'They can do nothing without us.'
'Without one of us. But the others!'
'We may trust them,' she repeated, with an accent of conviction.
Nakier's eyes, gleaming in the lantern-light, were bent upon us as we whispered. He perceived my irresolution, and, once again putting down the bull's-eye lamp on the deck, he clasped and extended his hands in a posture of impassioned entreaty.
'We allee swear we no hurt you!' he cried in a voice of soft entreaty that was absolutely sweet with the melody of its tones; 'dat beautiful young lady—oh! I would kill here,' he cried, gesticulating as though he would stab his heart, 'before dat good, kind, clever lady be harm. Oh, you may trust us! We hab done our work. Mr. Wise, he be Capt'n; you be gentleman—passengaire; you live upstair and be very much comfortable. De beautiful young lady, she conduct dis ship to Afric. Oh, no, no, no! you are allee safe. My men shall trow down dere knives upon de table when you come, and we swear on de Koran to be your friend, and you be friend to we.'
'Let's go along with him, Mr. Tregarthen,' said Abraham. 'Nakier, I shall stick to this here knife. Where's moy mate Jacob? If 'ere a man of ye's hurted him——'
'It is no time to threaten,' I whispered angrily, shoving past him. 'Come, Helga! Nakier, pick up that bull's-eye and lead the way, and, Abraham, follow with that lantern, will you?'
In silence we gained the hatch. It lay open. Nakier sprang through it, and, one after the other, we ascended. The wind had fallen scantier since I was on deck last, and though the loftier canvas was asleep, silent as carved marble, and spreading in spectral wanness under the bright stars, there was no weight in the wind to hold steady the heavy folds of the fore and main courses, which swung in and out with the dull sound of distant artillery as the barque leaned from side to side. The cuddy lamp was brightly burning, and the first glance I sent through the open door showed me the whole of the crew, as I for the instant supposed—though I afterwards found that one of them was at the wheel—standing at the table, ranged on either hand of it, all as motionless as a company of soldiers drawn up on parade. Every dark face was turned our way, and never was shipboard picture more startling and impressive than this one of stirless figures, dusky fiery eyes, knitted brows, most of the countenances hideous, but all various in their ugliness. Their caps and queer headgear lay in a heap upon the table. Nakier entered and paused, with a look to us to follow. Helga was fearlessly pressing forwards. I caught her by the hand and cried to Nakier:
'Those men are all armed.'
He rounded upon them, and uttered some swift feverish sentence in his native tongue. In a moment every man whipped out his knife from the sheath in which it lay buried at the hip, and placed it upon the table. Nakier again spoke, pronouncing the words with a passionate gesture, on which Punmeamootty gathered the knives into one of the caps and handed them to Nakier, who brought the cap to Helga and placed it at her feet. On his doing this, Abraham threw the blood-stained knife he held into the cap.