“He can see us if he likes to see us,” remarked Davidson. Then he had an afterthought: “I say! I hope he won't think I am intruding, eh?”
We reassured him on the point of correct behaviour. The sea is open to all.
This slight deviation added some ten miles to Davidson's round trip, but as that was sixteen hundred miles it did not matter much.
“I have told my owner of it,” said the conscientious commander of the Sissie.
His owner had a face like an ancient lemon. He was small and wizened—which was strange, because generally a Chinaman, as he grows in prosperity, puts on inches of girth and stature. To serve a Chinese firm is not so bad. Once they become convinced you deal straight by them, their confidence becomes unlimited. You can do no wrong. So Davidson's old Chinaman squeaked hurriedly:
“All right, all right, all right. You do what you like, captain—”
And there was an end of the matter; not altogether, though. From time to time the Chinaman used to ask Davidson about the white man. He was still there, eh?
“I never see him,” Davidson had to confess to his owner, who would peer at him silently through round, horn-rimmed spectacles, several sizes too large for his little old face. “I never see him.”
To me, on occasions he would say:
“I haven't a doubt he's there. He hides. It's very unpleasant.” Davidson was a little vexed with Heyst. “Funny thing,” he went on. “Of all the people I speak to, nobody ever asks after him but that Chinaman of mine—and Schomberg,” he added after a while.