HELGA'S PLOT.
Before summoning Helga, I resolved to take a peep at the berths, lest there should be some sight in one or the other of them too shocking for her to behold. I was made to think of this by the great bloodstain on the deck close against the cabin-door. Its true complexion showed in the daylight. Abraham again backed away on seeing it; but time was precious. This was an opportunity to make the most of, and pushing open the door, I peered in. It was as I might have conjectured. The Captain had been assassinated by twenty strokes of the fellows' knives as he lay in his bunk asleep. Not one, not half a dozen stabs could have made such a horror of the bedclothes and the square of carpet on the deck as we gazed at. It was not an interior fit for Helga to enter.
I looked into the mate's berth, and found it as the man had left it—the blanket lying as it had been tossed when he arose. There was nothing frightful here; but our business lay in the Captain's cabin, and, full of loathing, I re-entered the horrible room and shut the door.
'A piteous sight! a piteous sight, sir!' exclaimed Abraham, looking about him in a stupefied way, and biting upon his under-lip to moisten it.
'Now attend!' said I. 'Collect your wits, for our stratagem signifies life or death to us.'
It took me but a few minutes to communicate Helga's plan. He grasped the thing with sailorly promptitude, nodding eagerly, with the blood returning to his cheeks to my hurried whispering; and when I had made an end and drew back to mark his judgment in his face, he struck his thigh a mighty blow, but said in a voice cold with resolution, despite his countenance being all awork with agitation:
'It will do, sir. It can't fail. It is only the getting 'em together; but it's to be done with a little patience.'
'Now,' said I, 'let us see what is here. Will the poor fellow have had a revolver?'
But we searched in vain for such a weapon. With hasty, desperate hands, never knowing but that at the next moment Nakier might enter, or some probing yellow face stare in upon us through the little window that overlooked the quarter-deck, we ransacked the lockers, explored a large black sea-chest, examined the shelves—to no purpose.
'He was too good a Christian man,' said Abraham hoarsely, 'to own a pistol. Had he been a Nova Scotiaman there'd be veapons enough here to rig out a regiment of the line vith.'
'It cannot be helped,' said I, keenly disappointed nevertheless, for I had counted upon finding a revolver, scarcely doubting that a man in charge of such a ship's company as these coloured fellows formed would go to sea well armed.
With all haste possible we transferred to the mate's cabin a bag of charts, a couple of sextants, a chronometer, and other matters of a like sort, and then with sickened hearts closed the door upon that tragic interior of the Captain's berth. I looked through the contents of the bag, and found a large blue-backed chart of South Africa, with marginal illustrations of the principal ports, harbours and headlands.
'This will do,' said I, and rolling it up, I put it under my arm, and, accompanied by Abraham, stepped through the cuddy door.
My eye once more as I passed fell upon the dreadful stain ingrained in the plank of the deck, and observing Punmeamootty speaking with another man a little forward of the mainmast, I was about to call and order him to scrape out the odious shocking blotch. But at the same instant it crossed my mind to let it be: it was a detail to fit into our stratagem, and I whispered the fancy to Abraham as we quitted the cuddy. I believed that all this while Helga was below in her cabin, and I was leaning over the little hatch that led to our quarters to call to her, when she pronounced my name from the deck overhead, and on looking up I saw her standing at the brass rail with Nakier.
'Shall Oi go forward an' get my breakfast or keep along with you, Mr. Tregarthen?' said Abraham.
'Keep with me for a little time,' I answered, and he followed me on to the poop.
Nakier's fine eyes glowed, and his face was lighted up with an expression of admiration and pleasure. It was manifest at the first glance that Helga had not spared her simple pretty arts in conversing with him.
Her first words to me were:
'Nakier has been talking to me about his native country. Oh, what a happy land of flowers and birds and a thousand other delights must it be!' She clasped her hands as though in rapture, and added: 'I shall hope some of these days to visit that shining country.'
