"Who is on guard?" Evelyn asked.
"The kid. He's a scout for fair too; imagines he's Apache Jim, the terror of the Navajos, or some other paper-backed hero. I hope his gun won't go off and shoot him up."
We made a lively breakfast of it till Yeager had to leave. You may think it strange that we could laugh and jest on that death ship, but one gets accustomed to the strain and on the reflex from anxiety arrives at a temporary gaiety.
After the cattleman had taken his breezy departure a constraint fell upon us. Evelyn's eyes were shy, and mine not a great deal bolder. Yesterday we could have chatted away with the most delightful freedom; to-day we were confined to the veriest commonplaces.
And all because our eyes had met for one long instant the evening before and hinted at something in the unspoken language of young people the world over.
The arrival of Jimmie Welch with a very robust appetite helped things a good deal, and we were presently ourselves again. After breakfast Miss Wallace went to relieve her aunt at the bedside of the wounded carpenter while I mounted to the bridge to take Blythe's place, Tom doing the same for Alderson.
It struck me as a piece of grim satire that I should be ringing orders down to the men in the engine room with whom a few hours before we had been battling for life, and probably soon would be again.
It was beyond doubt that we would have to measure strength with them a second time. Bothwell would never let us run into port at Panama if he could help it. The men were probably not anxious for another brush after the drubbing they had received, but the situation forced their hands. They must either take the ship or let us give them up to the authorities as mutineers.
My opinion is that if Bothwell had not been recognized by Jimmie he would have waited until we were actually on the treasure ground, and perhaps even until we had lifted it.
From the sounds that came forward to us from the forecastle it was plain that the enemy were drinking pretty steadily. More than once I saw an empty bottle flung through a porthole into the sea. Occasionally some one appeared on the deck aft, and from the drunken shouts bawled up and down the hatchway the condition of the crew could be guessed.