This was sufficiently unpromising, but Sheriff went doggedly on. "I see your way of looking at it: the whole crowd of stock operators are a gang of thieves that no decent man would care to touch?" "That's much my notion." "And they are quite unworthy of protection?" "They can rob one another to their heart's content for all I care." Sheriff smiled grimly. "That's what I wanted to hear you say, Captain. This cruise we are on now is not exactly a pleasure trip." "I guessed that, of course, from the pay that was offered." "What we are after is this: the Cape to England telegraph cable stops at several places on the road, and we want to get hold of one of the stations and work it for our own purposes for an hour or so. If we can do that, our partners in London will bring off a speculation in South African shares that will set the whole lot of us up for life." "And who pays the piper? I mean where will the money for your profit come from?" White was quicker than Sheriff to grasp the situation. "From inside the four walls of the Stock Exchange. S'elp me, Captain, you needn't pity them. 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?"