'This is all very clever and happily devised, and well done,' thought I, stealing a peep at Nakier, who was steadfastly regarding with undissembled admiration the girl's sweet fresh face, that was faintly flushed by her enactment; 'but if we three men should be made away with——' I choked off the hurry of ugly fancies that swarmed on top of the thought of that dark princely-mannered villain falling in love with her, and exclaimed:
'Yes, the country of the Malays is a paradise, I believe! Here, Nakier, is a chart of South Africa.'
We went to the skylight to spread it.
'Now,' said I, 'where is this Mossel Bay that you were speaking about?'
I pored upon the chart in a posture of eager interest. He immediately pointed to the place with a forefinger as delicately shaped as a woman's.
'Ha!' said I. 'Yes; that is to the eastward of Agulhas. See,' I continued, pointing to one of those marginal illustrations I have referred to, 'here is a picture of the bay. It is a long walk to Cape Town!' I continued, looking round at Nakier.
'Oh no; plenty coach, plenty horse, plenty ox,' he responded, showing his teeth and speaking without the least hesitation—a quality of assurance that made me hopeful, for it was everything indeed that he should believe us credulous enough to suppose that Mossel Bay was the destination he had in his mind.
'Here is the picture, Helga!' said I. 'D'ye see it, Abraham? A fine open roadstead, not to be easily missed by you and Miss Nielsen. There are a couple of excellent sextants and a good chronometer below, and all necessary instruments for a safe navigation.'
'Oy, a first-class bay, and no mistake!' exclaimed Abraham.
Bending his squint upon the chart in a musing way, he scored along the line of coast with his square-cut thumb, as though calculating courses and distances. Miserable as I felt, I could have burst into a laugh at the face he put on.
'Oi've long had a notion,' said he, still squinting at the chart, 'of wisiting these 'ere foreign parts. Oi've heered tell of Cape Town as a proper city, plenty o' grapes a-knocking about and sherry vines and the likes of them drinks to be had for the asting, everything A1 and up to the knocker. But see here, Nakier,' said he, in a wonderfully familiar and friendly, shipmate-like sort of way. 'Oi'm a pore man, and so is my mate Jacob. Tell ye what Oi'm a-thinking of: ain't there no chance of our taking up a few pound for this here run?'
His apparent earnestness must have deceived a subtler eye than ever Nakier could have brought to bear on him. I uttered a word or two, as though I would remonstrate.
'You and me, Misser Vise, will speak on dat by-um-bye. We allee want money, and we get it,' responded Nakier, nodding significantly.
I partly turned away, as though there was nothing in this conversation to interest me.
'Ye don't know what hovelling is, Nakier, Oi suppose,' said Abraham. 'This here wessel is what we should call a blooming good job down our way——'
I interrupted him, fearful lest he should overdo his part: 'You might go forward and get some breakfast now, Abraham. You can relieve me here when you have finished the meal. Is there anything more you wish to know that this chart can tell us about, Nakier?'
'No, sah. Now you sabbee where Mossel Bay is, it is allee right.'
Abraham was descending the poop ladder. Under pretence of giving him the chart to replace in the mate's berth, I whispered, 'Mind you tell Jacob everything,' and then walked aft with Helga, leaving Nakier to go forward.
Throughout that morning the weather continued wonderfully brilliant and quiet. The heavens were a sweep of blue from line to line, and the sun as hot as we might have thought to find it ten degrees farther south. But shortly after ten o'clock the weak wind, that had been barely giving the Light of the World steerage way, entirely failed; the atmosphere grew stagnant with the dry, parched hollowness that one sometimes notices before a storm, as though Nature sucked in her cheeks before expelling her breath through her feverish lips. I put my head into the skylight to look at the barometer, not knowing but that there might be dirty weather at the heels of this passing spell of sultry silence; but the mercury stood high, and the lens-like sharpness of the line of the horizon along with the high fine-weather blue was as ample a confirmation of its promise as one could hope to find. By eleven o'clock the calm was broken by a delicate rippling of wind out of the north-east—the first fanning of the north-east trade-wind I took it to be. The yards were trimmed to the change by Abraham, who followed on with some orders about the foretopmast-studdingsail. I was on deck at the time, and hearing this, rose hastily and thrust past him, saying betwixt my teeth, so vexed was I by his want of foresight:
'Keep all fast with your studdingsail gear, you fool! Are we three Englishmen a line-of-battle ship's company? Think before you bawl out!'
He saw his blunder, and, after a leisurely well-acted view of the sea, as though the weather had raised a debate in his mind, he called out to the three or four fellows who were clambering aloft to rig the boom out on the foreyard:
'Never mind about that there stun'-sail! Ye can lay down, moy lads!' and he bawled to me (who had returned aft), by way, no doubt, of excusing himself to Nakier, who was on the forecastle, and who appeared to be keeping a keen look-out upon the ship on his own account, 'There's no use, Oi think, Mr. Tregarthen, aworriting about stun'-sails ontil this here breeze hardens. It'll only be keeping the men agoing for no good.'
'Unless we are speedy,' I whispered to Helga, as we stood within earshot of the helmsman, 'that man Abraham will ruin us. Think of the fellow piling canvas at such a time! What a curse is consequentiality when out of season! Here is a poor, miserable Deal boatman with the privilege of ordering a few black men about, and he doesn't know how to make enough of his rights.'
From time to time I would gaze mechanically round the sea in search of a ship, but with no notion of finding encouragement in the gleam of a sail or in the shadowing of a steamer's smoke. My hope lay in a very different direction. But custom is strangely strong on shipboard, and I continued to look, though I was without the wish to see.
Shortly before noon I fetched the two sextants, one of which I gave to Abraham and the other to Helga. The boatman seemed hardly to know what to do with the instrument; it was a new, very handsome sextant, sparkling with brass and details of telescope, coloured glass, and the like, and bore as little resemblance to the aged, time-eaten quadrant that had gone down with the Early Morn as to the cross-staff of the ancient mariner. I marked him putting it to his eye, and then fumbling with it, and, noticing several fellows forward, Nakier among them, attentively watching us, I called to him softly:
'Keep it at your eye, man! Let them believe that you thoroughly understand it!'
'Roight ye are,' he answered, putting the instrument to his face; 'but who the blazes is agoing to bring the sun into the middle o' such a muddle o' hornamentation as this here?'
The attention of the men, however, was in reality fixed upon Helga. She stood at the rail within full view of them, and there was, indeed, novelty enough in the sight to account for their staring, apart from the hope they had of her as the one that was to navigate their ship to the coast on which, as I took it, they meant to wreck her. Her well-fitting dress of dark serge showed no signs of wear as yet. No posture that she might have artfully adopted could so happily express the charms of her figure as this, when she turned her face sunwards, with the shining sextant raised to her eye. The delicate pale gold of her short hair was the right sort of tint to fascinate the dusky gaze that was fastened upon her. In her conversations with me she had made little or nothing of her knowledge of navigation, but it was easy to see in an instant's glance that she was a practised hand in the art of coaxing the sun's limb to the sip of the sea-line.
I spied Nakier forward watching her with an air of breathless interest. He and the rest of them might have doubted her capacity, knowing of it only from such off-hand talk as Punmeamootty had been able to collect and repeat from the cabin table. But now she was justifying their expectations, and by this time the whole of the crew—ten of them, with Jacob in the waist and a Malay at the wheel—were staring as one man; the cook from the door of his galley, Nakier on the forecastle swinging off from a rope, the rest of them in groups here and there.
'It is eight bells,' cried Helga in her clear voice, accentuated, as it always was, with a faint harshness of Scandinavian articulation.
'Height bells!' roared Abraham, though it might have been midnight to him, so far as the indications of his sextant went.
'Eight bell!' piped the melodious voice of Nakier, like a belated echo of Helga's cry; and the chimes floated along the quiet decks.
I told Abraham to go below to the mate's cabin, and bring materials of ink, paper, log-book, and so forth, to enable Helga to work out the sights; also the chronometer and the Nautical Almanack. This was a part of our plot; otherwise, as you may suppose, the chronometer was not a thing to be carried here and there, least of all by such hands as Abraham's. The men were now passing in and out of the galley, conveying their dinner of smoking beef and ship's 'duff' into the forecastle. They talked eagerly, and with a gratulatory tone. That Helga had been able to find out what o'clock it was by the sextant, was the fullest warranty of her sufficiency as a navigator the poor wretches' ignorant souls could have demanded.
