Charley King, the mate of the Fray Bentos turned to me in astonishment. He was himself one of the finest built and most powerful men I had ever met, not thirty years of age, and had achieved a great reputation as a long-distance swimmer and good all-round athlete.
“Why, Mr. Drake, that dingy must weigh three hundred pounds, if she weighs an ounce, for she's heavy oak built! And yet with one gammy hand he can put her over the side as if she was made of brown paper.”
Yorke sculled alongside, made fast to the main chains, clambered over the bulwarks, and stepped aboard in his usual quiet way, as if nothing out of the common had occurred, and asked the mate what he thought of the Francesca as a sailer. King looked at him admiringly for a moment.
“She's a daisy, Captain Yorke.... but you oughtn't to have put your boat over the side by yourself, sir, with that bad hand of yours.”
The big man laughed so genuinely, and with such an infectious ring in his voice, that even our Kanaka steward, who was bringing us our coffee, laughed too. The dingy, he said, was very light, and there was no need for him to call one of the men to help him. As we drank our coffee he chatted very freely with us, and drew our attention to the lovely effect caused by the rising sun upon a cluster of three or four small thickly-wooded islets, which lay between the two vessels and the mainland of New Britain, whereupon King, who had no romance in his composition, remarked that for his part he could not see much difference between one sunrise or sunset and another. “One means a lot of wind, and another none at all; one means decent weather and another means rotten weather, or middlin' weather.”
“Ah, Mr. King, you look at everything from a sailor's point of view,” he said good-naturedly. “Now, there's nothing gives me more pleasure than to watch a sunset and sunrise anywhere in the tropics—particularly if there's land in the foreground or background—I never miss a sunrise in the South Seas if I can help it.”
Presently we began to talk of the voyage, and I asked him a question—which only at that moment occurred to me—concerning himself before we met.
“I wonder, Captain Yorke, when your crew were cut off, that it did not occur to you to run down the west coast of New Ireland, between it and New Britain, to Blanche Bay, where there is a German station, and where you could have obtained assistance. It would have been much easier for you instead of that long buffeting about on the east coast.”
He made no answer at first, and I saw that his face had changed colour. Then he answered slowly:
“Just so. I knew all about the Germans at Blanche Bay, but I did not want to go there—for very good reasons. Will you come aboard and have some breakfast with me? I'll send you back again any time you like; the sea is so smooth, as far as that goes, that I could run the cutter alongside, and let you step off on to your own deck.”