"A—wé! A—wé! A—wa—wé!"
Harris, watching Vaiti's face in the light of the lantern, saw it change and harden, but she said nothing. There was another sound now—a dinghy shoving off from the beach and the rattle of carelessly handled oars.
"What's the —— fools makin' such a —— row for?" asked Gray. "They'll 'ave the Halligator on to us."
Still Vaiti said nothing, but stood like a statue on the deck, listening and looking into the darkness.
The boat rammed the Sybil in another minute with a shock that made her quiver, and then drifted aimlessly along her sides. Three brown naked figures lifted up their arms from below, and cried despairingly:
"Kapitani! Kapitani! A—wé! A—wé!"
"Get those fellows on board, too much quick, and bring him cabin," ordered Vaiti. Harris and Gray hauled them in with small ceremony, and dumped them down the companion into the cabin, where they stood in the light of the lamp, painted, feather-bedecked creatures, fierce enough in appearance, but in reality abjectly frightened and a-shiver.
"What thing you been do?" demanded Vaiti sharply. "Where you make other sailor-man? What you do Tempesi?"
One of the men was beginning his wail again. She seized him by the shoulder, pulled a pistol from among her draperies, and shook it in his face. The man, with a yell of terror, twisted himself out of her hold. Harris, who was rather frightened at her demeanour, got him away, forced a dram of spirits into his mouth, and tried to extract the terrified creature's story from him by degrees.
CHAPTER XVI