"Oh, nothing very dreadful!" laughed Jack, "only overworking myself a trifle, so I am told. But sit down, there's a good fellow, and--have you breakfasted, by the way?"

"Breakfasted very nearly three hours ago, my boy," was the answer. "But if you want me to join you--I see you are still busy at it--don't be bashful, but say so straight out, and I'll not refuse, for the journey up has given me a fresh appet.i.te."

"That's right," said Jack. "Now, which will you have, coffee or tea?

And you can take your choice of ham and eggs, steak, chop, and fish."

"Thanks!" said Milsom, "I'll take coffee--and a steak, rather underdone.

And while the steak is getting ready I'll amuse myself with one of those rolls and a pat of b.u.t.ter, if you don't mind. I got your telegram, by the way, or of course I shouldn't be here. What is the job, my boy, eh? I suppose it is something that a gentleman may undertake, or you wouldn't have thought of me, eh?"

"Of course," said Jack; "that is to say, I think so. But you must judge for yourself whether the post is such as you would care to accept. The fact is that, as I told you just now, I have been overworking myself; and a specialist whom I have come down here to consult tells me that I must take a long holiday in the open air. I have therefore decided to go on a yachting cruise--to the West Indies, probably--and I want you to take command of the ship for me. She is a brand-new, three-hundred-and- forty-ton steam-yacht, of eight hundred indicated horse-power, and her guaranteed sea speed is twenty-two knots."

Milsom pursed up his lips and gave vent to a prolonged whistle as Jack enunciated these particulars; then his features relaxed into a broad smile as he extended his right hand across the table to Jack, exclaiming:

"I'm your man! As I came along in the train this morning I was cogitating what was the smallest amount of pay that I would take for this job--whatever it might be; but, by the piper, Jack, the mere pleasure of commanding such a craft would be payment enough for me, and I'm quite willing to take it on free, gratis, and for nothing, if you say so."

"The pay," said Jack, "will be at the rate of thirty pounds sterling per calendar month, with uniform and your keep, of course, thrown in."

"Good enough!" exclaimed Milsom enthusiastically. "You may take it that upon these terms I accept the command of the--what's her name?"

"She is so new," said Jack, "that she has not yet been given a name. At present she is known simply as Number 78. But"--lowering his voice--"I have not yet told you everything; you had better wait until you have heard all that I have to say before you definitely decide. Meanwhile, here comes your steak and some fresh coffee, so you had better get your breakfast; and when you have finished we will both go up to my private room."

"Right ho!" acquiesced Milsom, who forthwith turned his attention to his second breakfast, saying very little more until he intimated that he had finished, and was now quite ready to resume the discussion of the matter that had brought him up to town. Accordingly, Jack conducted his friend up to his private sitting-room, waved him into a chair, and took one himself.

"Ah!" exclaimed Milsom, in a tone that conveyed his complete satisfaction with things in general; "this is all right. I suppose, by the way, a chap may smoke here, mayn't he?"

"Of course," said Jack; "smoke away as hard as you please, old man.

Have a cigar?"

"No, thanks," answered the Navy man; "good, honest, stick tobacco, smoked out of a well-seasoned brier, is good enough for me--unless one can get hold of a real, genuine Havana, you know; but they are scarcely to be had in these days."

"All the same, I think we may perhaps manage to get hold of one or two where we are going," said Jack; "that is to say, if you are still willing to take on the job after you have heard what I am bound to tell you."

"Ah!" exclaimed Milsom; "something in the background, eh? Well, it can't be very terrible, I fancy, Jack, or you would not be mixed up in it. However, heave ahead, my lad, and let us hear the worst, without further parley."

"Well," said Jack, "the fact is that the yachting trip is all a 'blind', and is in reality neither more nor less than a gun-running expedition in aid of the Cuban revolutionaries. And the yacht is really not mine, but belongs to a certain very wealthy Cuban gentleman who, being, like most Cubans, utterly sick of the Spanish misgovernment of the island, has thrown in his lot with the patriots, and has had the craft specially built for their service. But, recognising that to declare his ownership of her would at once arouse the suspicion of the Spaniards, and attract a tremendous amount of unwelcome attention to her, he has persuaded me to a.s.sume the apparent ownership of the vessel, and to undertake a trip to the West Indies in her, ostensibly for my health, but actually to run into the island a consignment of arms and ammunition, and otherwise to a.s.sist the patriots in every possible way."

"I see," observed Milsom thoughtfully. "That means, of course, that I should really be in the service of the Cuban gentleman, instead of in yours. That makes a very important difference, Jack, for, you see, I shall have to look to him, instead of to you, for my pay; and smuggling contraband of war is a very different matter from navigating a gentleman's private yacht, and is work for which I shall expect to be well paid."

"Then am I to understand that you regard thirty pounds per month as insufficient?" demanded Jack.

