I never interfered in these altercations, though I sometimes reckoned with the offender when the journey was over. More than once Makuba asked me to dismiss Obianga, but I would not; for I liked him and felt that there was in him the raw material for an excellent man. Then, too, I remembered that I once dismissed another man upon Makuba’s urgent and repeated request, and no sooner did Makuba hear of it than he came to me begging me to take the man on again, saying that he himself had been too impatient, reminding me also that the man had a wife and child, and promising that if I would take him back he would not complain of him again. Of course I took him back; and Makuba kept his word.
The worst disputes between Obianga and Makuba took place when they supposed that I was asleep. The native when he lies down anywhere sleeps immediately. Whenever I was lying in the bottom of the boat they always supposed that I was asleep and that no conceivable noise could waken me. During one of their quarrels Makuba, with a voice like a thunderbolt, roars: “If you don’t do what I say I will tell Mr. Milligan that you have two wives.”
“Sh—sh! Makuba,” says Obianga. “What did you tell me to do?”
Such altercations as the following were not uncommon: Captain Makuba orders Obianga to “haul away on the peak halliards”; to which Obianga promptly replies:
“Do it yourself.”
“I won’t do it: you will do it,” says Makuba in a threatening tone.
“Are you my father?” says Obianga.
“No,” answers Makuba with infinite scorn. “How could a Kombi man be the father of an animal like you?”
“Then stop giving me orders,” says Obianga with rising wrath. “It is not the first time you have tried it, and one of these days you will find out that it won’t do.”
“One of these days you will find out that I am the captain of this boat and that you will have to obey me,” says Makuba.