"Not unless you think it necessary, Jack."
"I think not," I said. "He is very properly scared and subdued, and knows that I will be watching him."
There was little further intercourse between George Morton and myself. He appeared on deck occasionally, but usually in my watch below, and when we met he would turn his head away, much to the chagrin of the captain, who had no knowledge of conditions. He was pale, emaciated, and fidgety in his manner, evidently a very sick man, and beyond all thought of punishment; but I felt no regret at the loss of my vengeance—I had won something better, and was content.
His attitude toward his sister, however, was one of doglike devotion and apology, while hers was one of toleration and contempt. He would hasten to meet her at the companion, to help her to a seat, to bring rugs or books, satisfied if she murmured a mere word of thanks. Then he would banish himself and look at her hungrily, waiting to be called. There is no doubt that, up to the limits of his narrow soul, he loved his sister; but it was a love based upon possession—the property instinct, the love of a dog for a cached bone, a bird for its perch, a cat for those who have housed and fed her. He had lost something, and wanted it back; and as it was lost forever I feared for that other love that was part of his being—his love of fire.
I could not watch him when asleep, nor depute the task to others—all I could do was to overhaul the deck and force pumps, make up an extra supply of draw-buckets, and examine all approaches to the inflammable jute in the hold. In that last I found nothing to alarm me. It could not be reached except through the hatches, which were all battened down. And it was all in the lower hold; on top of the ballast tiers of sugar, and above it, stowed in the 'tween deck, was the rest of the sugar. He could not set fire to the sugar, even if he reached it.
Yet in the hot, blistering heat of the Indian Ocean, when we had lain for days in a calm that was harder on our nerves than a hurricane, smoke filtered up through the seams in the cabin flooring—smoke with the pungent odor of burning jute; and the first man to notice it was George Morton.
"Done it, by heavens!" I growled, as I turned out in answer to the captain's quiet call.
There was a consultation in the cabin of the after-guard, to which were called the cook and steward, carpenter and sailmaker, and the two boatswains from the forecastles. All of these reported the smell of smoke in the compartments of the forward house, and the boatswain said that it was plainly noticeable at the fore and main hatches. Grace and her brother were listening; in Grace's face were uncertainty and apprehension, in her brother's, as he darted furtive glances at me, the deadly fear of immediate denunciation; but whether there was guilt or not I could not determine.
No one could guess how the fire had started, and only two points were elucidated from the discussion, both bearing upon the captain's opinion that nothing could be done at present but to keep the hatches on and smother it. The carpenter ventured the opinion that the fire could not be smothered. "For the ship is a sieve, captain," he said. "You know I told you so in Hongkong, and wanted you to calk her, topsides, deck, and all. There's millions of little holes to let the air in."
"And even so," added Morton, "the interstices between the barrels of sugar hold air that can be drawn upon."