"Not at all, my dear boy," answered Milsom quickly, "do not misunderstand me; I am quite content with the pay, but as the service is one that I can see with half an eye will involve a good deal of risk, I want to be quite certain of getting it. Now, is your friend to be absolutely depended upon in that respect? You see, if this insurrection should fail--as it probably will--your friend may be killed, or imprisoned, and all his property confiscated; and then I may whistle for my money."

"I think not," said Jack. "For my friend has left the management of everything in my hands, and I will see that you are all right. But I am very glad that you have raised the point; for it has enabled me to see that the proper thing will be to deposit a sufficient sum in an English bank to cover the pay of all hands for a period of--well, say twelve months. What do you say to that?"

"I say," answered Milsom, "that it will be quite the proper thing to do, and will smooth away a very serious difficulty. But, Jack, my boy, has it occurred to you that you will be running a good many quite unnecessary risks by mixing yourself up in this affair? For you must remember that we may be compelled to fight, before all is done; while, if we are captured, it may mean years of imprisonment in a Spanish penal settlement, which will be no joke, I can a.s.sure you, my lad!"

"Ah!" answered Jack. "To be quite frank, I had not thought of the last contingency you mention. But 'in for a penny, in for a pound'; I'll take the risk, and trust to my usual good luck to keep me out of a Spanish prison. The fact is, Phil, that I am fairly aching for a bit of adventure, and I simply must have it."

"Very well," said Milsom grimly; "I think you have hit upon a most excellent scheme for getting it! My advice to you, Jack, is to leave the whole thing severely alone; but, whether you do or not, I am in it, so please give me your orders. And, mind you, Jack, I take them from you, and from n.o.body else."

"Very well," said Jack. "It may be necessary for you to modify that resolution later on, but let that pa.s.s; at present, at all events, you will receive all instructions from me, and regard me as the owner of the vessel. Now the first thing to be done is to secure a good crew; and, as I have told you precisely the kind of work that will have to be done, I shall look to you to provide the right sort of officers and men. I suppose you will have to give them a hint that they will be required to do something more than mere everyday yachting work--and you must arrange their pay accordingly; but, while doing this, you must be careful not to let out the true secret, or it will not remain such for very long. And you need not trouble to provide the engine-room staff; I think I can manage that part of the business myself."

"I see," answered Milsom. "You wish me to engage merely the officers, seamen, and stewards? Very well. How many guns will she carry?"

"Guns?" echoed Jack. "By Jove, I had not thought of that! Will she need any guns?"

"She certainly will, if she is to be as useful as she ought to be,"

answered Milsom.

"Um!" said Jack; "that complicates matters a bit, doesn't it? I am afraid that I must refer that point to Senor Montijo, the actual owner.

What sort of armament would you recommend for such a craft, Phil?"

"Oh! not a very heavy one," answered Milsom; "probably four 12-pounders, of the latest pattern, and a couple of Maxims would be sufficient."

Jack made a note of these particulars for reference to Senor Montijo, and then said:

"Now, is there anything else that you can think of, Phil?"

"Nothing except an outfit of small arms--rifles, revolvers, and cutla.s.ses, you know, for the crew," answered Milsom. "If anything else should occur to me I will write and mention it."

"Very well; pray do so," said Jack. "Now, I think that is all for the present. Pick a first-cla.s.s, thoroughly reliable crew, Phil. I give you a week in which to look for them, by which time I expect the boat will be ready to receive them. Then you can bring them all north with you, and we will ship them in the proper orthodox style. Now, good-bye; and good luck to you in your search!"

CHAPTER THREE.

THE S.Y. THETIS, R.T.Y.C.

The next day was spent by Jack, at Mr Nisbett's invitation, in visiting, in the company of that gentleman, the establishments of certain manufacturers of firearms, where he very carefully inspected and tested the several weapons submitted to him for approval; finally selecting a six-shot magazine rifle, which was not only a most excellent weapon in all other respects, but one especially commending itself to him on account of the simplicity of its mechanism, which he believed would prove to be a very strong point in its favour when put into the hands of such comparatively unintelligent persons as he strongly suspected the rank and file of the Cuban insurgents would prove to be.

He also decided upon an exceedingly useful pattern of sword-bayonet to go with the rifle, and also a six-shot revolver of an especially efficient character; and there and then gave the order--through Mr Nisbett--for as large a number of these weapons, together with ammunition for the same, as he believed the yacht could conveniently stow away. This done, he returned to his hotel, reaching it just in good time for dinner; and devoted the evening to the concoction of a letter to Senor Montijo, at Lucerne, reporting all that he had thus far done, also referring to Don Hermoso the important question of the yacht's armament, and somewhat laboriously transcribing the said letter into cipher.

