"Yes," I answered. "Lock 'em up, put a padlock on both doors, and see that they don't get loose again until this is over."
Oleson went to Komuri. The Jap listened to him, and then repeated the order, passing the word like a seaman should, without comment. The Chinks followed him into their quarters in the alleyways, and Oleson locked the doors on the outside, putting extra padlocks on them. The alleyways were upon the main deck, and shut off from the lazaret by a bulkhead.
"If honorable mate will let me open those ports inside, Chinese men will be able to breathe better—air very hot in there," said Komuri.
"All right, king; go ahead. And if she lists over and drowns them like rats in a trap you'll be the man to loose them—see?" I warned him.
"I'll take care them, me," said Komuri. "If honorable ship, she turns over, me, Komuri, will see to ports. Very hot inside there."
I turned away and watched the horizon. The haze was thickening, and the squalls were beginning to come with more force than before. A sudden spurt of wind sang hoarsely in the rigging, and a drift of spray flew upward.
The men were still at work making things snug when I heard a murmuring, a moaning, vast, filling the air, then dying away again. It was all about us, seemingly upon all sides. Then again I heard a harplike note of great volume. The horizon disappeared in the southeast, and the blue-steel bank of vapor shut off the sunlight. It grew dark and gloomy.
"She's coming along all right in a few minutes," said Slade, who came near to me and passed on to his room. He came on deck in a couple of minutes, with an oilskin coat buttoned fast about him, and he sweltered in its heat. I still stood at the weather rigging.
"Go get your rain clothes on," he said, coming to relieve me.
"Nix! Let her go as it is—better wet with salt water than sweat," I replied.