"Leave go o' me, you nigger!" he howled, as the hand of Mendez caught his collar.
"Who you call nigger? Me?" demanded Manuel Mendez angrily. "What you t'ink dis ship be, huh? You say 'sir' to de mate, queeck!"
One giant black hand encircling the boy's throat; Mendez laughed and choked him until Jerry's face was purple. Then, having heard the desired "sir", Mendez flung Jerry at the companionway which swallowed him from sight.
At the bottom of the ladder, Jerry perceived Captain Pontifex bearing his instruments and going above for the noon observation. Jerry sidled into the nearest cabin and hid. He knew that the Missus was up forward in the galley, safely engaged in getting dinner.
Thus it happened that when Florence went swiftly to the stern cabin, and Tom Dennis stood upon the companion ladder to give her warning of any approaching danger from above, neither of them knew that moon-faced Jerry was fearfully waiting and listening inside the cabin of Mendez, the door slightly ajar. And that cabin adjoined the stern cabin.
"Father—can you wink your eyelids once for 'yes' and twice for 'no'? Quickly!"
Florence stood before the immobile figure of her father, watching him with anxious desperate eyes. The eyes of Miles Hathaway winked—very slowly, very slightly, but very perceptibly. Was it chance or design?
"Have you given the position of the wreck to Captain Pontifex?" breathed the girl. Her father's eyes closed twice. A sudden glory shone in her face, as she realized that this was no accident—that she was communicating with her father at last!
"You heard all that passed at the meeting here," she hurried on. "Was he sincere in what he said? Does he mean to keep his promises to us?"
The eyelids of the paralytic fluttered twice.