Nakier remained on the forecastle, watching us. I summoned him with the motion of my forefinger, and he came rapidly gliding to the poop.
'I wish you to remain here,' said I, 'while Miss Nielsen calculates the barque's position, that you may be able to tell the rest of the men they are in friendly hands, and that we look for the same friendly behaviour from you all.'
He answered with a motion of his hand, that was as expressive as a Frenchman's gesture.
'It would have been more convenient for the lady,' I continued, 'to have made her calculations in the Captain's cabin, but——' I looked him full in the face. He did not seem to understand. 'That berth is not fit for her to enter.'
'Ha!' he exclaimed, 'dat shall be put right. I have forgot.'
'By-and-bye. No hurry now. Tell Punmeamootty to bring us our dinner here. Miss Nielsen does not care to use the cuddy. She is a young lady—impressionable—you understand me, Nakier? When all is made straight the feeling will pass with her. But for the present——'
I broke off as Abraham arrived, bringing with him the articles I had despatched him to procure.
'Whose trick at the wheel is it?' I asked the boatman carelessly. 'It is noon, and that man yonder has been at the helm since ten.'
'It'll be Jacob's, sir. Oi allow he's waiting to finish his dinner.'
'No, no,' said I, 'that's not true ship's discipline. Fair must be fair aboard us,' and with some demonstration of warmth in my manner, I went to the poop rail and bawled for Jacob to come aft. The man promptly made his appearance, and the moment he had gripped the spokes of the wheel the ginger-coloured fellow who had been steering fled along the decks for his dinner, fleet as a hare with hunger. Abraham, with pencil and paper in hand, leaned upon the companion-cover while he pretended to be lost in calculating. Nakier and I stood looking on at Helga, who was seated on one side the skylight, the lid of which, being closed and lying flat, provided her with a table on which stood the chronometer, the volumes, the charts, and the other appliances she needed. She knew exactly what to do, and worked out her problems with a busy face and the blue of her eyes sweetened into violet by the shadow of her lashes. Deeply worried, miserably anxious as I was, on the eve of a project the failure of which was bound to signify an inhuman butchery of the three of us by the dark-skinned creatures we designed to betray, I could still find heart for admiration of the wonderful heroism of this girl. She was actively to share in our enterprise, and if failure followed, her doom might be even more fearful than ours; yet had her face been of marble carved into an incomparable counterfeit of a girl's countenance intent on a bit of arithmetic and nothing more, its passionlessness, its marvellous freedom from all expression of agitation, could not have been completer.
When she had completed her reckoning, she opened the chart which bore Captain Bunting's 'prickings,' as it is termed, and with rules and pencil continued the line to the situation of the ship at noon.
'That is where we are at this moment,' she exclaimed, pointing to the chart.
Nakier, with looks of astonishment and delight, peered.
'What d'ye make it, miss?' called Abraham.
She gave him the latitude—what it was has wholly escaped me.
'Roight,' he shouted, tearing up his bit of paper.
'Take these things below, Abraham,' said I, 'and then get your dinner. When you have done, come aft and take charge of the barque for half an hour. Miss Nielsen wishes to go to her cabin, and I am no sailor to be left alone with this craft.'
'Send Punmeamootty here with something for us to eat, if you please, Nakier.'
He made a soft salaaming bow, and quitted us with shining eyes and a highly pleased face. Presently the steward approached us with some cold salt beef, biscuit, and a bottle of wine. He spread a cloth upon the skylight, and then brought a couple of chairs from the cabin. While he was doing this I slipped into the mate's berth and took a tract-chart of the world from the bag and returned with it. I opened and pretended to examine it with anxious attention, speaking in an aside to Helga in a grumbling, doubting voice, and with a shake of my head, while Punmeamootty stood by waiting to learn if we had further orders. I told him we should require nothing more, and then, rolling up the chart, feigned to attack the repast before us. But as to eating!—not for ten times the value of this Light of the World and her cargo could I have swallowed a morsel. Helga munched a biscuit and drank a little wine, eyeing me collectedly, with often a smile when my glance went to her.
