The yellow man pointing to her exclaimed in a hoarse, throaty, African guttural, “It is good ve keep hor. Dis wreck hov no ’atch; she sink, and vidout hor,” nodding at the boat again, “were ve be?”
I said yes, by all means let us secure the boat. He exclaimed that for the present she would lie safely astern, and with that they took a turn with the line that held her and she rested quietly on the sea clear of the quarter.
Forthwith the three fellows began to explore the hull. The yellow man or boatswain, as I must henceforth call him, said no more to me than this as he pointed to the yawning hatches: “You are gen’elman,” with an ugly smile intended no doubt for a stroke of courtesy as he ran his eye over me: “ve are common sailor. Ve vill see to stop dem hole. More fresh vataire to drink ve need. Possib more bee-low. Also tobacco.” And thus saying he cried out to the others in their own dialect, and the three of them went to the main hatchway and disappeared down it.
I lifted the telescope and ran it over the sea, then sighed as with a breaking heart I laid the glass down again upon the deck. A strong sense of dismay filled me whilst I sat musing upon the men who were now coolly rummaging the vessel below. The rascality which lay in every line of the ugly yellow ruffian’s face, coupled with the stealthy, glittering glances, the greasy, snaky hair, the dark piratic countenances of the others might well have accounted for the apprehension, the actual consternation indeed which fell upon me whilst I thought of them. But that was not all. The recollection of the gold rushed upon me as a memory that had clean gone out of my mind, but that had suddenly flashed back upon me to communicate a sinister significance to the presence of the three Portuguese seamen. I can clearly understand now that my brain, as I have said, had been weakened by the horror of my situation, and by the long madness of expectation which had held it on fire whilst I searched the sea and waited for the Ruby to appear. So that, instead of accepting these three foreign sailors as a kind of godsend with whose assistance I might be enabled to doctor up the wreck so as to fit her to float until help came, not to speak of them as companions in misery, human creatures to talk to, beings whose society would extinguish out of this dreadful situation the intolerable element of solitude—I say instead of viewing these men thus, as might have happened, I believe, had I been my old self, a profound fear and aversion to them seized me, and such was the state of my nerves at that time, I call to mind that I looked at the boat that hung astern with a sort of hurry in me to leap into her, cast her adrift, and sail away.
With an effort I mastered my agitation, constantly directing glances at the sea with a frequent prayer upon my lip that if not the Ruby, then at least some ship to rescue me would heave into view before sundown that night.
XI.
The men were a long while below. I stepped softly to the companion hatch, and bent my ear down it that I might know if they had made their way through the ’tween decks bulkhead into the cabin. The chink of money was very distinct, but that was all. Presently, however, I heard them talking in low voices, but their tongue was Hebrew to me, and I went back to my chair, looking yet again around the sea-line. I think they had been at least an hour below when they arrived on deck, emerging through the main hatch. They had walked forward without taking any notice of me, and disappeared through the fore-scuttle, whence, after a while, they arose bearing amongst them several tarpaulins which they had come across. I took it that there was a carpenter’s chest down there, for the yellow boatswain flourished a hammer in one hand, and a box of what proved to be roundheaded nails in the other. They carefully secured the hatch with a couple of these tarpaulins, then came to the quarter-deck, and similarly roofed the skylight and the companion hatch, saving that they left free a corner flap to admit of our passage up and down.
“Dis is sailor vork,” said the boatswain giving me a nod, whilst his face shone like a yellow sou’-wester in a squall of wet with the sweat that flooded his repulsive visage. “Dat vataire keep out now, sah.”
“It is well done,” said I, softening my voice to disguise the emotion of disgust and aversion which possessed me at sight of the ugly, treacherous, askant sort of stare he fastened upon me whilst he spoke. “Have you breakfasted?”
He came close to me before answer-ing; the other two meanwhile remaining at the hatch and looking towards me.