Jack's business in London was now done; on the following morning, therefore, he took train back to Newcastle. He called upon Mr Murdock, his partner, in the evening, explaining the arrangement which he had made to pay a visit to Cuba, including the rather singular proposal of Senor Montijo to which he had consented, as to the apparent ownership of the new yacht; and listened patiently but unconvinced to all Murdock's arguments against what the canny Northumbrian unhesitatingly denounced as an utterly hare-brained scheme. The next two days he devoted to the task of putting all his affairs in order, lest anything serious should happen to him during the progress of his adventure; and on the third day Nisbett presented himself, with his consulting naval architect, to witness the final trials of the yacht before accepting her, on behalf of Senor Montijo, from the builders. These trials were of a most searching and exhaustive character, lasting over a full week, at the end of which came the coal-consumption test, consisting of a non-stop run northward at full speed, through the Pentland Firth, round Cape Wrath; then southward outside the Hebrides and past the west coast of Ireland, thence from Mizen Head across to Land's End; up the English Channel and the North Sea, to her starting-point. The run down past the west coast of Ireland, and part of the way up the Channel, was accomplished in the face of a stiff south-westerly gale and through a very heavy sea, in which the little craft behaved magnificently, the entire trial, from first to last, being of the most thoroughly satisfactory character, and evoking the unmeasured admiration of the naval architect under whose strict supervision it was performed. Jack was on board throughout the trial, as the representative of the builders, and his experience of the behaviour of the boat was such as to fill him with enthusiasm and delight at the prospect of the coming trip. The contract was certified as having been faithfully and satisfactorily completed, the final instalment of the contract price was paid, and Nisbett, on behalf of Senor Montijo, took over the vessel from the builders, at once transferring the ownership of her to Jack. Meanwhile a letter had arrived from Senor Montijo, authorising the arming of the ship in accordance with Milsom's suggestion, and the _Thetis_, as she had been named, was once more laid alongside the wharf to receive certain extra fittings which were required to admit of the prompt mounting of her artillery when occasion should seem to so require.

In the meantime Jack had written to Milsom, extending the time allowed the latter in which to pick up a suitable crew, and at the same time suggesting that Perkins and the rest of the crew of the _Lalage_ should be afforded an opportunity to join the _Thetis_, should they care to do so, subject, of course, to Milsom's approval of them; and by the time that the extra fittings were in place, and the little ship drydocked and repainted outside, the Navy man had come north with his retinue, and the hands were duly shipped, Jack having, with the a.s.sistance of the superintendent of his fitting-shops, meanwhile selected a first-rate engine-room staff and stokehold crew.

The completing of all these arrangements carried the time on to the last week of July; and on the 28th day of that month the _Thetis_ steamed down the Tyne on her way to Cowes, Jack having decided to give as much vraisemblance as possible to his apparent ownership of the vessel, and to the pretence that he was yachting for health's sake, by putting in the month of August in the Solent, during which the order for arms, ammunition, etcetera, would be in process of execution. Although Jack was not a racing man--the _Lalage_ being of altogether too ancient a type to pose as a racer--he was by no means unknown in the yachting world, and he found a host of acquaintances ready and willing to welcome his appearance in Cowes Roads, especially coming as he did in such a fine, handsome little ship as the _Thetis_; and for the first fortnight of the racing the new steamer, with her burgee and blue ensign, was a quite conspicuous object as, with large parties of friends, both male and female, on board, she followed the racers up and down the sparkling waters of the Solent. Jack was precisely of that light-hearted, joyous temperament which can find unalloyed pleasure amid such surroundings, and he threw himself heart and soul into the daily gaieties with an abandon that was sufficient, one would have thought, to have utterly destroyed all possible suspicion as to the existence of ulterior motives. Yet, happening to be ash.o.r.e one afternoon with a party of friends, he was startled, as they walked down the High Street at Cowes, to see coming toward him a man whom he believed he had met somewhere before. The individual did not appear to be taking very particular notice of anything just at the moment, seeming indeed to be sunk deep in thought; but when he was about ten yards from Jack's party he suddenly looked up and found the young man's eyes fixed enquiringly upon him.

For an instant he stopped dead, and an expression of mingled annoyance and fear flashed into his eyes; then he turned quickly and sprang, as if affrighted, into the door of a shop opposite which he had paused. But in that instant Jack remembered him; he was "Mr Mackintosh, of Inveraray!"

