“You’re worse than a darn fool, Sasa,” he said sharply. “You’re a low, miserable coward. You’re the worst coward I know. You’re such a coward you’d run a mile from a jack-rabbit. You make me sick to death, and I feel like sending you to hell out of my service. I tell you there’s not a thing to this poor darn wreck to scare a buck louse. There’s not a thing. She’s dead and done, and there’s not a living soul aboard.” Then he changed his tone from condemnation to derision. “What the hell scares you about her? What d’you think she’s got aboard her? Devils or—what?”
The half-breed turned away. He glanced down at his own boat lying half out of water on the smooth surface of the rocks on which it had been hauled up. Perhaps he desired to reassure himself it was still there for his safe retreat. A moment later he turned again to the white man, and from him he gazed up at the high sides of the great vessel which loomed monstrously as they stood on the slippery rocks below it. And as he gazed up at the hated object his eyes further widened, and he spoke in a tone that was almost a whine.
“Maybe, boss,” he said. He shook his dark head vigorously. “This thing bad. So bad. I see him same lak you see him, too. I know. It in your eye when you look. You scare, too, plenty. You not know. I know. I much coward this thing. Nothing else I scare lak him dis. I not go aboard. Never.”
McLagan’s gaze was compelling. He held the other while he put his question.
“This thing? What did you see?” he asked sharply.
The half-breed shifted his position uneasily. He sought to avoid the white man’s questioning eyes. He turned away. But his fearful eyes came swiftly back to those they had sought to avoid.
“I not speak this thing,” he said in a low, surly tone. “It bad. What you ask him? You see. Oh, yes. I know.”
He made a movement. It was almost like a shudder. Then without waiting he passed down to his boat.
“Sasa!”
McLagan’s voice brought the terrified creature to a standstill. He turned and waited. And then he heard the white man laugh as he flung his final orders.