A CONFERENCE.
There was now a pause. How am I to convey the dramatic character of this interval of silence? The hush of the night worked like a spirit in the vessel, and the silence seemed to be deepened rather than disturbed by the dull, pinion-like beat of the mainsail swinging into the mast, by the occasional creak breaking forth from some slightly strained bulkhead, and by the half-muffled gurgling of some little lift of dark water laving the barque's side. I could witness no temper in the men. Wherever there lay a scowl, it was no more than a part of the creature's make. Their faces were by this time familiar to me, and I could not mistake. Custom had even diminished something of the fierceness, and I may say the hideousness, of the lemon-coloured man, whose corrugated brow and savage eyes had been among the earliest details of this ship to attract my attention on boarding her. Yet with the memory in me of what had just now been enacted—with thoughts in me of two corpses scarcely yet cold sinking, still sinking, at but a little distance from the vessel—these men opposed a horribly formidable array of countenances to the gaze. Their various dyes of complexion were deepened by the lantern light; the grotesque character of their attire seemed to intensify their tragic appearance. Their figures were as motionless as though they were acting a part as statues in a stage representation. At intervals one or another would look to right or left, but in the main their eyes were directed our way, and were chiefly fixed upon Helga.
Jacob stared as though in a dream; Abraham, with his under-jaw hanging loose, appeared to be fascinated by Nakier. I longed to plunge into this silence, so to speak, to expend in speech and questions the emotions which were keeping my heart fiercely beating; but I was held dumb by the notion that this stillness was a part of the solemnities which were to be employed for the protection of our lives.
Punmeamootty re-entered the cuddy holding a book. Nakier took it from him, and, coming round to us, said:
'Look, lady! look, sah! You see dis is de Koran'—I observed that he sometimes said de and sometimes the—'it is our religion. We swear upon it. Look, to make sure!'
I received the volume, and examined it. It was a manuscript, bound in leather, with a flap, and very elegantly ornamented on the sides and back with some sort of devices in gold and colour. The writing was in red, and every page was margined with a finely ruled red line. What tongue it was written in I could not, of course, tell. I have since supposed it was in Arabic; but for us it might as well have been the Talmud as the Koran. I returned the book to Nakier.
'It is allee right, you see, sah,' he exclaimed, showing his wonderfully white teeth in a smile of gentle, respectful congratulation that put a deeper glow into his eyes and gave a new beauty to his handsome features.
'It may be the Koran,' said I. 'I cannot tell. I will take your word.'
He turned to the men, and, with a passionate gesticulation, addressed them; on which they shouted out all as one man:
'Yaas! yaas! Al-Koran! Al-Koran!'—nodding and pointing and writhing and working with excess of Asiatic contortion.
'We are quite content,' said I.
Nakier withdrew to his end of the table, carrying the book with him. He stood erect, blending the grace of a reposing dancer with an air of reserved eagerness and enthusiasm.
'Lady and you, sah!' he exclaimed, while every dusky eye along the table was fixed intently upon him, 'you sabbee why we kill de Capt'n and Misser Jones? Them two bad men—them two wicked, shocking men. They would make we poor Mussulmans sin, and would send we to hell. And why? Dey not care at heart our soul for to save. We came here for work: we gib dem dis for dere money'—he elevated his clenched hands, and then gesticulated as though he pulled and hauled—'not dis, which is Allah's,' striking his breast vehemently; by which, I presume, he signified his spirit or conscience.
A rumbling murmur ran round the table. I should not have supposed the fellows understood the man; but acquiescence was strong in every tawny face, and a universal nod followed when he struck his bosom.
'We not all Malay,' he continued, 'but we are all men, lady. We hab feeling—we hab hunger; we drink and cry and laugh like you all who are white and do not believe in de Prophet. We have killed dose two shocking wicked men, and we are not sorry. No; it is justice!' he added, with a sudden piercing rise in his melodious voice, and a flush of the eye that was emphasized somewhat alarmingly by an unconscious clutch of his hand at the empty sheath strapped to his hip. But his manner instantly softened, and his voice sweetened again, though his behaviour seemed, while it lasted, to exercise an almost electrical influence over his people. They fluttered and swayed to it like ears of wheat brushed by a wind, darting looks at one another and at us. But this ceased on Nakier resuming his former air.
'Dis ship,' said he, 'is boun' to Table Bay. Some of us belong to Cape Town. Allee want to get to Afric, and dem as not belong to Cape Town ship for dere own country. But dis ship must not steer for Cape Town. When we arrive, it is asked, "Where is de Capt'n? Where is Misser Jones?" and we must not tell,' said he, smiling.
'But where do you wish to go, then?' said I, almost oppressed by the sudden simultaneous turning of the men's dark fiery eyes upon me.
'Near to Cape Town,' said he.
'But what do you call near to Cape Town?' I asked.
'Oh, dere will be a river—we find him. We anchor and go ashore and walkee, walkee,' he exclaimed.
Helga gave a little start.
'What you and your mates wants is that we should put ye ashore somewhere?' said Abraham.
'Yaas, dat's so,' called the fellow named Pallunappachelly.
'No, no!' cried Nakier, 'not somewhere, Misser Vise. Near Cape Town, I say. Not too far for we to walkee.'
'But to set ye ashore, anyhow?' exclaimed Abraham.
The man nodded.
'I suppose you know, Nakier,' said I, with a sense of dismay pressing like a weight upon my spirits, 'that this young lady and I wish to return home? The Captain refused to part with us—he insisted on carrying us with him—we have a home to return to. Surely you do not intend that we should make the passage to the Cape in this barque?'
'Who will navigate de ship?' said Nakier.
'Why, Mr. Wise will,' I exclaimed, turning upon the boatman.
'Blowed, then, if I dew!' cried Abraham, recoiling. 'What! along with these—arter what's—'soides, I don't know nothen about longitude.'
'For mercy's sake, man, don't talk like that!' cried I. 'Miss Nielsen and I must be transhipped.'
'So must Oi!' said Abraham.
'And Oi!' hoarsely shouted Jacob.
'What ees it you say?' exclaimed Nakier, smiling.
'Why, that we all of us wish to get aboard another vessel,' said I, 'and leave this barque in your hands to do whatever you like with.'
There was a sharp muttering of 'No, no!' with some fierce shaking of heads on either side the table. Nakier made a commanding gesture and uttered a few words in his own tongue.
'We must not speakee any ship, lady, and you, sah, and you, Misser Vise, and Jacob, my mate. Cannot you tell why?'
'If you're going to keep us here for fear of our peaching,' cried Abraham, 'there's me for wan as is ready to take moy oath that I'll say nothen about what's happened, purwiding you safely set us aboard another wessel.'
Nakier strained his ear, with a puzzled face. The language of Deal was happily unintelligible to him, for which I was exceedingly grateful, since nothing could be more imperilling than such talk as this.
Helga, who all this while remained silent, seated in her chair, without lifting her eyes to my face or turning her head, said softly, in little more than a whisper, so that only I, who stood at her shoulder, could catch her accents:
'You can see by their faces that they are resolved. All this has been preconcerted. Their plans are formed, and they mean to have their way. We must seem to consent. Let us agree, that they may take the oath, otherwise our lives are not worth more than the Captain's or the mate's.'
Nakier's glowing eyes were upon her, but, though the movements of her lips might have been visible, it would seem to them as though she whispered to herself. The conviction that she was absolutely right in her advice came to me with her words. I needed but to glance at the double line of determined faces to gather that argument, that even hesitation would merely result in speedily enraging the fellows; that they were not to be influenced by the most reasonable of our wishes; that our lives had been spared in order that we should convey them to a place of safety; and this, too, I saw with the help of the illumination supplied by Helga's few words—that, fully believing the girl qualified to navigate the vessel, they might, if we provoked them, destroy the three of us and retain her, counting upon their threats and her situation to achieve their ends.
