A tan-colored moon hung in the sky. A soft breeze swung out from Manchuria. The powdered stars spangled the velvet dome of heaven.
Red Landyard, Micky Masters and Mike Monkey came together on the decrepit bridge of the freighter like three men making a common report.
Ivan with the long surname and most of his following were in the lighted cabin where rose the quarter-deck of the freighter. A lone lookout stood on the forecastle head. He was smoking a long-stemmed pipe. The ashes from the bowl of this pipe made tinder of his whiskers. Now and then he pressed out the sparks and swore in Russian.
A second and sinister figure squatted on the fore-hatch. He had a rifle across his knees. The end of this rifle was tipped with a polished bayonet.
“Standin’ guard,” said Micky McMasters. “The grand juke put ’im there to watch the tea.”
“Tay!” said Mike Monkey. “Ye still insist it is tay?”
Micky squared his jaw. “I know nothing,” he said, “save that we are ’oldin’ a course for ’Akodate and the Inland Sea, which we should reach this time day after tomorrow—if the steam don’t die out altogether.”
Red Landyard stared at the Russian on the fore-hatch. He eyed the bright point of the steel bayonet.
“They’re quiet now,” he drawled, “but we’re hardly out of sight of land. I expect I’ll have to chain a man or two before long. The forecastle is a volcano. Hear them talking? They’re arguing some point in Russian.”
Micky swung and eyed the break of the quarter-deck, which showed four lighted port-holes within the smudge of smoke that draped from the tipsy funnel.