"Chief, wake up! Mutiny is scheduled for two bells, and if you don't want your throat cut you'd better be advised——"
"Get oot o' ma engine-room!" ordered the chief with dignity. "Ye drunken scut, can ye not bear your liquor like a man? I'll hae no drunken officers cooming doon here to be bawlin' o' mutinies in ma ear! Tak' shame to yoursel', sir!"
Barnes compressed his lips and turned away. It was useless.
The Sulu Queen, originally a well-decked tramp, had been fitted up rather shabbily to carry passengers in the island trade, the after portion of the deck-house having been added to for this purpose. Carrying all the oily waste he could conceal about his person, Jim Barnes made his way aft to one of the unoccupied cabins. The two white passengers were not in sight. In the stern, beneath a tattered awning, Abdullah sat smoking a water-pipe, his wife and family around him.
"They're safe enough," observed Barnes, as he ducked into the cabin he sought. "Even if the old packet can't get up enough steam to check the flames, and goes down, they'll be taken care of. So, on with the dance!"
The fact that he was committing various sorts of barratry and felony, did not worry Jim Barnes in the least.
The storm season being past, the lookout or awning-deck above the pilot-house was fitted up with awning and canvas aprons and some chairs, but remained almost unused. The additional climb of a dozen feet from the chart-and pilot-house was far too much trouble for the captain and others; besides which, the place was no more than a box a dozen feet square, and was hot. A single ladder ascended to it from the bridge deck, which it overlooked completely.
Shortly before two bells, Jim Barnes welcomed Ellen Maggs and Nora Sayers, as they came up to the bridge. He was alone there, with Li Fu and two of the lascars in the chart-house. Down in the bows, Lim Tock, the supercargo, was standing in talk with the steward, and both watches were idling about the deck.
"How do we get upstairs?" asked Ellen Maggs.
"Right this way, ladies!" answered Barnes cheerfully. "Chairs up there and a couple of old magazines, as well as a breaker of water and some other things. Whatever happens, don't worry—and wait for me. Here you are!"