I said in a hurried aside to the boatmen:
'Not a word now, from either of you! This must be left to me! If you interfere, your blood will be on your own heads!'
Then, addressing Nakier:
'Your demands are these: the barque is to be navigated to some part of the South African coast lying near to Table Bay?'
'Yaas, sah!' he answered, holding up one finger as though counting.
'The spot you wish to arrive at will have to be pointed out on the chart.'
Up went a second finger, followed by another 'Yaas, sah!'
'We are not to communicate with passing ships?'
'Right, sah!' he added, nodding and smiling, and raising a third finger.
'And then?' said I.
'Den,' said he, 'you swear to do dis and we swear by de Koran to be true, and to serve you, and be your friend.'
'And if we refuse?' said I.
'Do not say it!' he cried, sweeping his hands forward as though to repel the idea.
'There must be other conditions!' said I, talking with an air of resolution which, I fear, was but poorly simulated. 'First as to the accommodation?'
'I do not understand!' said Nakier.
'I mean, where are we to live?' I cried.
'Oh, here! oh, here!' he shouted, motioning round the cuddy; 'dis is your room. No man of us come here.'
'And here I stop, tew,' said Abraham. 'No more of your forecastle for me, mates!'
'Nor for me!' rumbled Jacob.
'Do not say so!' exclaimed Helga, turning hastily to address them. 'Be advised. Do not interfere. Let Mr. Tregarthen have his way.'
'And I suppose,' I continued, running my eyes over the rows of faces till they settled on Nakier, 'that we shall be waited upon as usual, and that we shall be as well cared for as when Captain Bunting was alive?'
'Yaas, sah! yaas, sah!' said Nakier demonstratively, and Punmeamootty shouted:
'Me wait allee same upon you and de sweet lady. Me sabbee what you like. Me get dem room ready,' pointing to the mate's and the Captain's cabins.
I shook my head with a shudder, then said softly to Helga, whose gaze was bent on the table:
'Can you suggest anything further for me to say to them?'
'Nothing. Get them to take their oath.'
'Nakier,' I exclaimed, 'we consent to your proposals. Among us we will navigate this ship for you. But first you and your mates will swear by that Koran in which you believe—I suppose it is the Koran——'
'Oh, yaas, yaas!' he cried, and there was a general chorus of 'yaases.'
'You must swear by that sacred book of yours not to harm us; to be our friends; to serve us and do our bidding as though we were the officers of this ship. Explain this to your men, and let them take the oath in their and your country's fashion, and we shall be satisfied.'
On this he addressed them. I hear now his melodious voice and witness his animated handsome face as he poured forth his rich unintelligible syllables. It was difficult to look at the fellow and not believe that he was some prince of his own nation. There was nothing in his scarecrow clothes to impair the dignity of his mien and the grace of his motions. I could conceive of him as a species of man-serpent capable of fascinating and paralyzing with his marvellous eyes, holding his victim motionless till he should choose to strike. His influence over the others was manifestly supreme, and I had no doubt whatever that the tragedy which had been enacted was his, and wholly his, by the claim of creation and command. While he talked I would here and there mark a dingy face with a look of expostulation in it. The lamp swinging fairly over the table yielded light enough to reveal expressions. When he had ceased there was a little hubbub of voices, a running growl so to speak of discontent. One cried out to him, and then another, and then a third, but in notes of expostulation rather than temper.
Helga, without turning her head, said to me:
'I expect they wish us to swear too. Your bare assurance does not satisfy them.'
The guess seemed a shrewd one, and highly probable, but the men's talk was sheer Hebrew to the four of us. Nakier listened, darting looks from side to side, then suddenly lifted both his hands in the most dramatic posture of denunciation that could be imagined, and hissed some word to them, whereupon every man fell as silent as though he had been shot. He picked up the volume and extended it to the fellow next him.
