As they came on to the upper part of the beach the “Chinks” noticed them, paused for a second in their labours and then, finding that it was only a solitary man and woman, went on with their work as though the intruders had been a couple of penguins.
“Cool lot,” said Raft.
The girl paused. The sight of the carcases and the blood at close quarters, the absolute indifference of the blubber strippers at the sight of an obvious pair of castaways, the whole scene and circumstance turned her soul and chilled her heart.
“I don’t like this,” said she. “Those men make me afraid, they don’t seem human—they are horrible.”
“Wait you here,” said Raft.
He advanced alone across the black shingle and she stood watching him and listening to the stones crunching beneath his feet.
His advance did not disturb the workers.
They seemed working against time. Without any manner of doubt they were anxious to be done with the business and be out of that bay before the next blow came, for the place was fully exposed to the west-nor’west and a storm out of there might easily break their ship from its moorings and send her broadside on to the shingle.
Undersized, agile, with weary-old faces that seemed covered with drawn parchment, they seemed less like men than automata; all save the leader, a gigantic, imperious-looking Mongolian with a thin cat-like moustache, a man of the true river pirate type with a dash of the Mandarin. This man held in his hand a long thong of leather. Captain or leader, or whatever he might be, he was most evidently the serang of that labour party.
On the shingle where the ripples washed in lay a boat, half-beached.