"Sure thing," said Slade. "You're as good as signed on right now—soon as he gets over it he'll ask you to go—never saw the old man like that before, and it's a pity, too. 'Never thought I'd run a slaver,' says he—and I don't much blame him, either."
"I'll send down my dunnage in the morning," I said. "How about the crew?"
"Well, we'll get them, all right. Whisky Bill's attended to it—we'll get ten men—all we need with the engine for handling line."
I hastened ashore to settle my affairs and get my dunnage down to the ship.
In payment for my last week's board I gave my landlord a whale's tooth, carved prettily—or, rather, I left it behind for him to accept gracefully, and before daylight in the morning I was aboard the Tanner. Gantline was so glad to see me come that he almost forgot his headache. I signed for the voyage and went on duty.
The decks of the schooner were somewhat disordered that morning she was to leave. Honolulu was her first stop, and there was much to go on deck for that shorter run. The crimp had just brought down the men, and we mates upset each seaman's bag of dunnage, and scattered the contents about the gangway. We searched for hidden liquor and firearms, well knowing a sailor's habits, and we knocked things about a little hunting for them. The poor, half-sober devils could separate their belongings afterward as best they might.
The result of the search was that, after the mate had confiscated a few bottles of stuff and a couple of out-of-date revolvers and ammunition, the general pile divided up among the men was enough to refill each bag again, the effort of sorting personal belongings at that moment being entirely too laborious to entertain.
Slade took two bottles, and managed to secrete them upon his person while the eye of the skipper was diverted to a passenger who had just appeared. Slade was slanting toward the forward cabin with the goods, closely followed by his emulating second officer, when the voice of the old man roared out orders for me to see to getting the baggage of the passengers below without delay. I turned, somewhat disappointed, just as Slade entered the door of the saloon and winked slowly and meaningly at me.
With some small encomiums pronounced upon the untimely work cut out for me, I turned to the gangway, and ordered up a few men in tones and language I should hate to repeat.
As I did so I suddenly came face to face with the passenger who had come from behind a cab and started down the gangway plank to the ship's deck. She put her lorgnette up to her eyes and gazed smilingly at me. Then she was joined by a younger woman, a girl about twenty, who took the older woman's arm, led her down the plank to the deck, and went right into the door of the forward cabin, leaving me staring as though I had seen a ghost.