"Maste', you watch out velly sha'p!" exclaimed Li Fu, low-voiced, tense. "Bad piecee bobbery kick up, mebbeso two bells this afte'noon! I think mebbeso all hands talkee-talkee make fo' mutiny. Cap'n he say fo' tell you come see him."
"You tell the skipper to go to hell," said Barnes. "Opium crazy, that's what he is. Mutiny. Good gosh, we've nothing to mutiny for!"
"Cap'n he say head in fo' Sesajap," persisted the Chinaman.
Jim Barnes groaned. "Head in for Sesajap, eh? Heading in for Borneo—the skipper changed the course, did he? That why we're turning?"
Li Fu nodded, beady eyes alert.
"Well, I've no time now to palaver with that cursed Eurasian topside," said Barnes bluntly. "You tell him to take the bridge or chase Vanderhoof up there—I'm done. Savvy? I'm going to sleep. Let everybody mutiny and be damned. I'm the only seaman aboard this cursed packet anyhow. I'm tired o' doing ten men's work. Trouble coming this afternoon, is it? Then let afternoon take care of itself. I'll be ready to take the deck after this watch is over—noon. And, listen! Tell the cap'n that if he don't shoot the sun and verify his position after this running around, he'll land us all in hell. You savvy that? Then tell him from me. And if he wants to run us into Borneo, let him do it!"
Li Fu grinned delightedly and stated that he savvied plenty. He, like any efficient seaman, had no use for the other officers and regarded Jim Barnes as a little tin god. Jim Barnes went into his cabin, locked the door, stuck a chair under the knob, and then dropped on his bunk, dead to the world.
Down in the engine-room, where the heat had sent the chief into a drunken stupor, the Malay serang conferred with the two assistant engineers. They were both men of color, being Macaense like the skipper, but not, like him, owning a large share in the Sulu Queen. Filling his mouth with betel paste, expectorating a scarlet stream across the floor under the ladder, the serang spoke as he squatted there with the two engineers.
"The supercargo, Lim Tock, is a very clever man. He has arranged everything into shares; there will be one hundred shares made of everything. Fifty of these will be divided among the men, the other fifty among us, the officers."
"Good," assented the second engineer. "How many are in it, Gajah?"