Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/373

Rh board with me for the trip, and he was the man to set both things square. He ran me north of Godthaab, in Greenland, and put me into the fjord you have known; and he drew the plans of my ship, which I made the Italians at Spezia build for me—for I had the money, and, as for the metal, the phosphor bronze of which I built her—well, that was Karl's idea, too. You may know that phosphor bronze is the finest material for ship-building in the world, but the majority of 'em can't use it on account of the cost of the copper. Well, the copper I had, any amount of it; and I shipped it to Italy, and the great vessel which your friend Hall thought was all of gold had the look of it, and was the finest sight man ever saw when under her own colours.

"Once the ship was built, our game was easy. She was armoured heavily amidships; she had two ten-inch guns in her turrets, and machine-guns thick all over her; and she was the best-fitted ship in her quarters swimming. It's a rum thing, but I always had a bit of a taste for nice things—fine painting, gold work, and stones—and my only hobby to speak of has been the buying of 'em. This led me to meet your friend Hall. Not that I didn't know him from the first, for my men saw him in the yards at Spezia, and from that day I never left him unwatched. I followed him to Paris, to