“You take your boat and go back to the beach. You wait there till I hail you. If you leave that beach till I hail you I’ll beat the life out of you. Now go.”
McLagan had made no further attempt at investigation of the secrets of the wrecked vessel. It was with an unusual feeling of repulsion that he climbed up through the gloomy precincts of the forepeak. And somehow the memory of the half-breed’s accusation stung him sharply, as, involuntarily, his searching gaze sought to penetrate the darkness surrounding him. In his heart he felt the man was not without justification in his charge. From the moment he had set foot on the ladder a strange sensation took hold of him, and, with every upward step, he wondered what revelation the next would yield.
Once on deck, however, the uncanny sensation passed. Here was daylight. Here were the things he knew and recognised. But somehow he did not want to use the forepeak again, and forthwith he set about discovering some other means of reaching the deck.
He found it quickly. It was there lying amidst some sprawled gear upon the deck, besides a stack of lumber. It was a long rope companion ladder with broad teakwood steps. It was still secured to the down haul cleats against the ship’s rail near the main mast where it had evidently been flung by some previous user. And he dropped it over the vessel’s side, and saw that it reached almost to the rocks below.
His view was out over the bay. And from where he stood he could see his hut perched high on the cliffs, and, below, the long, low line of the distant beach. He smiled to himself as he beheld the figure of Sasa busy mooring his fishing boat. He knew that for all his rebellious mood, the half-breed would very literally obey his final orders.
He turned away. His searching gaze took in the deck in every direction. It was the same, precisely, as he had found it on his first visit. The litter of gear was in evidence everywhere. The stacked lumber. There was the canvas-sheathed winch with its close-hauled raking arm. The galley with its steel door ajar. Then the closely battened main hatch, and, beyond it, the break of the small poop-deck above, with its two alleyways, one to the cabin, and one to the half-deck on the starboard side. Yes. It was all just as he had left it, and he glanced quickly up at the sky.
There was a thin overcast of cloud, but still without any threat of storm. Even the restless ocean breeze had flattened out, and the usually protesting gear above him was completely silent.
McLagan had told himself that he wanted to explore the hundred and one details which he knew must have escaped him at his first visit. There were the battened holds. There were those cabins which Peter and the half-breed had looked into. There were the pantry, and the half-deck. All these things he had promised himself to look into. It was his excuse for his visit. But he knew that in reality they had little enough to do with his coming now. It was that other thing which had brought him there. That thing which had inspired terror in the half-breed’s heart, and—— He moved over to the cabin alleyway and leant against the break of the poop. And he stood gazing down the deck in the direction of the winch as he had stood there once before.