'Takee, takee,' he cried, speaking that we might understand. 'Lady, and you, sah, Misser Vise and Jacob my mate, this is the Mussulman oath we men now take. I speak not well your language, but dis is my speech in English of what you shall hear.' Then, composing his countenance and turning up his eyes till nothing gleamed but the whites of them in his dark visage, he exclaimed in a profoundly devotional tone and in accents as melodious as singing:
'In de name of Allah de most merciful, and de good Lord of all things, if break dis oath do I, den, O Allah, may I go to hell!'
He paused, then turned to the man who held the volume, who forthwith held the book at arm's length above his head and pronounced in his native tongue what we might suppose the oath that Nakier had essayed to make English of. This done, the book was handed to the next man, and so it went round, all in dead silence, broken only by the strange, wildly solemn accents of the oath-taker, and I noticed that the glittering eyes of Nakier rested upon every man as he swore, as though he constrained him to take the vow by his gaze.
Abraham and his mate looked on with open mouths, breathing deeply. The book came to Nakier. He was about to lift it, paused, and spoke to the fierce-looking fellow that was called Ong-Kew-Ho, who immediately glided out of the cabin—none of these men seemed to walk: the motion of their legs resembled that of skaters. I was wondering what was to happen next, when the fellow who had been stationed at the wheel arrived. Nakier addressed him. Immediately he extended his arms and levelled his forefingers at us as the others had; then elevated the book and recited the oath.
'All this looks very honest,' I whispered to Helga.
Then Nakier took the oath, handed the volume to a man, and said something. Instantly every man's arms were pointed at us, with the index fingers touching, and a minute later all the men, saving Nakier, had quitted the cabin.
'You see, lady, it is allee right,' said he, smiling.
'Yes, we are satisfied,' she exclaimed, rising from her chair; but her eye caught the stain on the deck; an expression of horror worked in her face like a spasm, and she brought her hand to her breast with a half-stifled exclamation.
'When day come,' said Nakier, addressing Helga, 'we look at de chart and find out de place for you to steer we to.'
His bearing was still full of Eastern grace and courtesy. No expression entered his face to deform its beauty; yet somehow I seemed sensible of a subtle spirit or quality of command in the fellow, as though he was now disguising his sense of power and possession with difficulty. It was clear that he looked to Helga mainly, if not wholly, for what was to be done for them.
'You shall point out the spot you have in your mind,' said she.
'You sabbee navigation, sweet lady?'
'Among us,' she answered, with a motion of her hand that comprehended the two boatmen and myself, 'we shall be able to do all you require.'
He made a sort of salaam to her, and said, looking at Abraham: 'Who keep de watch?'
'Whose watch on deck is it?' I asked.
'The starboard's—moine,' answered Abraham, with an uneasy shuffling of his feet.
'Allee right, Mr. Vise; allee right! It is veree fine night. I go now to sleep,' said Nakier; and he went in his sliding, spirit-like fashion to the cuddy-door, and vanished in the blackness on the quarter-deck.
The four of us stood grouped at the head of that little table, staring at one another. Now that the coloured crew were gone, a sense of the unreality of what had happened possessed me. It was like starting from a nightmare, with the reason in one slowly dominating the horror raised by the hideous phantasmagoria of sleep.
'We must not seem to be standing here as though we were planning and plotting,' exclaimed Helga. 'Dark figures out in that shadow there are watching us.'
'That's right enough, miss,' said Abraham; 'but what's to be done?'
'Here stands a man,' cried Jacob hotly, striking his breast, 'as dorn't mean for to be carried to the Cape in a bloomin' wessel full o' bloody savages; and that's speaking straight!'
'Hush!' cried I. 'Soften those leather lungs of yours, will you?'
'Ain't there no firearms knocking about?' said Abraham.
'I hope not,' said Helga; 'we shall be able to manage without firearms!'
