Hastily, and with increasing starts of fear that sent the blood spurting through his veins, Chris cast about in his mind as to how he could distract Claggett Chew. As a parakeet, he was chained by the tough silk cord that bound his bird's foot. He glanced down. Osterbridge Hawsey's now sleeping head lolled like a child's to one side. Chris eyed the length of the coral silk cord, and then hopped lightly from the back of the chair to Osterbridge Hawsey's shoulder. A blink of his parakeet's eyes, from under their gray lids, showed him that Claggett Chew had him fixed in a penetrating and unwavering stare. In his role as parakeet, he moved sideways up Osterbridge Hawsey's shoulder, making for the shelter that the lolling head would afford to hide him from his enemy's eyes.
As he moved step by step, the parakeet made small low, raucous noises—not loud enough to awaken Osterbridge Hawsey, but enough, he hoped, to make him seem a natural creature to the man who watched him so intently. As he neared Osterbridge Hawsey's neck, seeing the ridge of collar on which he intended to perch, Chris took heart and with a last quick effort, climbed the collar to hide behind Osterbridge Hawsey's head, under the thick cluster of curls tied with what was now a ratty black bow. He was, in this precarious shelter, about to change himself into a fly, when a scraping noise froze him with fear. Looking around Osterbridge's neck he saw that Captain Chew was making desperate efforts to get out of his berth, and had not taken his eyes from the place where he had last seen the parakeet. Chris knew in that moment with what an astute and formidable enemy he was faced. Paralyzed, he remained in his green and red parakeet feathers watching the motions of the injured pirate.
Claggett Chew might be suspicious but he was also a fevered and badly wounded man. From his insecure hiding place, terrified at every sleeping movement from Osterbridge Hawsey, and even more fearful of what Claggett Chew intended, Chris stared out as purposefully as Claggett Chew had only a few moments before.
The ashen-faced man across the room in the glare of the hanging lamp heaved and pushed at the sides of the bunk, his eyes brilliant with high fever; the sweat of illness and strain glistening over his bare head and colorless face. He ground his teeth at the sudden, almost intolerable flashes of pain that gripped him when he moved his leg. Still he persevered, grasped at a corner of the bunk and pushed himself upright.
If it was possible for his white face to become paler, some last vestige of color seemed to leave it. Claggett Chew threw up an arm to catch on something to steady himself, swayed and closed his sunken eyes. His arm caught the lamp, which, rocking, threw jet shadows as jagged as its light was harsh. Claggett Chew's prominent broken nose, and the deeply grooved lines running down from it to the thin lips under his mustache, changed the cruelty of his face into a brutal mask. To Chris, he scarcely looked human. He was a picture of all that was heartless and evil. But holding to the edge of his bunk, weakened and ill though he was, the power of his will still ruled his body.
He doesn't know when he's licked, Chris thought, and not knowing—he isn't!
Then, trying to hoist himself upright, Claggett Chew began beckoning and appealing to Osterbridge Hawsey, and Chris shook at the momentary possibility that some noise or word would awaken his sleeping hiding place.
"Osterbridge! Osterbridge!" Claggett Chew cried hoarsely. "Wake up! Hear me!—Fire take your eyes!" he muttered in his rage, "can you not rouse? Osterbridge! Osterbridge!"
But after a slight shift in position, Osterbridge Hawsey slept on. Claggett Chew, his face livid with pain, blood weaving down his chin where he had bitten his lip in an attempt to stifle his groans, managed to push himself up and totter to a chair against which he leaned weakly, calling out again: "Plague your bones! Osterbridge! You sot! Help me—you sleazy fashionable!"