“That doesn’t look like a pirate craft, anyhow.” The boys were on the docks bright and early the next morning, and were looking at the vessel in which they were expected to embark within the next hour for the trip down the Elbe to the sea.
As Billy had put it, the ship they were viewing was neither “low, long, nor rakish.” Herr Roque had not deceived them on that point, at least. It was a “trading vessel.” All of the crew in sight were of the roustabout class, except the captain, who was somewhat of a dandy, with a glazed cap, high collar, military blouse, and corduroy trousers.
“Hi, there!” he called to the boys in high-pitched German, “are you from Herr Roque?”
Henri advised in loud tone that such was the fact.
“Come aboard, then,” invited the boss of the deck.
The boys made short work of the rickety gangboard, and, aboard, cast an eye about for their host.
The captain said something in his way of speaking that meant “you’ll see him later.”
It was some time later—at the mouth of the Elbe, and late at night.
Before this happened, the boys, not experienced[230] as seamen, were surprised to the limit at the ready transformation of that “trade vessel.” Tarpaulin coverings removed, like magic unfolding, revealed a funnel, gunbeds, and guns in them, of the kind to raise the mischief with a hull at short range; spars were stripped of clumsy sails, and the craft generally departed from the peaceful classification in which it cleared from Hamburg.
“Oh, you pleasure trip!” Billy merrily commented.
“You surely didn’t swallow that story?”
“You know I didn’t, Henri,” returned Billy. “When is a dummy not a dummy? Answer: When someone thinks he is what he isn’t. How’s that, Henri?”
“As good grammar as could be expected on a trick ship,” acknowledged Henri.
The sailors even changed their faces with their clothes, their jaws fitting as tightly as their sea-going outfits, and, as far as the captain himself, he was no longer set up in landscape style. Straight as a poker he stood on the newly discovered bridge like an image of lead.
“Wouldn’t jar me if Herr Roque showed up with horns on his forehead instead of in spectacle trimming.”
Billy was preparing for the next fall of the wand.
While the boys were watching the hoist of the anchor, following a curt command from the officer[231] on the bridge, and a distant chime was proclaiming the midnight hour, Billy was made aware that someone, not of the regular crew, was standing at his elbow.
The voice was that of Herr Roque, but the speaker could never for a single moment be materially taken for the late elderly spectacled merchant.
“How now, young sirs; is it well with you?”
Billy and Henri stared at the face showing in the pale gleam of a spar light. Clean-shaven, thin-lipped, hard-eyed, not a trace of the benevolent cast of countenance worn by the bland tradesman.
The line of talk was there, but not another line of the other assumed character.
“Is—it—really—Herr Roque?” stammered Billy.
“At your service, young sirs.”
“It all works like a play,” put in Henri.
“I hope not a tragedy, young sirs.”
“Would you mind cutting out the ‘young sirs’?”
Billy was getting nettled at this mockery.
“No offense intended, I assure you.”
For reasons of his own, the secret agent had no desire to blunt the edge of his selected tools in useless manner.
Indeed, he kept the boys on velvet, so to speak, for the first two days at sea.
Then his mood changed with lack of leisure moments.[232] He was constantly on the alert and abrupt in word and action.
There was a sailor constantly in the crosstrees, sweeping the watery expanse with powerful glasses. The gunners were standing, watch about, in readiness for any emergency.
As ............