'Easy come, easy go' is my motto."

"He's evidently of a different nature," said Pengelly. "But why do you ask?"

"Nothing much," was the response. "Look here, Pengelly, we'll have to throw dust in the eyes of the shareholders. Can we run to another five per cent.?"

"It will cut into our capital."

"It'll have to," decided Trevorrick. "We'll declare a half-yearly dividend. On the strength of that we might apply for extra capital. And another thing: you'd better run across to Penzancewithin the next few days and sound your pal, Port—What's his name?"

"Porthoustoc—Silas Porthoustoc."

"That's the fellow. We'll want him and his lugger. He's sound, isn't he?"

"Do anything," replied Pengelly. "If he were put to it, he'd be a second King o' Prussia.[1]Nod's as good as a wink to him—at his price."

"I wouldn't let him know too much," suggested Trevorrick. "At least, not at first. Once I get him in my power sufficiently, I can put a half-nelson over him in double-quick time. Then he daren't open his mouth—price or no price."

Pengelly eyed his companion dubiously.

"You're not going to try that game on me, I hope?" he asked.

Trevorrick brought his huge hand heavily down on his partner's shoulder.

"Come now," he exclaimed. "You know the saying, 'Honour amongst thieves?' Aren't we sworn comrades under the Jolly Roger?"

Pengelly nodded.

"I'd like to remind him of another saw," he soliloquised. "'When thieves fall out.' But perhaps I'd better not."

[1]King of Prussia: soubriquet of John Carter, a noted Cornish smuggler, who in the latter part of the eighteenth century held and fortified Porth Leah, a few miles east of Marazion, as a smuggling base. On one occasion he fired the guns at a revenue cutter. On another he broke into the Custom-House at Penzance and recovered various contraband goods which the Excise people had seized, taking only "his own" and no more. Carter was a sort of Cornish maritime Robin Hood. Porth Leah is now called Prussia Cove in memory of this daring smuggler.

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