These extraordinary visitors from the deep brought with them a girl and
three wounded men. By this time the captain was aroused; he spoke some
English.
"Vas iss diss?" he asked, surveying the newcomers with amazement, and
their bizarre costumes with growing nervousness. "Vere haf you coomed
vrom?"
Coke pushed him playfully into the cook's galley.
"This is too easy," he chortled. "Set about 'em, you swabs. Don't
hurt anybody unless they ax for it. Round every son of a gun into the
fo'c'sle till I come. Mr. Watts, the bridge for you. Olsen, take the
wheel. Mr. Hozier, see wot you can find in their flag locker. _Now_,
Mr. Norrie! Sharp for it. You're wanted in the engine-room."
And that is how ex-President Dom Corria Antonio De Sylva acquired the
nucleus of his fleet, though, unhappily, an accident to a sea-cock
forthwith deprived him of a most useful and seaworthy steam launch.
CHAPTER XI
A LIVELY MORNING IN EXCHANGE BUILDINGS
Coke and his merry men became pirates during the early morning of
Thursday, September 2d; the curious reader can ascertain the year by
looking up "Brazil" in any modern Encyclopedia, and turning to the
sub-division "Recent History." On Monday, September 6th, David Verity
entered his office in Exchange Buildings, Liverpool, hung his hat and
overcoat on their allotted pegs, swore at the office boy because some
spots of rain had come in through an open window, and ran a feverish
glance through his letters to learn if any envelopes bearing the
planetary devices of the chief cable companies had managed to hide
themselves among the mass of correspondence.
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