'What is in your mind?'
'An idea not yet formed,' she answered. 'Give me time to think. I believe that not only are our lives to be saved, but the vessel too!'
'Ha!' cried Abraham, with a thirsty look. 'It needs a sailor's lass to get such a fancy as that into her head! I'm a Cockney if I don't seem to see a salwage job here!'
But Jacob was staring at us gloomily.
'What I says is this,' he exclaimed, addressing us with his fists clenched: 'Here be three Englishmen and a gal with the heart of two men in her'—'Softly,' I interposed—'with the heart of two men in her,' he continued, with a shake of his fist; 'and what's forward? He-leven wisps of coloured yarn! He-leven heffigies with backbones separately to be broke like this!' He crooked his knee, and made as if he were breaking a stick across it. 'Are we,' he cried, with the blood mounting to his face and an expression of wrath sparkling in his eyes, 'are we fower—three men and a young lady—to quietly sit down and wait to be murdered? or are we to handle 'em as if they was a pack of apes, to be swept below and smothered under hatches as a breeze o' wind 'ud blow a coil of smoke along?'
'Lower your voice, man!' I whispered. 'What do you want?—to court the death that you bolted aloft to escape?'
'What's to prevent us,' he continued, muffling his tone, though the fierceness of his temper hissed in every breath he expelled—'what's to prevent us a-doing this? More than the watch are below; three or fower may be on deck. Ain't the scuttle forrards to be clapped down over the forecastle, where they lie safe as if they was at the bottom of a well a hundred foot deep? Ain't that to be done? And if the three or fower that's knocking about on deck aren't to be handled by us three men—good-noight!'
He rounded his back upon us in sheer contempt of passion.
'We may do better than that,' said Helga.
'You're for supposing that they ain't going to keep a bright look-out, mate,' said Abraham. 'See here! What good's to be done, these here hands you'll find equal to,' smiting first his left, then his right knuckles; 'but s'elp me Moses I'm not here to be killed. Them chaps are born knife-stickers. Touch one, and you're groaning at your length on deck, with a mortal wound in your witals. And if what we do ain't complete—if so be they're wan too many for us—and it's eleven to three, remember that, mate—what's to happen? Ask yourself the question! For the lady's sake, I'm for caution.'
'We must not remain debating here,' said I. 'They believe us sincere. There are eyes watching us, as Miss Nielsen says. This holding a council is not going to reassure them. If you object to keeping a look-out, Abraham, I'll take charge.'
'I will keep you company,' said Helga.
'No, no!' cried Abraham. 'It's moy watch, and Oi'll keep it.'
He went clumsily, and with a bewildered manner, to the companion-steps.
'I'll remain along wi' ye, Abey,' said Jacob. 'Arter what I saw, as I stood at the wheel—the poor chap's cry—the way they chucked him overboard——' He buried his eyes in his coat-sleeve. 'The cussed murderers!' he exclaimed, lifting his face, and looking savagely around.
'Come!' cried Abraham, 'if ye mean to come! What's your temper agoing to do for us?'
'I'll relieve you at four o'clock,' said I, looking at the timepiece, the hands of which stood at a quarter before two.
The men went on deck, and turning down the lamp—for the revelation of the light served as a violent irritant to the nerves on top of the fancy of the secret, fiery-eyed observation of us without—I seated myself beside Helga on a locker to whisper and to think.
The girl and I had passed through some evil, dark, and dangerous hours since we first came together in that furious Saturday night's gale; but never was the worst of them all comparable to this middle-watch through which we sat, for hard upon two hours of it, in gloom, in the ocean silence that lay upon the barque, imagining the movement of dark shapes in the blackness that came like a wall to the cabin-door, and the gleam of swiftly receding eyes peering at us through the cabin skylight. Regularly through the stillness sounded the combined tread of Abraham and his mate, over our heads, with sometimes a halt that almost startled the ear, while we could clearly catch the grumbling growling of their conversation as they passed the skylight on their way to and fro.
