We took the ship in towards those heaps and the ruined jetty slowly and carefully. The captain came and talked.
“ This is eet?” he said.
“ Yes,” said I.
“ Is eet for trade we have come?”
This was ironical.
“ No,” said I.
“ Gordon-Nasmyth would haf told me long ago what it ees for we haf come.”
“ I’ll tell you now,” I said. “We are going to lay in as close as we can to those two heaps of stuff—you see them?—under the rock. Then we are going to chuck all our ballast overboard and take those in. Then we’re going home.”
“ May I presume to ask—is eet gold?”
“ No,” I said incivilly, “it isn’t.”
“ Then what is it?”
“ It’s stuff—of some commercial value.”
“ We can’t do eet,” he said.
“ We can,” I answered reassuringly.
“ We can’t,” he said as confidently. “I don’t mean w
