She nodded, and, recovering her bicycle, rode off down to the wharf, where a small boat awaited her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE MAP OF THE WORLD AGAIN
I
Yes, the Star of Troy had slipped into the harbour of Sandakan, and rode there at anchor in a dreamy way, as though, despite her grim and business-like appearance, it had suddenly become her destiny to drift idly at her ease forever upon an idle tropic sea. A little dry-looking smoke dribbled off her stack. There appeared no signs of life aboard.
Visitors were usually received in Captain Utterbourne’s snug little white cabin—or his “shop,” as he preferred calling it: a delightful place, walls and beamed ceiling scrupulously painted, floor dark and highly polished. There were a couple of good brass ships’ lamps, always perfectly spotless and shining. A faint aroma of metal polish merged with that thrilling, indefinable scent which belongs in greater or less degree to the cabins of all ships.
Elsa, looking very cool and wise, was mixing something in a shaker, assisted by a young Chinese boy whom Captain Utterbourne had picked up in Hong Kong, and who was supremely devoted. The girl spoke to him now and then in low tones, and he smiled at her with affectionate understanding.
Captain Utterbourne, turning a fresh cigar about with slightly mincing appreciation, was receiving accounts of the wreck of the Skipping Goone as they fell indiscriminately from the lips of Captain Bearman, Xenophon Curry, and a certain young man with a very sophisticated face and troubled eyes whom Elsa had encountered by the roadside during the afternoon. The master of the Star of Troy seemed rather to have an eye on Jerome, and there was something like amazement lurking behind the efficient poker mask.
“I never had such a run of bad luck in my life,” Captain Bearman whined, his embittered lips seeming rather to steal over and fold in the words than cleanly to emit them. “I simply go below for a wink of sleep, and before I can get back again that ass of a mate....” His manner was an odd blend of self-conscious indignation and uneasy dignity. “First the rudder—then he lets her jibe—and I’m knocked off my ship into the sea! I can’t tell you, Captain, what I went through out there in the water—that mate....” His face gleamed white with the rage that was in him. “He ought to be brought to trial—I mean to see about it. It amounts to mutiny, I say!”