“Name of Cable,” repeated the captain.  “Dirty!” he added, just by way of inviting his hearer’s attention, and adding that personal note without which even the shortest conversation is apt to lose interest.

This direct address seemed to have the desired effect, for the man stood aside.

“Heave ahead!” he said, pointing to an open door.  For the only English he knew was the English they speak in the Baltic.  The captain cocked his bright blue eye at him, his attention caught by the familiar note.  And he stumped along the passage into the dim room at the end.  It was a small, square room, with a window opening upon some leads, where discarded bottles and blackened moss surrounded the remains of a sparrow.  The room was full of men—­six or seven foreign faces were turned towards the new-comer.  Only one, however, of these faces was familiar to Captain Cable.  It was the face of the man known on the Vistula as Kosmaroff.

The captain nodded to him.  He had a large nodding acquaintance.  It will be remembered that he claimed for his hands a cleanliness which their appearance seemed to define as purely moral.  In his way he was a proud man, and stand-offish at that.  He looked slowly round, and found no other face to recognize.  But he looked a second time at a small, dark man with gentle eyes, whose individuality must have had something magnetic in it.  Captain Cable was accustomed to judge from outward things.  He picked out the ruling mind in that room, and looked again at its possessor as if measuring himself against him.

“Take a chair, captain,” said Kosmaroff, who himself happened to be standing.  He was leaning against the high, old-fashioned mantel-piece, which had seen better days—­and company—­and smoking a cigarette.  He was clad in a cheap, ready-made suit; for his heart was in his business, and he scraped and saved every kopeck.  But the cheap clothing could not hide that ease of movement which bespeaks a long descent, or conceal the slim strength of limb which is begotten of the fine, clean, hard bone of a fighting race.

The captain looked round, and sought his pocket-handkerchief, with which to dust the proffered seat, mindful of his “suit.”

“Do you speak German, captain?” inquired Kosmaroff.

And Captain Cable snorted at the suggestion.

“Sailed with a crew of Germans,” he answered; “I understand a bit, and I know a few words.  I know the German for d—­n your eyes, and handy words like that.”

“Then,” said Kosmaroff, addressing the gentle-eyed man, “we had better continue our talk in German.  Captain Cable is a man who likes plain dealing.”

He himself spoke in the language of the Fatherland, and Captain Cable stiffened at the sound of it, as all good Britons should.

“We have not much to say to Captain Cable,” replied the man who seemed to be a leader of the Brothers of Liberty.  He spoke in a thin tenor voice, and was what the French call chetif in appearance—­a weak man, fighting against physical disabilities and an indifferent digestion.