Adam felt for his pistol, but hesitated, with his hand at his silk belt, and Kit thought he looked very like a Buccaneer.
"It might pay to plug that fellow, and I'd have risked it when I came here in the Mercedes. Still, I guess Don Hernando has enough trouble."
Mayne, standing behind him, grinned. "I reckon that fixes the thing. Don't know I'm sorry the dagos have lit out; my crowd are used up and ready to mutiny."
For two hours the tired crew rested while the water sank and the steamer resumed her awkward list. Then the boats came back and the men crawled languidly about the slanted deck, until Adam went among them with bitter words. The sea breeze was blowing outside, but no wind could enter the gap in the trees, and foul exhalations from warm mud and slime poisoned the stagnant air. Kit's head ached, his eyes hurt, and his joints were sore; he felt strangely limp and it cost him an effort to get about.
All the while the winches hammered and pulleys screamed as the cases came up and the empty slings went down. The heat got suffocating and the slant of masts and deck made matters worse, because the men must hold the derricks back with guys while the heavy goods cleared the coamings of the hatch. Much judgment was needed to drop them safely in the boats. Men gasped and choked, quarreled with each other, and growled at the mates, but somehow held on while the tide ebbed and the sun sank nearer the mangroves' tops. It dipped when the breathless peons pushed the last boat away from the Rio Negro's side, and the noisy machines stopped.
Darkness spread swiftly across the lagoon and a white fog, hot and damp as steam, rose from the forest and hung about the ship. Everything was very quiet, for the men were too limp to talk, but a murmur came out of the distance where the long swell beat upon the shoals. Kit and Mayne sat in the chart-room, with a jug of iced liquor on the table in front. Sometimes they spoke a few words and sometimes smoked in silence, while Adam lay on the settee, saying nothing. At length, he got up and a steward helped him to his room. Somehow the others felt it a relief that he had gone.
"I can hustle, but your uncle makes me tired," Mayne remarked. "If you get what I mean, it's like watching a dead man chase the boys about; you feel it's unnatural to see him on his feet. Well, one has to pay for fooling with a climate like this, and I'm afraid the bill he'll get will break him. Can't you make him quit?"
"I can't; I've tried."
"The curious thing is he knows the cost," Mayne resumed. "Knows what's coming to him unless he goes."
"Yes," said Kit in a thoughtful voice, "I believe he does know and doesn't mind. This makes it rough on me. I'm powerless to send him off and I'm fond of the old man."