“What does he say; he’s going to knock that Malay chap’s head off?” drawled Jack.
“Yes, Jimmy knock um head flap.”
“You dare to touch him, Jimmy,” I said, “and I’ll send you back home.”
“Jimmy not knock um head flap?” he said staring.
“No. You’re not to touch him.”
“Mass Joe gone mad. Brown fellow kill all a man. Jimmy kill um.”
“You are not to touch him,” I said. “And now go to sleep or I shall go and tell the captain.”
Jimmy lifted up his head and looked at me. Then he banged it down upon his pillow, which was one of those gooseberry-shaped rope nets, stuffed full of oakum, and called a fender, while we went forward once more to talk to the doctor about his chart, for Jack Penny was comporting himself exactly as if he had become one of the party, though I had made up my mind that he was to go back with the captain when we were set ashore.
All the same, at Jack Penny’s urgent request I joined him in the act of keeping the presence of the other passenger a secret—I mean Gyp the dog, to whom I was stealthily introduced by Jack, down in a very evil-smelling part of the hold, and for whom I saved scraps of meat and bits of fish from my dinner every day.
The introduction was as follows on the part of Jack: