“We’ll get the canvas off her, and then you can go below and shave.  You can sleep in a shore bed this night, if you choose, sir, and to-morrow we’ll see about fingering the salvage.  There’ll be no trouble there now; we shall just have to ask for a check and Lloyds will pay it, and then you and the hands will take your share, and I—­by James!  Mr. Philipps, I shall be a rich man over this business.  I shouldn’t be a bit surprised but what I finger a snug L500 as my share.  Oh, sir, Heaven’s been very good to me over this, and I know it, and I’m grateful.  My wife will be grateful too.  I wish you could come to our chapel some day and see her.”

“You deserve your luck, Captain, if ever a man did in this world, and, by Jove! we’ll celebrate it.  We’ve been living on pig’s food for long enough.  We’ll find the best hotel in Cardiff, and we’ll get the best dinner the chef there can produce.  I want you to be my guest at that.”

“I must ask you to excuse me,” said Kettle.  “I’ve received a good deal just lately, and I’m thankful, and I want to say so.  If you don’t mind, I’d rather say it alone.”

“I understand, Skipper.  You’re a heap better man than I am, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to shake hands with you.  Thanks.  We may not meet again, but I shall never forget you and what we’ve seen on this murderous old wreck of a ship.  Hullo, there’s Cardiff not twenty minutes ahead.  Well, I must go below and clean up after you’ve docked her.”

CHAPTER VIII

TO CAPTURE AN HEIRESS

The Parakeet had discharged the last of her coal into the lighters alongside, had cast off from the mooring buoys, and was steaming out of the baking heat of Suez harbor on her way down toward the worse heat of the Red Sea beyond.  The clatter and dirt of the-working ships, with the smells of hot iron and black humanity, were dying out astern, and presently she slowed up to drop the pilot into his boat, and then stood on again along her course.

A passenger, a young man of eight or nine-and-twenty, lounged on a camp-stool under the upper bridge awning, and watched the Parakeet’s captain as he walked briskly across and across, and presently, when the little sailor faced him, he nodded as though he had decided something that was in his thoughts.

“Well, sir?” said Captain Kettle.

“I wish you wouldn’t look so anxious.  We’ve started now, and may as well make up our minds to go through it comfortably.”

“Quite so,” said Kettle.  “I’m thinking out how we are to do this business in comfort—­and safety,” and with that he resumed his walk.

The man beside him had introduced himself when the black workers were carrying the Parakeet’s cargo of coal in baskets from the holds to the lighters alongside; and Kettle had been rather startled to find that he carried a letter of introduction from the steamboat’s owners.  The letter gave him no choice of procedure.  It stated with clearness that Mr. Hugh Wenlock, solicitor, had laid his wishes before them, and that they had agreed to further these wishes (through the agency of their servant—­Captain Owen Kettle) in consideration of the payment of L200 sterling.