He grinned at sight of the commotion below. Lim Tock was yelling orders at those of the black gang whom he could see. Gajah, the serang, was whistling at his lascars shrilly. Then he remembered the chief engineer, and rang the bell. One of the assistants answered in the tube.
"Ship's on fire," said Jim Barnes, chuckling to himself. "Stop your engines and keep up a full head o' steam for the hose."
Hi John appeared, gave Barnes a brief nod and a grin, and took the wheel. There had never been any fire drill aboard the Sulu Queen in the memory of man, but Barnes blew the whistle nevertheless and added to the confusion. Vanderhoof's bellow arose from below, followed by an outburst of yells and shouts from aft.
"They've found it," said Barnes.
He went to the bridge rail and glanced aft. A trail of smoke and steam was veering out in the wake of the steamer. Barnes listened for a little to the sounds of tumultuous confusion, then rejoined the quartermaster.
"How did you and Li Fu know so much about this mutiny?" he demanded.
"Talkee-talkee," rejoined Hi John curtly. "My savvy lascar talk plenty."
"Oh! Understand Malay, do you? Good work. What reason have they to mutiny?"
Hi John had picked up a good deal of information. He knew that the rich boxes of the merchant Abdullah were to be looted, and that there was a large amount of opium down below, to be transferred to a Chinese junk and landed somewhere along the Bornean coast. Undoubtedly, the Sulu Queen was to be stripped of everything valuable, then quietly sunk in deep water. Lim Tock was in it, the serang Gajah was in it, and the Chinese junk was in it; so were some of the officers and all the men aboard.
Reluctantly Jim Barnes became convinced that to strive against the inevitable would be useless. Except for these two Chinese, he could depend upon no one. Had he been alone on the ship, his actions would have been simple and perhaps effectual.