“What the devil is that idiot doing?” he said; “she looks as if she wanted to cross our bows. There’ll be some swearing on the bridge if she makes us alter course!”
“She won’t,” I remarked. The officer looked at me with surprise and some amusement. I suppose it did seem quaint in a clerical passenger to assume a knowledge of nautical matters. But in a minute or two the helmsman let her away again, and put her back on a course nearly parallel to our own. The officer glanced at me as though there were something uncanny about me. At the same moment I saw a string of flags mount to her peak. The officer got his glass on her.
“I beg your pardon. Can you tell me what that signal is?”
“Yes; it’s ‘All well.’ I wonder who the deuce they think they’re speaking, or what they’re playing at, anyhow. She’s one of those little Levantine fruit boats. But she looks cleaner than most of them.”
A great weight was taken off my mind, for I knew that Captain Welfare was safe, and they had taken this chance of telling me so, no doubt guessing I would find someone to read the signal.
We were rapidly overhauling the Astarte, and I saw that our converging courses would soon bring us within a few cables’ length of each other.
Already through my glasses I could recognise Edmund at the wheel, and Captain Welfare holding by the shrouds, directing the movements of some of the crew for’ard.
I raised my white helmet at arm’s length above my head, but it was doubtful whether they saw the signal; for already I was surrounded by a group of curious passengers, all waving handkerchiefs in obedience to that strange instinct which creates a sense of excited fellowship between strangers who meet and pass each other in ships or railway trains.
However, my movement was immediately followed by a wave of Captain Welfare’s hand, and something splashed into the sea and sank in the Astarte’s wake.
The splash was repeated, and I could see that the crew were heaving overboard the precious, hateful cargo.