way; and Huish waited, mug in hand, expecting the usual
explosion. It did not follow. He eased the cork with his thumb; still
there was no result. At last he took the screw and drew it. It came out
very easy and with scarce a sound.

''Illo!'said Huish. ''Ere's a bad bottle.'

He poured some of the wine into the mug; it was colourless and still. He
smelt and tasted it.

'W'y, wot's this?' he said. 'It's water!'

If the voice of trumpets had suddenly sounded about the ship in the
midst of the sea, the three men in the house could scarcely have been
more stunned than by this incident. The mug passed round; each sipped,
each smelt of it; each stared at the bottle in its glory of gold paper
as Crusoe may have stared at the footprint; and their minds were swift
to fix upon a common apprehension. The difference between a bottle of
champagne and a bottle of water is not great; between a shipload of one
or the other lay the whole scale from riches to ruin.

A second bottle was broached. There were two cases standing ready in a
stateroom; these two were brought out, broken open, and tested. Still
with the same result: the contents were still colourless and tasteless,
and dead as the rain in a beached fishing-boat.

'Crikey!' said Huish.

'Here, let's sample the hold!' said the captain, mopping his brow with
a back-handed sweep; and the three stalked out of the house, grim and
heavy-footed.

All hands were turned out; two Kanakas were sent below, another
stationed at a purchase; and Davis, axe in hand, took his place beside
the coamings.

'Are you going to let the men know?' whispered Herrick.

'Damn the men!' said Davis. 'It's beyond that. We've got to know
ourselves.'

Three cases were sent on deck and sampled in turn; from each bottle,
as the captain smashed it with the axe, the champagne ran bubbling and
creaming.

'Go deeper, can't you?' cried Davis to the Kanakas in the hold.

The command gave the signal for a disastrous change. Case after case
came up, bottle after bottle was burst and bled mere water. Deeper
yet, and they came upon a layer where there was scarcely so much as
the intention to deceive; where the cases were no longer branded, the
bottles no longer wired or papered, where the fraud was manifest and
stared them in the face.

'Here's about enough of this foolery!' said Davis. 'Stow back the cases
in the hold, Uncle, and get the broken crockery overboard. Come with
me,' he added to his co-adve