Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/247

Rh he answered, "and she is driven by gas. The metal is the finest in the world for all ship-building purposes, but its price is ruinous. None but a man worth millions could build the like to her."

"Then Captain Black is such a man?" I said.

"Exactly, or he wouldn't be the master of her—and of Europe. Doesn't it occur to you that you were a fool ever to set out on the enterprise of coping with him?"

I did not answer the taunt, but looked seaward, away across the west, where Roderick and Mary were. The boundless spread of water reminded me how small was the hope that I should ever see them again; ever hear a voice I had known in the old time, or clasp a hand in fellowship that had oft been clasped. They thought me dead, no doubt; and to take the grief from them was forbidden, then and until the end of it, I felt sure.

But the doctor was still occupied with the great ship, looking down upon her as she lay, and he called my attention to a fact I had not been cognisant of.

"We are coaling here, do you see?" he said. "It was one of Black's inspirations to choose Greenland for his hole; it is one of the few comparatively uninhabited countries in the world where coal is to be had, somewhat of a poorer