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Shall I put you ashore?" "Ashore? Why, yes, yes! Bless me, I've had quite a stay, haven't I? But if you care to try again, Captain, my friend Hassan is into Momba. He will be aboard, no fear. If you do business with him, Captain, why, draw on me, and it's money in my pocket." "If I do business of that kind this cruise, Rimmle, I promise you I'll do it with Hassan." "Thank you, Captain.
But, hah, hah!" he grinned suddenly, sardonically, at the agent. "Think of us, Rimmle, sitting in the cabin of a West Coast slaver and smuggler discoursing in this fashion two gallant gentlemen who trade in human misery." Ten years since Captain Blaise had done any slave-running, and Rimmle, who knew that, was slave-running still, and so he did not quite know how to take this outburst.
At last he looked up. "It doesn't pay any more, Rimmle." "Well, in these days," observed Rimmle, "I don't blame you, with the bull-dogs of men-o'-war making it so hot." We all had to smile at that, and Rimmle, seeing that Captain Blaise was not to be shamed into it, went on. "But suppose there was larger head-money than ever was paid before, Captain?
Great hours for them when they could sit in with the famous Captain Blaise, and so now, with the agent bound to talk of the West Coast trade, lawful and otherwise, Captain Blaise was making but slow headway. I was thinking of stepping up on deck to stretch my legs, when the conversation took a sudden shift. "Captain" Rimmle put the question hesitatingly "I thought I had seen the last of you.
There was a half-hour of anecdotes of the Governor of Momba and his son before Cunningham's name was even mentioned; and when the question of him was slipped, so casually was it slipped that I, with senses astretch, did not realize that this must be the sick man at Momba not until the next question was put. "But there must have been something else, Rimmle, between the Governor and Cunningham?"
Neither did I. Where Captain Blaise was sincere and where talking for effect I could not have said; but surely he was moulding Rimmle like jelly; and now looking out from under his eyebrow at Rimmle, but his lips curved in a smile, he selected a cheroot and lit it, and lit another for Rimmle, who now smiled too.
Captain Blaise filled them up again. "Men like myself, Rimmle, are but pawns in this trading game. It is the people on the inside, the Governor of Momba and gentlemen like you, who direct the play." Rimmle smacked his lips. "M-m To be sure, the Governor of Momba "
"What! Why there?" "I don't know, unless it is the only house in that country where a young lady of her position and then her beauty " "Under that old satrap's roof? But here, Rimmle, what is the Governor going to do with Cunningham?" "Well, Captain, if it should happen that she will marry the Governor's son, why Cunningham might be allowed you know how, Captain, ho! ho! surely, to escape.
And yet that kind sometimes cost men a hundred times more in the end." Captain Blaise bent deferentially toward the agent. "You think that, Rimmle truly?" Rimmle bowed wisely. Captain Blaise continued to regard him in the most friendly way, and yet with an air of doubt, as if debating how far to discuss matters of this kind with him.
Now, had they been drinking ordinary wine or heavy ale, Rimmle might have held his own. But this was a rare vintage, a delicate bouquet meant for a finer breed than Rimmle. His tongue was still limber but his wits were fled. He was vain to display to the famous Captain Blaise his knowledge of secret affairs. "Yes, it is true, Captain, there was more than showed on the surface there.
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