Yet, strangely enough—I am speaking for myself—the horror of the double assassination did not lie upon my spirit with the deadening weight I should have imagined as the effect of so shocking, sudden, and bloody a tragedy. That which might have been acute horror was subdued into little more than a dull and sickening consternation by perception of our own peril. Yet I would look at those berths lying on either side the cuddy front, as though from either one or the other of them the figure of the Captain or his mate must stalk! The stain upon the cabin-deck lay black as ink against the Captain's door. To think that that was all of him his barque now contained!
We sat whispering about the unhappy creature and his wretched subordinate; then our talk went to other matters. I told Helga we need not question that the intention of the crew was to cast the vessel away upon some part of the South African coast, near enough to Cape Town to enable them to trudge the distance, but too remote from civilization for the movements of the barque to be witnessed. That was their resolution, I said: I would swear to it as though it had been revealed to me. That they would never suffer us three men to land alive we might be as sure as that they had slaughtered Bunting and his mate.
'Their oath counts for nothing, you think?' said she.
I answered, 'Nothing: they would value their lives above their oath. Not likely they would suffer us to testify to their crime.' Under the serpent-fair exterior of Nakier lay as passionless a capacity of murder as ever formed the mechanical instinct of any deadly beast or reptile.
'His eye,' I said, 'will never be off us.' Even as we whispered, his gaze, or that of another subtle as himself, might be upon us. He was the one to fear; and this carried me into asking, 'What is to be done?'
Yet, before the hands of the clock were upon the hour of four, we knew what was to be done. It was wholly Helga's scheme. Her brain had planned it all; but it was not until she spoke and delivered her plot bit by bit that I understood the reason of her silence while I had been feverishly whispering my fears, talking of the Captain, of Nakier, of the treachery of the Malay and Cingalese miscreants, and asking, as one might think aloud, 'What is to be done?'
We went on deck at four; it was the darkest hour of the night, but very quiet. I bade Abraham and the other man go forward and turn in, as had heretofore been their custom.
'Not a word!' I cried, in swift response to the first of Jacob's remonstrance. 'I cannot speak here. There are thirsty ears at the wheel. We have planned that long before this time to-morrow the barque shall be our own, with nothing more for you to do than to calculate the value of the salvage. I'll find an early chance to explain—but not here! not now! Forward with you both; for our lives depend upon the fellows believing that we have confidence in them.'
This I spoke as rapidly as intelligibility would permit, and, with Helga, drew away from them, moving towards the wheel. They hung as though staring and deliberating a few moments, then, without a word, went forward.
I spoke pleasantly to the fellow at the helm—what man it was I could not see—said that the vessel's course was the right navigation for the South African coast, and so forth. He answered me throatily, with a note of satisfaction in his thick speech, and then Helga and I fell to quietly pacing the deck.
We took great care to speak low; so nimble and ghostly were the movements of this coloured crew, that it was impossible to tell where a man might be lying listening and hidden. Twice I beheld the flitting of a shadow in the obscurity round about the mainmast, and all the while I walked I was again and again casting a look behind me.
It seemed an eternity ere the cold gray of the dawn hovered in the east. The first sight the bleak and desolate light revealed was a patch of dark crimson abreast of the companion, close against the rail, marking the spot where the unhappy mate had been stabbed. The barque stole glimmering out to the daylight, lifting her ashen canvas with a gloom about the deck where the forecastle ended, as though the blackness of the night had been something tangible, and the lingering shadows betwixt the rails fragments and tatters of it. I swept the sea-line. The ocean was a gray desert floating in thin lines of swell which made it resemble a vast carpet stirred by a draught of wind. But the small breeze of the previous evening was still with us, and the broad bows of the vessel broke the water into wrinkles fine-drawn as piano-wire, as she swam forwards, slowly rolling.