"Now what, in the name of fortune, is that chap doing down here?"

wondered Singleton. "Is it accident and coincidence only, or has he discovered something, and come down here to watch my doings and those of the yacht? That is a very difficult question to answer, for one meets all sorts of people at Cowes during August; yet that fellow does not look as though he knew enough about yachts to have been attracted here by the racing. And he was evidently desirous of avoiding recognition by me, or why did he bolt into that shop as he did? I am prepared to swear that he did not want to buy anything; he had not the remotest intention of entering the place until he saw me. Of course that may have been because of the scare I gave him that night at the Cecil--or, on the other hand, it may have been because he did not wish me to know that he was anywhere near me. Anyhow, it does not matter, for my doings down here have been absolutely innocent, and such as to disarm even the suspicion of a suspicious Spanish spy; and in any case he cannot very well follow me wherever I go. Perhaps before the month is out his suspicions--if he has any--will be laid at rest, since I am just now doing absolutely nothing to foster or strengthen them, and he will come to the conclusion that there is no need to watch me. But I am very glad that the idea occurred to me of never running the boat at a higher speed than fourteen knots while we have been down here; there is nothing to be gained by giving away her real speed, and--who knows?--a little harmless deception in that matter may one day stand us in good stead."

Thenceforward, whenever Jack had occasion to go ash.o.r.e, he always kept a particularly smart lookout for "Mr Mackintosh"; but he saw him no more during the remainder of his stay in the Solent. Yet a few days later an incident occurred which, although unmarked by any p.r.o.nounced significance, rather tended to impress upon Jack the conviction that somebody was evincing a certain amount of interest in the speed qualifications of the _Thetis_, although it was quite possible that he might have been mistaken. This incident took the form of a somewhat sudden proposal to get up a race for steam-yachts round the island, for a cup of the value of fifty guineas. Such a proposal was a little remarkable, from the fact that steam-yacht racing is a form of sport that is very rarely indulged in by Englishmen, at least in English waters; yet everything must necessarily have a beginning, and there was no especial reason why steam-yacht racing should not be one of those things, particularly as the idea appeared to be received with some enthusiasm by certain owners of such craft. When the matter was first mentioned to Singleton, and it was suggested that he should enter the _Thetis_ for the race, he evinced a disposition to regard the proposal with coldness, as he had already arrived at the conclusion that it might be unwise to reveal the boat's actual capabilities; but his att.i.tude was so strongly denounced as unsportsmanlike, and he found himself subjected to such urgent solicitations--not to say pressure--that he quickly grew suspicious, and mentioned the matter to Milsom. Milsom, in turn, after considering the matter for a little, suggested that the chief engineer of the boat should be consulted, with the result that it was ultimately decided to enter the _Thetis_ for the race, Macintyre undertaking that while the yacht should present to onlookers every appearance of being pushed to the utmost--plenty of steam blowing off, and so on--her speed should not be permitted to exceed fifteen knots, and only be allowed to reach that at brief intervals during the race. With this understanding Jack agreed to enter, and the race duly came off in splendid weather, and was p.r.o.nounced to be a brilliant success, the _Thetis_ coming in third, but losing the race by only eight seconds on her time allowance.

n.o.body was perhaps better pleased at the result than Jack, for the new boat made a brave show and apparently struggled gamely throughout the race to win the prize, the "white feather" showing from first to last on the top of her waste pipe, and a thin but continuous film of light-brown smoke issuing from her funnel from start to finish. If anyone happened to have taken the trouble to get up the race with the express object of ascertaining the best speed of the _Thetis_, they knew it now; it was fourteen knots, rising to nearly fifteen for a few minutes occasionally when the conditions were especially favourable!

With the approach of the end of the month the yachts began to thin out more and more perceptibly every day, the racers going westward and the cruisers following them; the steam-yachts hanging on to accompany the Channel Match to Weymouth. The _Thetis_ was one of these; and Jack allowed it to be pretty generally understood that after the Weymouth regatta was over he intended to run north for a month or so, visiting the Baltic, and perhaps proceeding as far east as Cronstadt. But yachtsmen are among the most capricious of men--some of them never know from one moment to another what they really intend to do; thus it is, after all, not very surprising that when the _Thetis_ arrived off the mouth of the Tyne Jack Singleton should suddenly give orders for her nose to be turned sh.o.r.eward, and that, an hour or two later, she should glide gently up alongside and make fast to the private wharf of Singleton, Murdock, and Company. What is surprising is that, when she was seen approaching, some fifty of Singleton, Murdock, and Company's most trusty hands received sudden notice that they were required for an all-night job; and that at dawn the next morning the _Thetis_ drew a full foot more water than she had done when she ran alongside the wharf some twelve hours earlier, although in the interim she had not taken an ounce of coal into her bunkers.

It so happened that Mr Murdock was absent on important business when the _Thetis_ arrived alongside the wharf, and he did not return to Newcastle until nearly midnight, when he, of course, made the best of his way to his own house. But he was at the works betimes next morning, and, knowing that the yacht was expected, he took the wharf on his way to the office, with the object of ascertaining whether she had arrived.

The sight of her lying alongside in all her bravery of white enamel paint, gilt mouldings, and polished bra.s.swork caused him to heave a great sigh of relief; and he joyously hurried forward to greet Jack, whom he saw standing on the wharf engaged in earnest conversation with the yard foreman.