"Heart no bad! Head bad!" said Tari sadly.
"Mebbe, son, mebbe. But he ain't sedentary enough to go skallyhootin' 'round onfettered; he's a heap too vivid an' high-sperited, an' is liable to crease one of us mavericks."
"Better put him in the forepeak and clap the hatch on over him," proposed Jack.
"He's cert'nly too apparent on the scenery where he is," declared the cowboy.
Jack's idea was finally acted on. Lobu and his ebony idol were relegated to the forepeak, and once more serenity prevailed.
With sunset the wind died down considerably, and the long swell caused the Ocmulgee to roll heavily.
Night descended. The sky became one sparkling mantle of stars, and the sea, in heavy black ridges, lumbered in from the westward, slow and dignified, the last relics of the Roaring Forties.
At each lurch of the vessel her canvas thumped against the masts and rigging, giving forth a sound like the cracking of an Australian stockwhip.
The dark form of the cowboy at the wheel swayed slowly backwards and forwards across the glittering moonlight as the vessel rolled.
The flare of the galley fire peeped forth forward in shafts of yellow light. The silent decks were striped with cold moonbeams and inky shadows, weird and eerie-looking, the great whale-jaws at the companion giving a grotesque appearance to the after part of the barque.