“Where the blazes have you blown in from?” asked the stranger.
“Gentlemen,” said Clayton, for Clayton was his name, and they were all down below sampling a bottle of rum wangled by the genius of Harman out of the purser of the freighter, “Gentlemen, I’m not divin’ into your business. A ship in ballast without charts or chronometer, not knowing where she is, and not willin’ to say where she comes from, may be on the square and may be not.”
“We ain’t,” said Harman bluntly.
“That bein’ so,” said Clayton, quite unmoved, “we can deal without circumlocuting round the show, and get to the point, which is this: I’m wantin’ your ship.”
“Spread yourself,” said Davis, “and tip the bottle.”
Clayton obeyed.
“I’m willin’ to buy her of you,” said he, “lock, stock, barrel and Kanakas, no questions asked, no questions answered, only terms.”
“What’s your terms?” asked Harman.
Clayton raised his head. The wind had shifted, and, blowing through the open port, it brought with it a faint, awful, subtle, utterly indescribable perfume. Far above the vulgar world of stenches, almost psychic, it floated around them, while Harman spat and Davis considered the stranger attentively and anew.
“Oysters,” said Davis.