"Something like that," Wyndham agreed. "I don't know much about it." He looked at the agent. "Do you?"
Don Felix made the sign of the cross. "Me, I am good Catholic; I know nothing. They are drôle in the bush. When I think about their folly I laugh."
"Not always, I imagine," Wyndham remarked dryly. "However, we must persuade these folks we have goods they'd find useful. That's the beginning of trade. When a man sees he needs things somebody else has got, he gets to work and looks for something to sell. Now let's consider——"
Marston listened while his comrade talked. Harry sometimes surprised people who did not know him well. He was romantic but he had a calculating vein. Harry could plan and bargain, and Marston reflected that while the Wyndhams had long been adventurers they were traders, too. After an hour's talk he had arranged much that promised to help the agent's business and they went back to the creek.
"In a way, we're lucky," Wyndham observed while they paddled down stream. "The people we're going to deal with are nearly pure Africans and we know something about negroes."
Marston said nothing. He did not know if they were lucky or not and rather doubted.
They returned to the schooner and in the morning cargo began to arrive. Two or three days afterwards Wyndham went off to the village with some of the crew and Marston gave the others leave to go ashore. Neither the boys nor Wyndham came back at dark, but this did not matter. Although the schooner rose upright for a few hours when the tide flowed, she would not float until the new moon, and the muddy lagoon was as smooth as a pond.
In the evening Marston sat in the little stern cabin. It was very hot and his brain was dull but he did not want to go to bed until the crew arrived. Moisture dripped from the ceiling and flies hovered round the lamp that hung at an angle to the beams. The skylight was open a few inches and although the opening was covered by mosquito gauze one could not keep out the flies. Marston hated their monotonous buzzing, for there is something about a mangrove swamp that frays a white man's nerves. Water lapped against the planks and now and then there was a splash in the mud. The tide was flowing and Marston imagined the water round the vessel was three or four feet deep. It looked as if Wyndham meant to stay away all night, and Marston wondered with a slight uneasiness what was keeping him.
A mahogany medicine chest stood on the small swing table. It was of the type supplied to British merchant ships, but larger, and the London chemists had fitted it with the latest drugs used in the tropics. There was a book about them and Marston had meant to re-arrange the bottles and packets, which had got displaced. He was not a doctor, but he had studied the book and found it interesting. Tropical diseases were strange and numerous, and he had made some cautious experiments on the crew. Now his head ached rather badly and he wondered whether he would take some quinine.
Presently he put down the book and listened. Something had disturbed him, but for a few moments he only heard the splash of the tide. Then the scuttle over his head opened and a naked foot felt for the ladder. The foot was white underneath, but although he was somewhat startled, Marston did not think this strange. He had noted that negroes' and mulattos' soles are often lighter in color than the rest of their skin.