By lunch-time Mr. Morcombe-Lycett had been brought ashore and had accepted Mr. Deighton's invitation to remain for the night He was a well-dressed, good-looking man of about thirty-five, and was, so Mr. Deighton sympathisingly announced to his wife, suffering from a touch of malarial fever, which a little quinine and nursing would soon put right Mr. Deighton himself, by the way, was suffering from the same complaint.
At noon, as Charlie Blount was walking past Burrowes' house, he was surprised to see that the German was still there. He was about to pass on—for although on fairly friendly terms with the two men, he did not care for either of them sufficiently well to enter their houses often, although they did his—when the American came to the door and asked him to come in and take a nip.
“Are you going to board the schooner?” asked Burrowes, as Blount came in and sat down.
“No, I'm going down to Lak-a-lak. I've got some natives cutting timber for me there, and thought I would just walk along the beach and see how they are getting on. Besides that, my little girl Nellie is there with her uncle.”
“Why,” said Burrowes, with genuine surprise, “won't you go aboard and see if they have any provisions to sell? I heard you say the other day that you had quite run out of tinned meats and nearly out of coffee.”
“So I have; but I don't care about going on board for all that” Then looking the two men straight in the face, he drank off the gin, set the mug down on the table, and resumed, “I saw by my glass that that damned, cut-throat blackbirder, Bilker, is her skipper. That's enough for me. I heard that the infernal scoundrel got ten years in gaol. Sorry he wasn't hanged.”
“Vy,” said the German, whose face was considerably flushed by the liquor he had been drinking, “you vas in der plackpird drade yourselves von dime.”
“So I was, Peter,” said Blount quietly, “but we did the thing honestly, fairly and squarely. I, and those with me, when I was in the labour trade, never stole a nigger, nor killed one. This fellow Bilker was a disgrace to every white man in the trade. He is a notorious, cold-blooded murderer.”
The conversation fell a bit flat after this, for Mr. Burrowes and Mr. Schwartzkoff began to feel uncomfortable. Six or seven years before, although then unknown to each other and living on different islands, they each had had business relations with Captain Bilker in the matter of supplying him with “cargo” during his cruises for “blackbirds,” and each of them had so carried on the trade that both were ultimately compelled to leave the scene of their operations with great haste, and take up their residence elsewhere, particularly as the commander of the cruiser which arrested Captain Bilker expressed a strong desire to make their acquaintance and let them keep him company to the gallows.