Wolff rose up, called for the steward, and, having sent for his panama, put it on and came up on the bridge.
The sea was smooth, surface smooth, but underrun by the long, endless swell of the Pacific.
“This is the spot,” said the Captain, who had been poring over the cable chart which he had brought up on the bridge. “And it’s pretty deep. All a mile.”
“Good!” said Wolff. “With this calm sea, we ought to work well and quickly. We are in luck; and now, if you will come into the chart house, we will talk for one moment.”
They went into the chart house, and Wolff shut the door.
“This is a purely business proposition,” began Wolff, “and I must tell you, to begin with, that it is not a business which a man of a certain type of mind would call on the square. But, my dear Captain, can you show me any business proposition that is truly on the square? Not one. I want the use of a cable, and I am going to take it for business purposes. That is all there is to it, you understand.”
“Look here,” said Blood, “this is all I know of the business. You want me to fish this cable up?”
“Connect both ends with the electrical testing room, and let you talk through it and send messages through it from both or one of the cut ends?”
“After I have had my use of the cable, you can drop both ends overboard. We will sail away, and no one the wiser. Of course, the cable company will recognise that their cable is broken, and send a ship to mend it; but we will be far away by that time.”
“I see,” went on the Captain, “that it runs from the American coast here to the Australian coast here, but I don’t know the name of the company it belongs to; I don’t know what in the nation your game is. I am as innocent as a baa lamb on the whole affair, and I simply obey your orders, not knowing that you yourself may not own the cable and that this mayn’t be a repairing job. If we are caught, will you bear me out in that statement?--not that your evidence will be much good, I expect, but, still, it’s better than nothing.”
“If you obey our instructions,” said Wolff, “I will do as you say; and, to prove that I am playing fair with you, I will even now give you a detail of the commercial speculation that is behind all this business.”