He shook his head and replied, 'No; one Burmah man, anoder Penang, anoder Singapore—allee like that.'
'But your work in this ship ends at Cape Town?'
'Yes, sah,' he answered, swiftly and fiercely.
'Are you all Mahometans?'
'Yes, allee Mussulmans.'
I understood by allee that he meant all. He fastened his dusky eyes upon me with an expression of expectation that I would pursue the subject: finding me silent, he looked behind him, and then said, in a species of English that was not 'pigeon' and that I can but feebly reproduce, though, to be sure, what was most remarkable in it came from the colour it took through his intonation, and that glitter in his eyes which had made them visible to me in the dusk of the previous evening, 'You have been wrecked, sah?' I nodded. 'But you sabbee nabigation?'
I could not restrain a laugh. 'I know nothing of navigation,' said I; 'but I was not wrecked for the want of it, Punmeamootty.'
'But de beautiful young lady, she sabbee nabigation?' said he, with an apologetic, conciliatory grin that laid bare a wide range of his gleaming white teeth.
'How do you know that?' said I, struck by the question.
'Me hear you tell de captain, sah.'