Thrown off his course by this new idea, Briggs peered, blinked, pushed back his topi and scratched his thick, close-curling poll. Then all at once he nodded, emphatically.
“Right you are, doctor!” he cried, his mood swiftly changing. “I’ll go. They shan’t murder me—not yet, much as they’d like to!”
“Well spoken, sir. You’re a man of sense, sir—rare sense. And on a night like this—”
“The devil’s own night!” spat Briggs. “God, the breath sticks in my throat!” With thick, violent fingers he ripped at his shirt, baring his breast.
“Captain Briggs!” exclaimed Scurlock, now on his feet again. “Listen to a word, sir, please.”
“What the damnation now, sir?”
“We’ve lost the tide, sir. The comprador sent word aboard at four bells, he couldn’t hold his sampan men much longer. We should be standin’ downstream now, sir.” Scurlock spoke with white, shaking lips, rubbing his smitten jaw. Hate, scorn, rage grappled in his soul with his invincible New England sense of duty, of efficiency, of getting the ship’s work done. “If they’re goin’ to tow us down to-night, by joycus, sir, we’ve got to get under way, and be quick about it!”
Briggs dandled the kris. Its wavy blade, grooved to hold the dried curaré-poison that need do no more than scratch to kill, flung out vagrant high-lights in the gloom.
“For two cents I’d gut you, Mr. Scurlock,” he retorted. “I’m master of this ship, and she’ll sail when I’m ready, sir, not before!”