“Keep away from him when you do—that’s all. We’re depending on you and Cunningham to pull through. If you two get to scrapping the whole business will go blooey. If we play the game according to contract there’s a big chance of getting back to the States without having the sheriff on the dock to meet us. But if you mess it up because an unexpected stroke put a woman on board, you’ll end up as shark bait.”
“Maybe I will and maybe I won’t,” was the truculent rejoinder.
“Lord!” said Cleve, a vast discouragement in his tone. “You lay a course as true and fine as a hair, and run afoul a rotting derelict in the night!”
Flint laughed.
“Oh, I shan’t make any trouble. I’ll say my prayers regular until we make shore finally. The agreement was to lay off the Cleigh booze. I brought on board only a couple of quarts, and they’ll be gone before we raise the Catwick. But if I feel like talking to the woman I’ll do it.”
“It’s your funeral, not mine,” was the ominous 165 comment. “You’ve been on the beach once too often, Flint, to play a game like this straight. But Cunningham had to have you, because you know the Malay lingo. Remember, he isn’t afraid of anything that walks on two feet or four.”
“Neither am I—when I want anything. But glass beads!”
“That was only a lure for Cleigh, who’d go round the world for any curio he was interested in.”
“That’s what I mean. If it were diamonds or pearls or rubies, all well and good. But a string of glass beads! The old duffer is a nut!”
“Maybe he is. But if you had ten or twelve millions, what would you do?”