Three of the crew sat squatting like Lascars against the long-boat. I called, and they instantly sprang to their feet and came aft.
'Get scrapers,' said I, 'and work that stain out of the deck as fast as you can move your arms.'
They sprang forwards, returned with the necessary tools, and in a minute were on their knees scraping violently. With a dreadful feeling of sickness of heart I rejoined Helga at the other end of the deck.
The sun rose: the morning was to be a bright one; the heavens went, in a clear tropic blue, into the south and west, and in the north-east the clouds, like a scattering of frosted silver, hung high and motionless—mere pearly feathers or vapour, to be presently absorbed. Helga went below, to her cabin under the deck. When I asked her if she did not feel timid at the idea of penetrating those gloomy depths alone, she smiled, and, merely saying, 'You have called me brave, but you do not believe me so!' she left me.
It was shortly after seven o'clock that I spied Nakier standing in the galley-door, talking to someone within. I called to him: he immediately knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and slipping the inch of sooty clay into his breast, approached me. His salute was full of respect, and he surveyed me with eyes so gentle and so cordial, that one looked to see the engaging tenderness of his heart overflowing his face in smiles. So much for appearances! The most poisonous-fanged rogue of them all in that barque, full of coloured wretches made miscreants and murderers of by Captain Joppa Bunting's theories of conversion, might have passed to every eye as one of the very few sweet-souled men in this great world of wrong-headed humanity!
'Send Abraham to me,' said I, in the civilest manner I could command. 'It is his watch below, but I desire his presence and help while I overhaul the Captain's cabin for charts, for instruments of navigation, and so forth.'
He sought to veil, by drooping his lids, the keen glance he shot at me.
'Yaas, I send Misser Vise to you, sah,' said he; 'but first I would like to speakee about dat place we sail to. We have agree, and we ask you,' he continued with a smile that put an expression of coaxing into his handsome face, 'to agree allee same with us to sail for Mossel Bay. It is a very good bay, and it have a nice little town.'
'Yes,' said I; 'and when we get there, what do you mean to do with the ship?'
'Oh, we allee go ashore,' he answered.
He then asked me if I knew where Mossel Bay was. I answered that I had never heard of the place, but that if it was down on the charts we should undoubtedly be able to carry the barque to it. I then again requested him to send Abraham aft, that he and I and the young lady might examine the contents of the Captain's cabin, ascertain the situation of the ship when observations were last taken, and confer as to the course to be steered. I thought he hesitated for an instant, but, with true Malay swiftness of resolution that scarcely gave me time to note the hang of the mind in him, he exclaimed: 'I will send Misser Vise, sah,' and went forward.
In a few minutes Abraham arrived. He was speedily followed by Jacob, who hung about in the waist, looking wistfully aft. He, however, was to be talked to afterwards, for the policy of the three of us was to keep as separate as possible, coming together only under such excuse as I had now invented. The men who formed the watch on deck were 'loafing about,' to use the expressive vulgarism, one lounging against the bulwark-rail with another talking to him; here a fellow squatting like a Hindoo blowing a cloud, there a couple patrolling ten feet of deck, their arms folded upon their breasts. There was no gesticulation, no excitement, nothing of the swift fierce whispered conversation significant with the flashing of the askant glance that had been noticeable down to the dusk of the previous evening. Nakier paced the weather-side of the forecastle. I never once caught him looking our way, yet I could feel that the fellow had us in his eye as fully as though his stare was a level one.
'Abraham,' said I, 'I have sent for you under the pretence of helping me to overhaul the dead skipper's stock of nautical appliances. My real motive is to create an opportunity to acquaint you with the plot Miss Nielsen and I settled between us while we were in the cuddy. Don't look knowing, man! Put on as honest and stupid a Deal beach air as you can manufacture.'
I called to Nakier.
'The barque will want watching. Step aft and keep a look-out while we are below, will you?' and, followed by Abraham, I entered the cuddy.