The men slunk back into the alley-way again out of shot of the skipper’s tongue, and the engineers, plucking up courage first, led the way below. Some one clattered a shovel on a firebar. Instinct made the trimmers obey the signal, and they went to the bunkers. The firemen followed, and the steam-gauge remounted before it had received any appreciable check. It was all an affairs of five minutes. Kettle passed a forefinger round the inside of his shirt-collar, and strolled across with Onslow to where the deck-chairs straddled in the shade of the fiddley. “They’re a holy crew, aren’t they?” said the master of the _Port Edes_. “I think they’re what we want. We should be rather out of it with a plucky lot who insisted on standing by us at a pinch.” “Oh, don’t you make any error about that,” replied Kettle. “They’d have been shaky anyway, but this bogus clockwork devil of yours fixes them to a nicety. It’ll be every Jack for himself when the scare comes, and Davy Jones take the steamer, and the others. Oh, they’ll run like a warren of rabbits. The brutes!” Kettle broke off abruptly, and stared moodily over the Gulf Stream. A flying-fish got out of the blue water and ran across the ripples like a silver rat. A school of porpoises snorted leisurely up from astern, and passed the steamer as though she had been at anchor. And the tangles of the gulf-weed floated past like reefs of tawny coral. “Do you ever read poetry?” the skipper suddenly asked. Onslow slewed round his head and stared. The idea of this vinegar-mouthed little savage talking of poetry very nearly made him break into wild laughter. With an effort he steadied his face and said quietly, “Sometimes.” “I’m glad of that. Somehow I hadn’t dared ask you before, but now I know, Mr. Onslow, I like you all the better. It gives us something in common we can talk about without being ashamed. We can’t very well discuss the other matter which binds us together and respect ourselves at the same time.” “Quite right. You and I, captain, are shouldered to common piracy by the force of circumstances; but I always kick myself when I think about it. There’s no glamour of romance about our intended villainy, or the way it’s being led up to.”