“Why on earth did you enter the harbor?” he heard the newcomer exclaim as he swung his leg over the rail. Phil recognized the decidedly foreign accents of Klinger’s voice.
“Aha!” Phil thought. “Not so innocent after all.”
Scott answered the question in a strange tongue, and Phil saw Klinger glance quickly in his direction.
Phil’s eye as he attentively listened had been fixed upon the compass binnacle near him. He noted a bar of iron jammed closely against it and apparently tied in that position.
“Queer manner of correcting a compass,” he thought.
The two men at the gangway continued to talk. Phil recognized the language to be Kapuan, of which he could not understand a word.
“To-morrow morning, then, I shall be ashore,” Captain Scott said finally in English. “When will my cargo be ready?”
“It’s ready now at the plantations,” Klinger answered also in English. “You’ve got to go for it.” Then he lapsed again into Kapuan. After a few more minutes the man again climbed down the schooner’s side and into his boat, then Captain Scott walked aft to join Phil, while Klinger’s boat pulled swiftly toward the shore.
“I’m under contract with the Kapuan firm,” Captain Scott said pleasantly. “That was the manager, Klinger. He is a very disagreeable fellow, and I shall be glad to finish my business with him and be off.”
Phil saw there could be nothing further learned from Captain Scott, yet he was firmly convinced from Klinger’s remark that something had miscarried. There were a number of questions, however, usual in boarding an arriving vessel, which he proceeded to ask the captain.