We stowed the body of the mate in a lower bunk and covered it with straw and some of the clothing of the Chinese. Riggs sat down again and stared at the littered deck.
"But we must fight to the last minute," I said. "We can't give up like this, even if we are trapped. You certainly do not intend to surrender now. I know, captain, that the odds are great; but we can fight, can't we?"
"You don't know!" he almost wailed, beating his knees with his hands. "You don't know what it all means, of course. I tell you they'll loot her and scuttle her when they have done their work aboard, and we're doomed men!"
"But what is there to loot in this old tub?" I asked, preferring to have him tell me of the mysterious cargo than to take the time of explaining how I had followed him and Harris below.
"That's what they want," he said, talking to himself more than to me. "Harris was right, but we found out too late. They got Mr. Trego before he could warn us. And it's not my fault if I die for it. Me, J. Riggs, master of sail and steam for thirty years, and never a ship lost nor a dishonest dollar in all my life, not to know what's in my ship!
"It's not me that lost her, God knows; but that's what the owners will say, and that's what everybody will say—if they don't say something worse when the truth comes out. 'Riggs gone, and his ship gone,' they'll say, and then others will wink and whisper: 'And you know the Kut Sang was ballasted with gold,' and who's to know I never stole it?"
"Gold!" I said. "You say there is gold aboard?"
"Yes, gold!" he almost shouted at me. "Chests of gold coin, a dozen or more! That's what they're after, and that's what they'll get, and that's what it is all about—Trego and all the rest of it!"
"And you never knew?" I asked, more to take his mind off his troubles and rouse his fighting spirit than for the information, for the details mattered little to us now.
"Mr. Trenholm," he began with fervor, "if I had known there were any dangers I could have met them. I've faced death enough in my day not to fear it, and I'm no weakling if I am an old man. But a master should know what's in his ship and what's before him, and not be caught in a mess of lies and sneaking. But perhaps the owners didn't know—the ship's in charter for the voyage, and Mr. Trego took charge at the last minute.