“Provided it’s nothing underhand,” he said, “I’m ready and willing.  Or’nary risks of the sea, Queen’s enemies, act o’ God—­them’s my risks!  I am uninsured.  Ship’s my own.  I don’t mind explosives—­”

“There are explosives,” admitted the banker.

“Then they must be honest explosives, or they don’t go below my hatches.  Explosives that’s to blow a man up honest, before his face.”

“There are cartridges,” said the young man who had shaken hands.

“That’ll do,” said the masterful sailor.  And pointing a thick finger towards the banker, added, “Now, mister,” and sat back in his chair.

“It is a very simple matter,” explained the banker, in a thick, suave voice.  “We have a cargo—­a greater part of it weight, though there is some measurement—­a few cases of light goods, clothing and such.  You will load in the river, and all will be sent to you in lighters.  There is nothing heavy, nothing large.  There is also no insurance, you understand.  What falls out of the slings and is lost overside is lost.”

The banker paused for breath.

“I understand,” said Captain Cable.  “It’s the same with me and my ship.  There is no insurance, no tricking underwriters into unusual risks.  It’s neck or nothing with me.”

And he looked hard at the breathless banker, with whom it was, in this respect, nothing.

“I understand right enough,” he added, with an affable nod to the three foreigners.

“You will sail from London with a full general cargo for Malmo or Stockholm, or somewhere where officials are not wide-awake.  You meet in the North Sea, at a point to be fixed between yourselves, the Olaf, Captain Petersen—­sitting by your side.”

Captain Cable turned and gravely shook hands with Captain Petersen.

“Thought you was a seafaring man,” he said.  And Captain Petersen replied that he was “Vair pleased.”

“The cargo is to be transshipped at sea, out of sight of land or lightship.  But that we can safely leave to you, Captain Cable.”

“I don’t deny,” replied the mariner, who was measuring Captain Petersen out of the corner of his eye, “that I have been there before.”

“You can then go up the Baltic in ballast to some small port—­just a sawmill, at the head of a fjord—­where I shall have a cargo of timber waiting for you to bring back to London.  When can you begin loading, captain?”

“To-morrow,” replied the captain.  “Ship’s lying in the river now, and if these gentlemen would like to see her, she’s as handy a—­”

“No, I do not think we shall have time for that!” put in the banker, hastily.  “And now we must leave you and Captain Petersen to settle your meeting-place.  You have your charts?”

By way of response the captain produced from his pocket sundry folded papers, which he laid tenderly on the table.  For the last ten years he had been postponing the necessity of buying new charts of certain sections of the North Sea.  He looked round at the high walls and the overhanging trees.