"Leave her?" they repeated as one, in dismayed accents. "How?"
"You'll see. I'll take the bridge when watches are changed at eight bells—eight o'clock. You come up to the bridge a little before then, and stick around. Excuse me, now; I'll have to pack a few things myself."
Barnes hurried away, leaving the two women at the rail.
Dinner was over, a meal from which all three were glad to escape, coming out on deck to find the sun gone and the afterglow staining the horizon like old church windows. A tragic affair, that dinner! The captain was ill and did not appear; Vanderhoof was on deck, more drunk than usual; the second engineer quarreled with the wireless cub, who lost his head in a fit of idiotic rage and had to be taken away and locked up, screaming curses. The chief engineer was also locked in his own cabin, enjoying a spell of "the horrors."
Wishing vainly that he understood something about the wireless outfit, Barnes sought his cabin and packed up the few belongings that he wished to take from the ship. While he was at this task, Li Fu knocked at the door and entered hurriedly.
"Hello! What news? Is it set for two bells?"
Li Fu assented. He was bursting with laughter over some joke of the cruel Chinese variety, and Barnes presently learned what it was. He was ordering Li to warn Abdullah of what was intended, with the intent to get the Arab's family away safely, when the quartermaster exploded in a laugh and reported a conversation that he had overheard among some of the lascars.
It appeared that Abdullah was as much in the plot as anyone, and was to receive as his booty the two white women. The assistant engineers had an eye on the same prey; while Lim Tock and Gajah, the serang, were equally concerned. To the Chinese, this was a huge jest all around, for it meant that the wolves would turn and rend each other.
"Hell!" said Jim Barnes. "I hate to leave the kids here. But go ahead, now; and tell Hi John to attend to the engines as soon as he goes off watch, then to get up to the bridge and stand by. Have you got the boat ready?"
"Aye, sir," assented Li Fu. "Plenty wate'; eve'ything leady."