"Malay bad man—you no trust him," remarked Aguinili. "No let them know captain not well?"
"Never fear!" I answered; "I have sailed with their kind before. But call me when you want me, for I cannot navigate by the stars as you do, so I must hunt up a chart and get out my own instruments."
At that moment Ah Sing came aft and informed me that the captain desired my presence, so, making my way to his stuffy cabin, I soon stood beside him. He was lying in his bunk reading, but as I entered he cast aside the book and said, "I say, mate, ye needn't give me away more than ye can help."
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, so long as I lie on my back; but this darned motion doesn't agree with me in any other position."
"Do you mean to say——?"
"That I is no sailor? You struck the bull first shot. I ain't. I is a gold-miner, and got stranded in Broome after making a pile on the Marble Bar fields, an' losing it down in Roebourne. Lord knows how I got here, but old Wilcox got me this billet with Hobart, 'cause I could swear at the nigs better than any man he knowed. I know nothing about navigation except what a bushman knows, and here I is at sea entirely."
"But have you never had any accidents?"
"Oh, there have been some narrow squeaks, but that chap Aguinili is a smart fellow; he manages somehow, and I swears at—— Lor'! but I is bad. Oh!—--"