CHAPTER XXXII
THE OPIUM SMOKERS
Raft had never seen a female swoon before. He thought for a moment that she had dropped dead and the shock of the business pulled him together like a douche of cold water. Then he saw that she was breathing and took heart, rubbing her hands and poking her in the ribs and calling on her to pull herself together. He would have been more frightened only that he put her condition down to her general unaccountableness in some ways.
In less than five minutes she had come to and was leaning on her elbow and declaring herself to be all right. Then she got on her feet and, taking her seat on the side of the open hatch, looked about her at the dingy deck cumbered with a whale boat and all sorts of raffle. The slight swell of the bay rocked the barque to the creaking tune of block and cordage, whilst overhead the sea-gulls flitted mewing against the vast black cliff that rose three hundred feet sheer from the licking sea.
“You’re all right now?” said Raft dubiously.
“Yes, I feel quite right and strong again—just a little dizzy, that’s all.”
“Mind and don’t tumble back down that hatch,” said he, “I’ll drop below and see what’s to be found if you keep your eye out for them Larrikens. Give me a call if you sight them.”
The Larrikens were nowhere to be seen; they were in the high ground hidden, and no doubt holding a council of war, but sight or sound of them there was none.
She nodded and he dropped below into the cabin.
The cabin of Chang was clean, almost dainty. Two smaller cabins opened from it, one evidently for Chang and the other for his second in command. Raft in his hurried look round saw a lot of things including a rack containing six rifles and two heavy revolvers resting on an ammunition box filled with hundreds of cartridges. He opened the lazarette beneath the cabin flooring; it seemed well-stored, and on a shelf in the main cabin there were some provisions including a tin of biscuits.