“Exceedingly clever, apparently,” Keeth replied, sneeringly, “but the simplest folk I have ever seen.” “They’re too innocent by half,” broke in Congreve, an electrician, “and if we don’t pluck them and feather our nests out of this lot, we shall deserve all we get!” “Why, what shall we get?” inquired Ellis Siddall. “Get?” ejaculated Pease Dawson, querulously. “Get? you’ll see! We were downright fools ever to have thought of taking that ship, and we shall regret it to our dying day!” “Yes!” agreed Congreve, “with all our experience of what the owners could and would be likely to do, we might have been sure it would end badly.” “Well, after all,” said Herbert Wadsworth, “we took the risk, and we made up our minds to stand or fall together when we attempted to seize the ship, and we’ve lost, so we must make the best of it.” “That’s all right,” rejoined Brookes Hewitt, “but who would have thought they’d have those instruments secreted everywhere, and that the vessel could be electrified in units!” “Anyway,” said Siddall, much aggrieved, “they should have kept us prisoners and not dumped us here.” “Never fear!” replied Congreve, “we shall have to face the music, all in good time.” “You don’t mean to say you think they _will_ call for us?” said Siddall, incredulously. “Of course they will,” answered Congreve, “and they’ll take us back to England and we shall be tried for mutiny in the air, and you know that is a capital offence.” “We’ll bring a counter-charge against them for damages,” persisted Siddall, loth to feel he had no case. “My dear fellow,” interposed Holt, somewhat rudely, as was his wont, “those folk in the ship hold the cards and they’ll play them at the proper time and win. They’ll go to the sun, conduct their observations, call for us and take us back, and then there’ll be a fine kettle of fish, and we shall be the fish! so you might just as well make up your mind to it.” “Then I for one shall stay here!” “Don’t be a fool, Siddall!” protested Wadsworth. “You know very well from what you’ve heard and seen, that if we’re called for we’ve got to go, _nolens volens_. Could you get out of your cabin? Could you help coming here? No, when they come for us, we go! They’ll find us, float us up, take the whole blessed world with them if they can’t find us without, so it’s foolish to talk about not doing this, or that; they’ll take us when we’re wanted, whether it’s days or years. It would have been more charitable to kill us, for even if they beg us off in England, our lives will be a misery to us on Earth after this business, but they _cannot_ beg us off!” This violent outburst silenced Siddall, and Holt said,—“Well, I propose that we have a good time here, and get as much out of these softies as we can, for it’s the last good time we shall have, and we’d better make the best of it.” “Yes, certainly,” agreed Hewitt, “and they’ll be simple enough to do all that we want.”