“What? what? Not board my own ship?”
Flemington was a good deal taken aback. He could not see much in the clouded night, but no impression of authority seemed to emanate from the indistinguishable person beside him.
“Ten thousand pardons, sir!” exclaimed the young man. “You are Captain Hall? I have information for you, and am sent by His Majesty’s intelligence officer in Perth to report myself to you. Flemington is my name.”
For a minute the little man said nothing, and Archie felt rather than saw his fidgety movements. He seemed to be hesitating.
A boat was being put off from the ship. She lay so near to them that a mere push from her side brought the craft almost into the bank.
“It is so dark that I must show you my credentials on board,” said Archie, taking Captain Hall’s acquiescence for granted.
He heard his companion drawing in his breath nervously through his teeth. No opposition was made as he stepped into the boat.
When he stood on deck beside Hall the ship was quiet and the sounds of laughter were silent. He had the feeling that everyone on board had got out of the way on purpose as he followed the captain down the companion to his cabin. As the latter opened the door the light within revealed him plainly for the first time.
He was a small ginger-haired man, whose furtive eyes were set very close to a thin-bridged, aquiline nose; his gait was remarkable because he trotted rather than walked; his restless fingers rubbed one another as he spoke. He looked peevish and a little dissipated, and his manner conveyed the idea that he felt himself to have no business where he was. As Archie remarked that, he told himself that it was a characteristic he had never yet seen in a seaman. His dress was careless, and a wine-stain on his cravat caught his companion’s eye. He had the personality of a rabbit.
Hall did not sit down, but stood at the farther side of the table looking with a kind of grudging intentness at his guest, and Flemington was inclined to laugh, in spite of the heavy heart he had carried all day. The other moved about with undecided steps. When at last he sat down, just under the swinging lamp, Archie was certain that, though he could be called sober, he had been drinking.