"Of course," said Willie, indifferently consigning the Hedge Lawyer to the shaft tunnel. "He is a noxious animal. But he is my lawyer, and I would not leave him here."
Madame smiled again, and thought of how the legal adviser would be shot off into desolate space at Singapore. She was willing that he should travel thus far in the yacht, and hoped, but without confidence, that his voyage would be pleasant.
"Thank you, Madame," said Willie, rising. "We will come aboard when you are ready to receive us. Have I your permission to go?" He was a quick lad, very quick to pick up English phrases.
Madame relaxed at the words, and her old friendly smile shone out. If Willie had then forgotten his ridiculous assumption of dignity and relaxed too, the pair of them might have attained to happy reconciliation in one another's arms. But Fate had spoken, and the boy moved towards his destined end. "How could we sail," whispered she, "without our Pilot Willatopy?"
He frowned. "I will sail as your guest, Madame. But Lord Topsham is not, and will not be, your pilot."
"Well, well," muttered Madame as she watched him go, "I could not have believed that my boy Willatopy would so quickly turn into an insufferable fool. So he is too proud now even to pilot the Humming Top. Soon he will be too proud to sail his own yawl. His pride will come down with a pretty hard bump upon the unkindly soil of England. That is some comfort."
She sent for Ching, and told him the latest of Lord Topsham's incarnations. "He is now much too fine a gentleman to navigate a steam yacht. His Highness will presently seek the services of a valet when his wardrobe has had an opportunity of development. He pictures himself surrounded by white slaves among whom you and I have the honour of inclusion. Captain, can you manage to take the blessed yacht back to Thursday Island without butting her aground? That confounded Peer would sneer disgustingly at us if we couldn't get through the channels without his help. He wants to bring us to our knees imploring his assistance. I would sooner that the Humming Top were wrecked in the Straits and perished with all hands."
"I think that I can do it," said Ching cautiously. "His young lordship brought us up here so fast and fearlessly that I took no soundings, but I have all the channels marked, and the bearings of every headland. It stuck in my mind that we might have to get back without a pilot, so my first officer or myself were on watch all the time in the chart-house following the course, charting the channels, and working out the bearings. We have had a lot of time on our hands here, and have filled some of it by constructing a chart of our own of the Torres Straits. I can't con the yacht with the ease and certainty of his lordship, but I can get through without bumping much on the ground. After we pass Thursday Island, it is just deep-sea work up to Sunda. I can manage, Madame, I think."
This assurance from the careful and competent Ching gave Madame Gilbert the utmost satisfaction. Now that William, Lord Topsham, though anxious to take passage in the yacht, had refused to work for his living, she would have perished rather than seek help from him. He should learn that there were others besides himself capable of navigating his own familiar seas. She blessed the cautious foresight of the complete seaman, Robert Ching, and was prepared to trust him to save the bottom of the Humming Top and the face of her owner. As for William, Lord Topsham, her resentment began to take root and grow with tropical rapidity. The boy Willatopy, whom she had loved, was in danger of being obliterated altogether. And yet until the Hedge Lawyer appeared to bring woe upon the happy Island, he had been a boy eminently lovable.