Kitabı oku: «Tessa», sayfa 2
She sighed softly to herself, and then looking up suddenly saw the kindly-faced mate regarding her with a smile in his honest grey eyes, for she was answering his questions at random, and he guessed that her thoughts were with the sick trader.
As soon as she was out of hearing Carr spoke hurriedly, for he every moment expected to see either Chard or the captain appear on deck.
“Jack,” he said, speaking in the familiar manner borne out of their past comradeship, “you know that I would do anything for you, don’t you? But while I shall take good care of Tessa, I would rather she was going back home to Ponapé by any other ship than the Motutapu.”
“What is wrong with the ship, Harvey?”
“Nothing. But the captain and supercargo are a pair of unmitigated scoundrels. I have seen a good deal of them since I came on board at New Britain, and I hate the idea of Tessa even having to sit at the same table with them. If I were free of this cursed fever, I wouldn’t mind a bit, for I could protect her. But I’m no better than a helpless cripple most of the time, and one or the other, or both, of these fellows are bound to insult her, especially if they begin drinking.”
Old Remington put his hand on Carr’s shoulder. “You’re a good boy, Harvey, and I know what you say of Chard at least, is true But have no fear for Tessa. She can take good care of herself at any time, and I have no fear for her. Just let me call her for a moment.”
“Tessa,” he called, “come here.” Then speaking in Portuguese, he added, “Show Harvey what you have in the bosom of your dress.”
The girl smiled a little wonderingly, and then putting her hand in the bosom of her yellow silk blouse, drew out a small Smith and Wesson revolver.
“Don’t worry about Tessa, Harvey,” added her father; “she has not travelled around the Pacific with me for nothing, and if either that rat-faced Danish skipper or the fat supercargo meddles with her, she will do what I would do. So have no fear. And she is as anxious as I am myself to get home to her mother.”
Harvey was satisfied. “Perhaps I am doing these two fellows an injustice, Jack. When a man has fever he always takes a black view of everything. And then I should remember that Malua here, and the mate, and nearly all the crew, will see that Tessa is not interfered with. I am sorry, however, that I shall not be with Tessa all the way to Ponapé—I am going ashore at the Mortlocks. There is a good opening there–”
“Don’t be in too much of a hurry, Harvey. Now, listen to me. Go on to Ponapé. Leave this employ, and come in with me again.”
Harvey promised to think it over during the next few days; but the old man could see, to his regret, that the Mortlocks group of islands possessed a strong fascination for his young friend.
Remington remained on board for the night; and then at daylight he bade Tessa and Harvey farewell and went ashore, and half an hour later the steamer had left the island, and was heading north-west for the Carolines.
CHAPTER III
Five days out from Drummond’s Island Carr had so much improved in health that he was able to take his seat at the saloon table for breakfast, much to the annoyance of Chard, who had been making the best of his time in trying to produce a favourable impression upon Tessa Remington. He pretended, however, to be delighted to see the trader mending so rapidly, and was most effusive in his congratulations; and Hendry, of course, followed suit. Harvey responded civilly enough, while Tessa, who had learned from the chief mate of the treacherous part they were playing towards her friend, could not repress a scornful curl of her lip as she listened to Chard’s jocular admonition to Harvey, “to hurry up and put on some flesh, if only for the reputation of the cook of the Motutapu.”
Immediately after breakfast Carr went on deck again, and began to pace to and fro, enjoying the bright tropic sunshine and the cool breath of the trade wind. In a few minutes Tessa, accompanied by her native woman servant, appeared, followed by Chard and Captain Hendry.
“Won’t you come on the bridge, Miss Remington?” said Chard, “I’ll take a chair up for you.”
“No, thank you,” she replied, “I would rather sit here under the awning.”
The supercargo and Hendry went up on the bridge together, where they could talk freely. The man at the wheel was a thick-set, rather stupid-looking native from Niué (Savage Island), who took no notice of their remarks, or at least appeared not to do so. But Huka was not such a fool as he looked.
