"You can count him out," Captain Dove asserted, with a cold assurance which very much discomposed his more imaginative companion. "Is that bottle empty too? Then I'll just see to him now, before I turn in. I'm much obliged to you for reminding me."
He rose, still scowling, and set his lips to one of several speaking-tubes let into the bulkhead behind him. "Is that Mr. Brasse?" he demanded. "I want one of those boxes of cigars you have in the engine-room." He set one ear to the tube, nodded, and sat down again.
"You're not going to—do anything rash?" Slyne asked, uncomfortably.
"I'm not going to do anything that would upset an infant in arms—for more than a minute," returned Captain Dove in his mildest tone, and Slyne sprang to his feet with a startled oath as a hatch in the floor beyond the table at which they were sitting suddenly lifted, and in the opening appeared the bald head and stoop shoulders of the sullen chief engineer.
"It's all right. You needn't be nervous," said Captain Dove with a nasty grin. "There are lots of other funny little contrivances you know nothing about on this ship." And Slyne, looking angrily sheepish, returned to its pocket in his white coat something he had pulled out in a hurry, while his tormentor stooped and took gingerly from the engineer the innocent looking cigar box which that individual was holding out to him.
The hatch descended again, noiselessly, and they were once more alone.
"I don't like that infernal fellow," Slyne declared in a sulky voice, "and he doesn't like me—or you either, for that matter. If I were you I wouldn't turn my back on him when there's a hammer within his reach."
"Don't you worry about me," Captain Dove advised in return, and, holding the box to his ear, shook it slightly. "My head's quite as thick as your own—if it comes to hammer-work," he added, in a provoking tone. But that shot missed its mark. Slyne was very much more interested in the cigar box.
The old man set that down on the table, and, stooping, pulled off his shoes. "I don't want Da Costa to notice us," he explained, and Slyne, inspired by a fearful curiosity, followed his example.
Box in hand, but at arm's length, Captain Dove left the saloon, tiptoed laboriously up the steep stair which led, by way of the quarter-deck, to the chart-house behind the bridge, and, stepping out on to the deck with extreme precaution, passed aft into the darkness.