ourself know his story, as it must be known in a
few months' time, put your price on what is your own, and don't fear to
recompense yourself. What I want you to see is this:--For some months,
at any rate, we shall get no outside help in this matter from any
living creature; what we're going to do must be done at our cost, which
is my cost. And what we're going to do isn't to be done at this hotel,
or on this couch, or in the City: it's going to be done on the high
seas, and after that in America on the Hudson River, where, if Hall be
right, is the home of Captain Black. It is to the Hudson River that I
mean to go now--at once, as soon as money and the devil's own number of
men can get the steam-yacht _Celsis_ ready for sea. And at my cost,
don't forget that; though I'm a fool in the game, which is yours to
make and yours to play, as it has been from the beginning, when the
dead man chose you to finish it and to reckon with the scoundrels now
afloat somewhere between here and the Banks. In his name I ask you now
to close your hand with me on this bargain, to ask no question, to make
no protests, and to remember that we sail in three days, if possible,
and if not in three, then, in as small a number as will serve to get
the steamer ready."

What could I say to a story such as this one? I could only wring his
hand, and feel how hot it was, knowing that the same haunting wish to
be up and off in pursuit was about him as about me. For half-an-hour we
sat and smoked together. In three-quarters I was closeted in the room
below with Francis Paolo, who had come from the agents to seek the
berth of second officer to the new yacht _Celsis_. When the servant
gave me this man's name, I had some misgiving at its Italian sound, but
I remembered that Italy is breeding a nation of sailors; and I put off
the prejudice and hurried down to see him. I found him to be a
sprightly, dark-faced, black-haired Italian, apparently no more than
twenty-five years old; and he greeted me with much smoothness of
speech. He had served three years as third officer to the big
steam-yacht owned by the noted Frenchman, the Marquis de Cluneville;
and, as he was unmistakably a gentleman, and his discharges were in
perfect order, I engaged him there and then for the post of second
officer to the _Celsis_, and gave him orders to join her at Plymouth,
where she lay, as soon as might be.

But had I known him then as I know him now, I would have paid a
thousand