“A man must live,” he growled, as if apologizing for his delinquencies. “A man must live, and there’s no money in tramp shipping. You’ll find a small cabin on the port side—the empty one. It’s yours. We sail with the tide. If you come on deck before that and are nabbed—” he patted his pocket where he had stowed those notes—“that’s your lookout, Drake.”
Drake rose and crossed the little cabin. At the threshold he paused.
“Those other cabins—”
“You are three. The others, you won’t meet till we are at sea.”
Drake stepped out, dropped down a steep iron stair to the deck, slid into the port alley, where tiny doors formed a row, tried first one, then another, till he found one unlocked, entered, and found himself in a cabin so small that it could scarcely contain a bunk and its occupant at the same time.
Men had watched him—shadowy figures, heads out of the galley, the engine-room, the firehold. They had said nothing, betrayed no surprise at his coming. They were silent men.
“Hush!”
The salt wind drifted across the deck of the Cora. She was wallowing in the Atlantic.
Drake and the fat chief sat in the lee of the funnel. They had struck up an acquaintance during the first half of the voyage. Drake had traveled; he knew things. The fat chief, a jovial rascal, had the curiosity of a child and a stout man’s zest for effortless, vicarious adventure.
The two other passengers had kept apart. There was Quayle, as yet sticking close to his cabin, save at mealtimes when he joined Drake at the captain’s table. He had given that name, Quayle, casually, as if it had just occurred to him, as if names were matters of only passing importance.