“She say no, sar. She die, but she no tell her people.”
“The hell you say!” roared the captain. He seized her neck in a huge, hairy paw, tightened his fingers till they bit into the yellow skin, and shook her violently.
“I’ll break your damned, obstinate neck for you!” he cried, his face distorted. “Tell your people to go back! Tell ’em!”
Mahmud translated the order. The girl only laughed. Briggs knew himself beaten. In that sneering laugh of Kuala Pahang’s echoed a world of maddening defiance. He loosened his hold, trying to think how he should master her. Another man grunted, by the rail, and slid to the deck, where a chance bullet had given him the long sleep.
Briggs whirled on Mahmud, squeezed his lean shoulder till the bones bent.
“You tell ’em!” he bellowed. “If she won’t, you will!”
“Me, sar?” whined the Malay, shivering and fear-sick to the inner marrow. “Me tell so, they kill me!”
“If you don’t, I will! Up with you now—both o’ you, up, on the rail! Here, you men—up with ’em!”
They hoisted the girl, still impassive, to the rail, and held her there. The firing almost immediately died away. Mahmud tried to grovel at the captain’s feet, wailing to Allah and the Prophet. Briggs flung him up, neck and crop. Mahmud grappled the after backstays and clung there, quivering.