'What a heart beats in you!' I cried gently, for it was impossible to know but that some wriggling, nimble-heeled coloured skin had slipped into the cabin, and was hanging motionless close under us, with his ear at the skylight. 'But it is not too late even yet to reconsider. I can do without you.'
'Not so well as with me.'
'But if we fail——'
'We shan't fail.'
'If we fail,' I continued, 'they may spare you as not apparently in the plot, and they will spare you the more readily, and use you well too, since they must be helpless without you to navigate them.'
'Hush!' she whispered. 'The stratagem will be the surer for my presence. And what is the danger? There can be none if we manage as we have arranged.'
'When d'ye reckon on starting on this here job, Mr. Tregarthen?' called Jacob from the wheel.
I shook my fist as a hint to him to hold his tongue. I waited a few minutes, during which I pretended to be busy with my knife and fork. The yellow-faced cook stood in the galley door smoking: there were two fellows beyond him conversing close against the forecastle hatch. The rest of the seamen were below at their dinner. I now opened the chart; Helga came round to my side, and the pair of us fell to pointing and motioning with our hands over the chart as though we were warmly discussing a difficulty. I raised my voice and shook my head, exclaiming: 'No, no! Any sailor will tell you that the prevailing gales off Agulhas are from the east'ard;' and continued in this fashion, delivering meaningless sentences, always very noisily, and with a great deal of gesticulation, while Helga acted a like part. The three fellows forward watched us steadfastly.
Just then Abraham rose out of the forecastle hatch and approached the poop in a strolling, rolling gait, carelessly filling his pipe as he came, and sending the true 'longshore leisurely look at the sea from side to side. A couple of fellows followed him out of the hatch, entered the galley for a light, as I supposed, and emerged smoking. Helga and I still feigned to be wrangling. Then Abraham joined us, and after listening a minute or two, raised his voice with a wrangling note in it also.
'Come, Helga,' I whispered; 'this fooling has lasted long enough. Now for it, and may God shield us! Abraham, stand by, my lad! Keep your eye forward!'
I had courted a few occasions of peril in my time, and knew what it was to have death close alongside of me for hour after hour; but then my blood was up, there was human life to be saved, and, outside that consideration, there was small opportunity for thought. It was otherwise now, and I own that my heart felt cold as stone as I advanced to the forecastle with Helga. I prayed that my cheeks would not betray my inward perturbation. I did not greatly fear for the girl. Though we should fail, I believed her life would be saved, horrible as the conditions of preservation might prove to her. It was otherwise with me. Let but a suspicion of my intention enter the minds of the men, and I knew that in the space of a pulse or two I must be a corpse pierced by every knife in that vessel's forecastle.
As I approached the hatch that led to the quarters of the crew, Nakier came out of it. I suppose that the fellows who had been watching us called down to him, and that he came up to gather what the discussion on the poop might be about. He looked astonished by our presence in that forepart of the ship, and there was a mingling of puzzlement and of cunning in his eyes as he ran them over us.
'I cannot satisfy myself that Mossel Bay is a safe and easy destination for this vessel.'
'It was settle, sah,' he exclaimed quickly.
'There are more accessible ports on the South African coast. What are the views of your crew?'
'Dey are all of my 'pinion, sah.'
'The matter has not been discussed in their presence. Why do you wish to carry us round Agulhas? Besides, do not you know that there are ships of war at Simon's Bay, and that there is every chance of our falling in with one of her Majesty's cruisers off that line of coast you wish us to sail round?'
By this time the few men on deck gathered about us, and were listening eagerly with their necks stretched and their eyes, like blots of ink upon ovals of yellow satin, but fire-touched, steadfast upon me.
