"That's the operator at the next station calling me."
"But is it true what this gentleman's been telling me?"
"I suppose it is, more or less. But what of that? What did you lose your temper for like this? You knew quite well what we came here for."
"I knew you came to steal money from stockbrokers. I knew nothing about going to try and run my country in for a war."
"Poof, that's nothing. The war would not hurt you and me. Besides, it must go on now. I've cabled my partner in London to be a bear in Kaffirs for all he's worth. We must smash all the instruments here so they can't contradict the news, and then be off."
"Your partner can be a bear or any other kind of beast, in any sort of niggers he chooses, but I'm not going to let you run England into war at any price."
"Pah, my good man, what does that matter to you? What's England ever done for you?"
"I live there," said Kettle, "when I'm at home, and as I've lived everywhere else in the world, I'm naturally a bit more fond of the old shop than if I'd never gone away from her beach. No, Mr. White, England's never done anything special for me that I could, so to speak, put my finger on, but--ah would you!"
White, in desperation, had made a grab at the revolver lying on the instrument table, but with a quick rush Kettle possessed himself of it, and Mr. White found himself again looking down the muzzle of Captain Kettle's weapon.
But a moment later the aim was changed. Sheriff, hearing the whispered talk, had come in through the doorway to see what it was about, and promptly found himself favored in his turn.
"Shift your pistol to muzzle end, and bring it here."
Sheriff obeyed the order promptly. He had seen enough of Captain Kettle's usefulness as a marksman not to dispute his wishes.
"Did you know that we came here to stir up a war between our folks at home and the Transvaal?"
"And smash up the telegraph instruments afterward, so that it could not be contradicted till it was well under way?"
"And you remember what you told me on that steamboat? Oh! you liar!" said Kettle, and Sheriff winced.
Captain Kettle might have commented on his own poverty, but he did not do this. Instead, he said: "Now we'll go back to the ship, and of course you'll have to scuttle her just as if you'd brought off your game here successfully. Run England in for a bloody war, would you, just for some filthy money? By James! no. Come, march. And you, Mr. Telegraph Clerk, get under weigh with that deaf and dumb alphabet of yours, and ring up the Cape, and tell them what's been sent is all a joke, and there's to be no war at all."