I looked at him sharply; he coughed and glanced down at the compass. This was the first time I quite understood how well the hands were acquainted with the cargo and its owners. The danger of the knowledge could not be hidden from me. Even the nigger Sam, with his blinking green eyes, ate up every word of our talk and smacked his lips over it. "You buy barrel of rum and no mistake, sar," he chimed in, unasked. "You change your Sunday shirt on Monday and blarm the expense. We all very rich gentlemen, surely." I turned it with a laugh, though I was well aware of the reservation behind it. Happily, but for a bottle of brandy of my own, there was no drink on the launch. I had a revolver in my pistol-pocket, and I said that at the worst, which was then but a suspicion, I could keep both the nigger and Peter in order. Mike the Irishman might go any way; but Nicolson, the young engineer, could certainly be counted upon. To him I said a word when two of the hands had been ordered to turn in. His answer was reassuring, but more ambiguous than I liked. "Oh," he said, "anything to help the Dutchmen. They'll miss this odd lot if we lose it--and, of course, we're all honest, Lorimer. Don't you be uneasy. I've no fancy for gilded firesides myself; besides," he added, "if we took our oaths that we had to jettison it, who'd believe us? Better go straight under the circumstances." I replied that there were no circumstances possible to make common rogues of us, and his cheery assent did much to deceive me. Counting upon him entirely, I let the launch simply drift while he lay down for a couple of hours' sleep, and afterwards I wrapped myself up in a blanket and managed to get some rest. When I awoke it was broad daylight. An immensely round sun fired the placid water with sheets of crimson splendour; the air came heavy from the Equator; a burning, intolerable day seemed before us. Restless and anxious already to be sure of our bearings, that the _Oceanus_ might find us at noon, I bustled up almost as soon as I was awake; but the first thing I saw took my breath away, and I just stood like a man in a wonder-world to watch it. There amidships, in the well where the money was stored, Sam the nigger, Mike the Irishman, and Nicolson the engineer were grouped about a box of golden ingots, and so transported with the sight of them that they scarcely heard me. One by one they had laid out those shimmering yellow bars, each a fortune to such men; and they watched the sunlight glittering upon them, and caressed them with gentle hands and feasted their eyes upon them. When I appeared, no man budged from his place or seemed in any way abashed. Evidently they were all agreed upon a purpose, and this Nicolson made known to me.