'I do not agree with Mr. Tregarthen, Nakier,' said Helga. 'I believe there is nothing to fear from our sailing round the Cape. He speaks of the heavy seas of the Southern Ocean, and of strong easterly winds. It is not so.'
'No, no,' he cried, with a passionate motion of the head; 'no easter wind dis time ob year. All fine-wedder sailing; beautiful smooth sea, allee same as now.'
'Now, see here,' said I, with a note of imperativeness in my speech. 'I have a right to express an opinion on this matter, and my contention is, that it is ridiculous to sail round to Mossel Bay, when you may get ashore for your walk to Cape Town on this side of the stormy headland of Agulhas.'
The fellow's eyes sparkled with irritation and mischief as he looked at me.
'Abraham and his mate are both of my way of thinking,' I went on. 'The lady, on the other hand, has no objection to Mossel Bay. Here we are, then, undecided as yet. Do you follow me?' He nodded his head sideways, as much as to say, 'Go on!' 'The four of us, however, will agree to this. The chart gives you a view of South Africa. Let all hands assemble, saving those two men aft there, who are willing to abide by your decision. Let me show them this chart and explain my ideas to them. If after I have been heard, you and your men still insist upon our carrying this vessel to Mossel Bay, it shall be done.'
'Where can we lay the chart?' said Helga.
'Is there a table in your forecastle?' I asked, sending a look at the little hatch which yawned close by.
'Yaas, sah,' answered Nakier, glancing from Helga to the cuddy, as if he could not understand us.
I met his eyes with a shake of my head, as though I could read his thoughts, and, approaching him by a stride, whispered: 'Not in the cuddy. You know why. I must have her by my side if we are to fairly argue this difficulty.'
'I can easily descend,' said Helga, stepping to the forecastle hatch to look down. 'I want to see the men's quarters, Nakier. I am as much a sailor as any of you, and have slept in a hammock.'
The man's gaze glowed with the admiration I had noticed in it when she worked out the navigation problems. Had he been the subtlest-witted of his race, what could he have witnessed in this desire of the girl and me to enter the forecastle to excite his suspicion? The other poor dusky fools, standing by with tawny, orange, or primrose faces, wrinkled their repellent masks with sailor-like grins of expectation; for whatever be the colour of Jack's skin at sea, the least excitement, the least divergement from the miserable monotony of his life, is a delight to him.
'Shall I go first?' said I.
Helga uttered a clear laugh. 'I should be ashamed,' she answered, 'not to be able to enter a ship's forecastle without help;' and so saying, she put her little foot upon the first of the pieces of wood nailed against the bulkhead and serving as steps, and descended. I followed, bidding Nakier, as I entered the hatch, to order every mother's son of his crew to attend, since it was a question for all hands, and their decision was to be final.
It was a time of emotions and sensations, and memory recalls but little more. I remember that one after another, in response to Nakier's call, the men who were on deck dropped below, till the forecastle was full of dusky, grotesquely attired shapes. The daylight streamed down through the oblong yawn of hatch. The flame of a slush-lamp charged the interior with an atmosphere of greasy smoke. Some bunks went on either hand, and a few hammocks dangled from the upper deck. There was a square table fixed to the stout after-bulkhead that divided this compartment from the hold. The men seemed to be without other wearing apparel than that they stood up in. I saw no sea-chests, no bags, merely here and there a shoe, a cap, a sou'-wester, an oilskin smock dangling at a nail. The murmur of the water, broken by the stealthily sliding stem, penetrated the stillness with a subdued sound of hissing like the swift respiration of the men, who gathered about Helga and me as we stood at the table with the chart open before us. Hard by the table was a stove, the chimney of which, in a zigzag, pierced the deck, showing its head well out of the way, close against the hollow under the top-gallant forecastle, where the windlass was.
