It was a particular brew, and we sucked at it lovingly through the long amber straws.
"Ha!" said the skipper, "I thought that would stiffen your backbones. Phew! it is hot!" and he mopped his face with a huge handkerchief.
Sladen burst out: "We've got absolutely on the hump. Somebody do something to kill time. Can't some of you fellows tell a story? Any lie will do! Come, Captain!"
"No, no!" said the skipper. "I'm the senior officer here, and speak last. Here's Mr. Burgess: he's been in all sorts of uncanny places, and should be able to tell us something. I put the call on him--so heave away."
Burgess, the man who had spoken about the outwater of the Irawadi, leaned back for a moment in his chair, with half-closed eyes. He was a short, squarely built man, very sunburnt, with mouth and chin hidden by the growth of a large moustache and beard. There was nothing particular in his appearance; yet in following his calling--that of an orchid-hunter--he had been to strange places and seen strange things. Sladen, who knew him well, hinted darkly that he had traversed unknown tracts of country, had hobnobbed with cannibals, and held his life in his hands for the past thirty years.
"You've hit on the very man, Captain," said Sladen. "Now, Burgess, tell us how you found the snake-orchid, and sold it to a duchess for a thousand pounds. You promised to tell me the story one day, you remember?"
"That's too long. I'll tell you a story, however"; and Burgess lifted up his drink, took a pull at it, and, picking up the straw that leaned back in a helpless manner against the edge of the glass, began twisting it round his fingers as he spoke.
"All this happened many years ago----"
"When flowers and birds could talk," interrupted the Boy; and Burgess, turning on him, said slowly: "Flowers and birds can talk now. When you are older you will understand."
The Boy looked down a little abashed, and Burgess continued: "I am afraid to say how many years ago I first went to Burma. I was as poor as a rat, and things had panned out badly for me. Rangoon then was not the Rangoon of to-day, and the old king Min-Doon Min, who succeeded to the throne after the war, was still almost all-powerful. He was not a bad fellow, and I once did a roaring trade with him at Mandalay: exchanged fifty packets of coloured candles for fifty pigeon's-blood rubies. They had a big illumination at the palace that night, and I only narrowly escaped being made a member of the cabinet. I, however, got the right of travelling through his majesty's dominions, wherever and whenever I pleased; but the chief queen made it a condition that I should supply no more coloured candles. She preferred the rubies; and I fancy old Min-Doon Min must have had a bad time of it, for the queen was as remarkable for her thrift as for her tongue. She was as close as that"--Burgess held up a square brown fist before us, and, as he did so, I noticed the white line of a scar running across it, below the knuckles, from thumb to little finger. He caught my eye resting on it, and laughingly said: "It's a seal of the kind friends I have in Kinnabalu. But to resume, as the story-books say. All this about Min-Doon is a 'divarsion,' and I'll go back to the point when I found myself first at Rangoon, with all my wardrobe on my back, and a two-dollar bill in my pocket. After drifting about for some time, I got employment in a rice-shipping firm, and set myself to work to learn the language. In about a year I could speak it well, and, having got promotion in the firm, felt myself on the high road to fortune. It was hard work: the boss knew the value of every penny he spent, and took every ounce he could out of his men."