“Run up with the coast and sink her, and then go ashore in the surf-boat at some place where the cable doesn’t call, and leave that as soon as possible for somewhere else.”

“It will be a big saving of necks,” said Kettle drily.  “Why sir, you’ve been a steamer-owner in your time, and you must know how we’re fixed.  You’ve given up your papers here, and you’re known.  You can’t go into another port in the whole wide world without papers, and as far as forging a new set, why that’s a thing that hasn’t been done this thirty years outside a story-book.”

Mr. White came up to hear.  “I don’t see that,” he said.

“You fellows don’t understand everything in Jerusalem,” said Kettle, with a cheerful insult, and walked away.  Captain Kettle regarded Sheriff as a gull, and pitied him accordingly; but White he recognized as principal knave, and disliked him accordingly.

But when the start was made for the raid, some hour and a half before the dawn, Kettle was not backward in fulfilling his paid-for task.  Himself he saw a surf-boat lowered into the water and manned by black Krooboy paddlers; himself he saw his two employers down on the thwarts, and then followed them; and himself he sat beside the head-man who straddled in the stern sheets at the steering oar, and gave him minute directions.

The boat was avoiding the bay altogether.  She was making for the strip of sand in front of the cable station, and except when she was shouldered up on the back of a roller, the goal was out of sight all the time.

“There’s a rare swell running, and it’s a mighty bad beach to-night,” Kettle commented.  “I hope you gentlemen can swim, for the odds are you’ll have to do it inside the next ten minutes.”

“If we are spilt getting ashore,” said White, “how do you say we’ll get off again?”

“The Lord knows,” said Kettle.

“Well, you’re a cheerful companion, anyway.”

“I wasn’t paid for a yacht skippering job and asked to say nice things which weren’t true.  But if you don’t fancy the prospect, go back and try a trade that’s less risky.  You mayn’t like honest work, but it strikes me this kind of contract’s out your weight anyway.”

The Jew looked as if he would like to let loose his tongue, and perhaps handle a weapon, but his motto was “business first,” and he could not afford to have an open fracas with Kettle then.  So he swallowed his resentment, and said, “Get on,” and clung dizzily on to his thwart.

As each roller passed tinder her, the surf-boat swooped higher and higher, and the laboring paddles seemed to give her less and less momentum.  The head-man strained at the steering oar.  The Krooboys had hard work to keep their perches on the gunwale.