The first cruise of the Currency Lass had thus ended in a stroke of fortune almost beyond hope.  She had brought two thousand pounds’ worth of trade, straight as a homing pigeon, to the place where it was most required.  And Captain Wicks (or, rather, Captain Kirkup) showed himself the man to make the best of his advantage.  For hard upon two days he walked a verandah with Topelius, for hard upon two days his partners watched from the neighbouring public house the field of battle; and the lamps were not yet lighted on the evening of the second before the enemy surrendered.  Wicks came across to the Sans Souci, as the saloon was called, his face nigh black, his eyes almost closed and all bloodshot, and yet bright as lighted matches.

“Come out here, boys,” he said; and when they were some way off among the palms, “I hold twenty-four,” he added in a voice scarcely recognizable, and doubtless referring to the venerable game of cribbage.

“What do you mean?” asked Tommy.

“I’ve sold the trade,” answered Wicks; “or, rather, I’ve sold only some of it, for I’ve kept back all the mess beef and half the flour and biscuit; and, by God, we’re still provisioned for four months!  By God, it’s as good as stolen!”

“My word!” cried Hemstead.

“But what have you sold it for?” gasped Carthew, the captain’s almost insane excitement shaking his nerve.

“Let me tell it my own way,” cried Wicks, loosening his neck.  “Let me get at it gradual, or I’ll explode.  I’ve not only sold it, boys, I’ve wrung out a charter on my own terms to ’Frisco and back; on my own terms.  I made a point of it.  I fooled him first by making believe I wanted copra, which of course I knew he wouldn’t hear of—­couldn’t, in fact; and whenever he showed fight, I trotted out the copra, and that man dived!  I would take nothing but copra, you see; and so I’ve got the blooming lot in specie—­all but two short bills on ’Frisco.  And the sum?  Well, this whole adventure, including two thousand pounds of credit, cost us two thousand seven hundred and some odd.  That’s all paid back; in thirty days’ cruise we’ve paid for the schooner and the trade.  Heard ever any man the match of that?  And it’s not all!  For besides that,” said the captain, hammering his words, “we’ve got Thirteen Blooming Hundred Pounds of profit to divide.  I bled him in four Thou.!” he cried, in a voice that broke like a schoolboy’s.

For a moment the partners looked upon their chief with stupefaction, incredulous surprise their only feeling.  Tommy was the first to grasp the consequences.

“Here,” he said, in a hard, business tone.  “Come back to that saloon.  I’ve got to get drunk.”

“You must please excuse me, boys,” said the captain, earnestly.  “I daren’t taste nothing.  If I was to drink one glass of beer, it’s my belief I’d have the apoplexy.  The last scrimmage, and the blooming triumph, pretty nigh hand done me.”