A few minutes later the steward—a young Cockney of about twenty-five years of age, who had the worn, harassed appearance of a man living in a state of perpetual scare—came up the poop ladder, bearing a tray on which were a couple of tumblers, an uncorked bottle of whisky, and two bottles of soda-water, which he placed upon the skylight cover. Then, taking up the whisky-bottle and a tumbler, he proceeded to pour out a portion of the spirit, glancing anxiously about him as he did so.
“Say ‘when,’ sir, please,” he requested, in a loud voice, immediately adding under his breath, “Are you alone, ashore there, sir, or is there others there along with you?”
His whole air of extreme trepidation, and the manner of secrecy with which he put this singular question, was but further confirmation—if any were needed—of certain very ugly suspicions that had been taking a strong hold upon Leslie during the whole progress of his interview with the man Turnbull; Dick therefore replied to the steward by putting another question to him in the same low, cautious tones—
“Why do you ask me that, my man?” he murmured.
“Because, sir, there’s— Is that about enough whisky, sir?”
The latter part of the steward’s speech was uttered in a tone of voice that could be distinctly heard as far forward as the break of the poop, and, with the man’s abrupt change of subject was evidently caused—as Leslie could see out of the corner of his eye—by the silent, stealthy appearance of Turnbull’s head above the top of the ladder, and the glance of keen suspicion that he shot at the two occupants of the poop.
Dick took the tumbler from the steward’s shaking hand and calmly held it up before him, critically measuring the quantity of spirit it contained.
“Yes, thanks,” he replied; “that will do nicely. Now for the soda.”
And he held the tumbler while the steward opened the soda-water bottle and emptied it’s effervescing contents into the spirit. Turnbull glanced keenly from Leslie to the steward and back again, but said nothing, although the unfortunate attendant’s condition of terror was patent to all observers. Dick waited patiently while the trembling man helped Turnbull, and then, lifting his tumbler, said—
“Your health, Captain; and to our better acquaintance.”