“You have no right here,” I said angrily, “and I demand that paper whereon you have made notes of an affair that does not concern you.”
“I shall not give it you,” he responded defiantly.
“Then I shall call the captain.”
“You can do so if you wish. I shall be paid off to-day, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Give it to me,” I cried, incensed at the fellow’s insolence, and made a swift movement to seize his wrist. He was, however, too quick for me, for, grasping my arm with his left hand, he screwed up the paper with his right and dropped it through the porthole into the sea.
I saw it flutter for a moment in the air and drop into the surging water ten yards away.
“Leave this place at once,” I commanded. “You have no right here, and have evidently entered for some dishonest purpose. I shall inform Captain Seal at once.”
“All right,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders as he went through the doorway, “you needn’t get your wool off, doctor. I was doing no harm, surely, having a look at that old scribble.”
But the truth was patent. That man, an ordinary seaman, had read and understood what was written there. That look of supreme satisfaction on his face was sufficient to tell me that he had gained knowledge of some secret hidden from me.
Benjamin Harding was a seaman of exemplary conduct, it was true. He drank little, seldom swore, and was much more careful of his personal appearance than the rest of the grimy crew. His speech betokened a somewhat better education than the others, and I had more than once detected beneath his rough exterior traces of refinement. More than once, too, I had overheard him repress a too expressive imprecation from the mouth of one or other of his shipmates. Tall, lean, and muscular, his age I judged to be about forty, his beard and hair sandy, and his eyes a washed-out grey. His cheeks showed marks of smallpox, and under his left eye was a long white scar. I returned to the bridge and told Seal of the incident, but the pilot not yet being aboard he was too much occupied with the navigation of the ship to be able to reprimand the man there and then.