I held myself quiet, and listened intently for any word that might show me our whereabouts. None came, but the setting sun and falling darkness brought coolness. The ship did not pitch as it did in the open sea. I made up my mind to wait a little longer.
With night the passengers came again, to lean against my boat and tell their secrets. A dozen schemes, ranging from a plan for making Christians of all the Indias to the arrangement of a tiger hunt in the Assam hills, were told within my hearing during that motionless evening. But when music sounded from below they left the deck deserted, and I settled down to listen to the faint tread of the second mate, who paced the bridge above me.
The night wore on. Less fearful, now, of being discovered, I moved, for the first time in thirty hours, and, rolling slowly on my side, fell asleep. It was broad daylight when I awoke to the sounding of two bells. The ship was rolling and pitching, now, in a way that indicated plainly that we were on the open sea. I tugged at the canvas cover and peered out. My muscles were so stiff that I could not move for some moments. Even when I had wormed myself out, I came near losing my grip on the edge of the boat before my feet touched the rail. Once on deck, I waited to be discovered. No land-lubber could have mistaken me for a passenger now.
Calmly I walked toward the stairway, and climbed down to the second deck. A score of bare-legged brown men were “washing down.” Near them, their overseer, in all the glory of embroidered jacket and rubber boots, strutted back and forth, fumbling at a silver chain about his neck. I strolled by them. The low-caste fellows sprang out of my way like startled cats; their overseer gazed at me with an uncertain smile. If they were surprised they did not show it. Probably they were not. What was it to them if a sahib (white man) chose to turn out in a ragged hunting costume in the early morning? Stranger things than that they had seen among these queer beings with white skins. For some time I paced the deck without catching sight of a white face. At last a small son of Britain clambered unsteadily up the stairway, clinging tightly to a pot of tea.
“Here, boy,” I called. “Who’s on the bridge—the mate?”
“Yes, sir,” stammered the boy, sidling away; “the mite, sir.”
“Well, tell him there’s a stowaway on board.”
“W’at’s that, sir? You see, sir, I’m a new cabin-boy, on me first trip—”
“And you don’t know what a stowaway is, eh?”
“No, sir.”