“Ever been through here before?”
“No,” I replied. “The nearest I have ever been to it was two passages through Sunda on a voyage to and from Canton.”
“M–m!” returned Kennedy. “Did annything out of the common happen to ye that voyage?”
“N–o, I think not,” said I, trying to remember precisely what, if anything, had happened. “Why do you ask?”
“Well,” replied my companion, “chiefly, I think, because yonder’s the Malay coast, and here we are, a valuable ship, becalmed, and helpless because we’ve lost the blades of our propeller.”
“Oh! but that is sheer nonsense,” I said. “You are thinking about pirates, I suppose. But, my dear chap, with the incoming of steam, piracy went out, because it no longer paid to be a pirate. You never hear of such a thing in these days.”
“Not very often, I admit,” agreed Kennedy. “Yet it was only about a week before we sailed from New York that I read in the Herald a story of a ship being picked up derelict, in this same Strait; and when she was boarded, her crew, consisting of twenty-seven men, were found lying about her decks, murdered; while her main-hatchway was open, and the signs that she had been plundered were as plain as large print.”
“Indeed!” I said. “I do not remember hearing anything of that case. Anyhow, it only happens once in a blue moon. And I don’t think that, with our pretty double row of teeth and our Maxims and Hotchkisses for close-quarter fighting, we need be very greatly afraid.”
“No,” agreed Kennedy, with a laugh. “I guess ye’re right there, me lad. Wid those guns, and hands enough to fight them, I calculate we are well fixed, and could beat off a whole fleet of proas. But I’m rale sorry that the skipper didn’t think of havin’ them mounted before, so that the men might have had a chance to practise the workin’ of them a bit. An’ there’s another thing—But here comes the skipper; I guess I’ll spake to her about it.”
At that moment Mrs Vansittart returned to the poop with the information that, according to the Directory, Singapore possessed a dry dock capable of taking in the Stella Maris; and, that being the case, she would have the ship docked and the spare propeller fitted as soon as possible after our arrival.