He waited for a moment after this announcement, but not a sound came from the crowd in front of them. It was filtering down through the thickness of their intelligences. It was an entirely new proposition that he had laid before them, and required time to find a response. They knew--God help them!--as little as he did of the horrible problems of international and maritime law that the _Penguin_ was about to wind round herself as the silkworm winds a cocoon; but they knew the meaning of the word “money,” and it didn’t matter to them a rap whether it was prize money or not, as long as it could be changed for whisky and tobacco.
A little, wiry Nova Scotian was the first to respond.
“Go to it!” cried he. “Here’s to England and a pocketful of money!” He flung up his cap, and the action touched the rest off. They cheered--Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Latins, and Slavs--for such was their mixture. All joined in the shout.
MacBean alone, cautious and cool, made any question.
“Are you sure,” said he, when the shouting had ceased, “are you sure we’re in the right of this? I’m as willin’ as ony man to fight for England, but I’m no so sure about our poseetion as regards the ship.”
“Well, you will be soon,” said Blood. “This is my position: I’m not only going to take the ship, but I’m going to take anything German I come across on the high seas. Away back in the American Spanish War, I put out in a mud dredger from the Florida coast and took a mail steamer. We pretended we were a dynamite boat. There were seven thousand dollars in gold coin on board her, and we took it. Never mind where it went to----” A wild yell from the crowd. “We took it just as we are going to take any German money we come across. A chance like this doesn’t come in most lifetimes, and I’m not going to lose it.” Applause.
“May I ax, Captain,” said one of the fellows, “what’s to become of the owners?”
“Meaning Mr. Wolff and Mr. Shiner?” replied the Captain. “Why, they are prisoners of war, and they will be treated as such without a hair of their heads being touched. But we can’t keep them on board. We’ll land them somewhere, or put them on a German ship, if we find one. Now, then, look lively and get the cable away. Mr. Harman, get it aft from the testing-room, and then cast loose the stoppers; dump both ends.”