It was the one word of English that he knew. Raft was about to shout and run to the cabin hatch to call the girl. Then he held himself back. It might be a false hope. Yet if he had thought he might have known that a ship in the east meant a ship right across their course, here, where there were no trade tracks north and south.
Then above the sea-line and clear of smoke he saw her hull.
He pointed to the halyards and the mate understood. The mate was evidently desperately anxious to be quit for good of his self-invited passengers, for when Raft came on deck again with the girl they found the barque under bare poles rolling to the swell and a Chinese flag half-masted flicking in the wind.
Also, away across the sea, sheering towards them and making to cross their bows a mile away a two funnelled steamer whose funnels closed to one as she shifted her helm to get within speaking distance of them.
She was the Carcassonne, a seven thousand ton freighter carrying passengers, a French boat, bound from Sydney to Cape Town and Marseilles.
Raft, the day before, had taken the Chinese mate down to the cabin and shewed him Chang’s money and had presented it to him and the crew in pantomime.
It was honesty. It was also a good stroke. There was no trouble when the Carcassonne, her huge bulk rolling gently to the swell, dropped a boat, though indeed had the companions of Chang wished to raise trouble they would have found themselves seriously handicapped, dumb as they were in every language but their own.
Chang had been their linguist as well as their leader. They had literally lost their tongue.