“Well, what right have we to anything at all?” cut in the exasperated Harman. “Accordin’ to you, we haven’t the right to breathe nor live.”
“Well, it’s this way,” said Blood. “We have a perfect right to breathe and live as long as we can keep our necks out of the noose.”
“It’s highly probable. The Germans would, anyhow.”
Harman had been attending to the unloading of the boat all through this talk. He now went and spat over the side, and then came back to his companion.
“They might give you the choice of shooting instead of hanging,” went on the Captain. “For myself, I prefer hanging, I think, if it’s properly done.”
“Oh, Lord, no!” said Harman. “I’ve seen three fellows hanged, and I’ve swore I would never get hanged if I could help it. Give me shootin’, but shootin’ or hangin’ there’s one thing fixed.”
“We’ve got the boodle. I ain’t one of your clever chaps, and I’ve no education to speak of, but I’ve noticed in life that the chaps who get on are the chaps who get a thing fixed and stand on it, same as a chap stands on a scaffolding and builds from it, same as a chap builds a house and doesn’t care a durn for the future.
“Now we’ve got the boodle fixed,” Mr. Harman went on, “there’s no use in bothering whether we’re to be shot or die natural in our bunks. We’ve gone a certain distance, and what I says is, now we’ve gone so far let’s go the whole hog. Let’s rob every one we can lay hands on. That’s my idea.”
“I ain’t particular about Germans,” said Mr. Harman. “Anything with money to it is good enough for me, but if it eases your mind we’ll call ’em Germans.”
The Captain whistled for a moment over this broad plan. Then he went to superintend the fellows who were making ready to get the anchor in.
There were no capstan bars on board the _Penguin_; a steam winch did the business. He gave the signal for steam to be turned on, and then went up on the bridge.
The rattle and rasp of the winch pawls and the links of the anchor chain as it was hauled through the hawse pipe roused echoes from the shore. The gulls fishing on the little harbour made by the protecting reef rose, clamouring and beating their wings, and, as though the sound of the anchor chain had managed to free Sprengel, he appeared, having managed to work his way out of a window.