Pressing my forefinger upon the chart, the curling corners of which were held down by Nakier on the one hand and Helga on the other, I fell to explaining my views, as I chose to call them, meanwhile looking round to observe that all hands of the Malays and Cingalese were present—for the creatures had a trick of coming and going like shadows. I bade them all listen, looking into one face after another, and I can see them now, shouldering one another and eagerly bending forwards—a strange, gloomy huddle of discoloured countenances flashful with eyes, and of many expressions. Some of them barely understood English, apart from the plain sea-going terms, and these frowned down upon the chart, or at me, in their effort to understand my meaning. Upon every man's left hip was strapped the inevitable sheath-knife of the sailor, accessible in a twist of the wrist, and my breath for a little while grew laboured, while I cursed myself for not having acted upon the first motion of my mind after Nakier had laid the capful of naked blades at Helga's feet.
'See here, now!' I exclaimed, addressing the men generally: 'judge of the time and leagues we might be able to save by making for St. Helena Bay, or say Saldanha Bay, instead of Mossel Bay. Here is Simon's Town, and in this bight, as all of you know, lie several of her Majesty's ships. Figure a cruiser requiring us to bring to, and sending a boat aboard us. What then?'
The few of the fellows who understood me breathed hard and looked at Nakier. One of them, with a Dutch accent, exclaimed:
'Boss! how far it be from Saldanha Bay to Cape Town?'
Nakier said something almost fiercely to him in his native tongue. The man responded in a dialect that certainly, to my ear, did not resemble Nakier's—but this might have been owing to the swinish thickness of his utterance—and, having spoken, he thrust one of his mates aside to get nearer to the table, and, putting his grimy thumb on the part of the chart where Simon's Bay was marked, he stared at Nakier, nodding with a vehemence that seemed a sort of fury in him—immediately afterwards rounding upon the others, and gesticulating with his hand to his neck, clearly signifying a halter.
'No, no!' cried Nakier.
'How far?—how far, boss?' shouted the other, addressing me.
'I cannot tell,' said I, 'without a pair of compasses. I forgot to bring those measuring instruments with me. I will fetch them—I will be back among you in a few minutes.'
Helga, with a well-acted start and look of alarm, said: 'You must not leave me alone here! Let me fetch the box!'
'Very good,' said I.
She lightly gained the deck, but even while she was making for the hatch I was covering her retreat by noisily talking and demonstratively pointing, so that every man's attention was fixed upon me.
I held the corner of the chart, which Helga had pinned down with her fingers, while I spoke; the chart was stiff, and had not been often used, and when you let go it rolled itself up into a funnel. I perceived that my reference to the British ships of war at Simon's Bay had taken a hold upon the imagination of a few of the fellows, and while I seemed to wait for Helga I made the most of this by asking the men if they could tell me what vessels were on that station, if they knew how often and in what direction they cruised, and then I said:
'Suppose on our arrival at Mossel Bay we find an English frigate or corvette there? Men, have you thought of that? It is not because I am innocent of the blood of the Captain and the mate who were assassinated last night that I wish to be boarded by a lieutenant and a dozen English sailors from a man-of-war on our arrival, wherever it may be, or on the high seas. Can I be sure of proving my innocence if I am charged with having had a hand in this crime?' I cried, looking defiantly at Nakier, and raising my voice. 'Would you come forward and say that you and your men were guilty, and that I and the lady and the two Englishmen were innocent? You know you would not!' I thundered, heavily striking the chart a thump with my clenched fist. 'Why, then, do you want to sail past this Simon's Bay? Is not this side of the coast safer, freer from the risks of falling in with a ship of war, and nearer by many miles to Cape Town than Mossel Bay?'
'How much near?—how much near, boss?' cried the man who had already asked this question.
'Here!' said I. 'Hold down this corner of the chart, will you, while I call to Mr. Wise to bring me the box of instruments? Miss Nielsen cannot find the things. Wise put the box away, and knows where it is.'
I left the table and stood under the hatch a moment to address a word to Nakier in that wild mad spirit of defiance that will often in the timidest mock at peril in the most terrible instant of it.
'Make your men understand,' I cried, 'that if we fall in with a man-of-war, every soul of them stands to be hanged by the neck until he is dead!'
As I said these words I sprang, caught the coaming of the hatch, gained the deck with another bound, and the next instant the slide of the hatch was swept in a roar through its grooves by the powerful hands of the two Deal boatmen.