How would
you like that, Ben, with a thundering old fight against odds, a fight that
likely enough will leave us to sleep forever on one of these green islands
hereabouts?"
Still I did not understand.
Roger regarded me thoughtfully. "Tell me all that you know about our
cargo."
"Why," said I, finding my tongue at last, "it's ginseng and woollen goods
for Canton. That's all I know."
"Then you don't know that at this moment there is one hundred thousand
dollars in gold in the hold of the Island Princess?"
"What?" I gasped.
"One hundred thousand dollars in gold."
I could not believe my ears. Certainly, so far as I was concerned, the
secret had been well kept.
Then a new thought came to me, "Does Captain Falk know?" I asked.
"Yes," said Roger, "Captain Falk knows."
CHAPTER XII
A STRANGE TALE
Roger Hamlin's words were to linger a long time in my ears, and so far as I
then could see, there was little to say in reply. A hundred thousand
dollars in gold had bought, soul and body, many a better man than Captain
Falk. At that very moment Falk was watching us from the quarter-deck with
an expression on his face that was partly an amused smile, partly a sneer.
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