“You’ll stand little chance with her,” said Hendry presently, in his usual low but sneering tones as he tugged viciously at his beard.
The supercargo’s black eyes contracted, “Wait and see, before you talk. I tell you that I mean to make that girl marry me.”
“Marry you!”
“Yes, marry me. The old man will leave her pretty well everything he has, and he has a lot. I’ve been making inquiries, and am quite satisfied.”
“How are you going to do it?”
“Don’t know just yet. Must think it out. But I never yet knew the woman whom I could not work my own way with—by fair means or foul, as the penny novelists say.”
“It strikes me that she likes that damned fellow. Look round presently and see for yourself. She’s reading to him.”
“Bah! That’s nothing. He used to sail one of the old man’s schooners, and of course they have a good deal to talk about. I’ll settle him as far as she is concerned. Wait till I get a chance to talk to her a bit,” and taking off his cap the supercargo passed his brawny hand through his curly hair with a smile of satisfaction. “She’ll be tired of talking to him before the day is out.”
“Where is he going to land? Has he told you?”
“Yes. He wants to be put ashore at the Mortlocks Islands. We have no trader there, and he has lived there before.”
“I’d like to see him go over the side in some new canvas, with a couple of fire bars slung to his heels,” snarled Hendry viciously.
“So would I,” said Chard meditatively.
At four bells the wheel was relieved, and Huka the Niué native trotted off, and immediately sent a message to Carr’s servant Malua to come for’ard. The boy did as requested, and remained away for about ten minutes. When he returned he seated himself as usual near his master. Hendry was in his cabin on deck, Chard was below in the trade room, and only Tessa, Harvey, and himself were on the after-deck.
“Master,” he said in Fijian, to Harvey, “listen to what Huka, the man of Niué, has told me. The captain and the supercargo have been talking about thee and the lady.” Then he repeated all that which Huka had heard.
“The infernal scoundrels!” Harvey could not help exclaiming. “But they won’t get rid of me as easily as they think.”
“What is it, Harvey?” asked Tessa, anxiously bending forward to him.
The trader thought a moment or two before speaking. Then he decided to tell her what he had just heard.
She laughed contemptuously. “His wife! His wife!” she repeated scornfully. “If he knew what my father knows of him, and how I hate and despise him, he would not have said that. Does he think that because my mother was a Portuguese, I am no better than some native slave girl whom he could buy from her master?”
Harvey smiled gravely as he looked into her flashing eyes, and saw her clench her hands angrily. Then he said—
“He is a dangerous man though, Tessa. And now listen to me. When I came on board this steamer I intended to land at the Mortlocks Islands. But I think now that I will go on to Ponapé.”
“Do not change your plans, Harvey, on my account. I am not afraid of this man. He dare not insult me, for fear my father would hear of it.”
“I know him too well, Tessa. He and the skipper are, I fear, a pair of cunning, treacherous villains. And so I am going on to Ponapé. And I will stay there until your father returns. I daresay,” he added with a smile, “that he will give me a berth as a trader somewhere.”
A sudden joy illumined the girl’s face. “I am so glad, Harvey. And mother, too, will be overjoyed to see you again; father has never ceased to talk about you since you left him. Oh, Harvey, we shall have all the old, old delightful days over again. But,” she added artlessly, “there will be but you and I now to go fishing and shooting together. Carmela and her husband are living in the Ladrones, and Librada and her husband, though they are still on Ponapé, are ten miles away from mother and I. Then Jack is in California, and Ned is away on a whaling cruise.”
A quick emotion stirred his bosom as he looked into her now joyous face. “I don’t think you and I can go out shooting and fishing together, Tessa, as we did in what you call ‘the old, old days.’”
“Can’t we, Harvey?” she asked wonderingly.
He shook his head, and then mused.
“Tessa, I wish you could meet my sisters.”
She clasped her hands together. “Ah, so do I, Harvey. I should love to meet them. Do you think they would like me?”
“I am sure they would.”
They were silent for a while, the girl with her head bent and her long lashes hiding her eyes from him as she sat in the deck-chair, and he thinking of what his sisters would really say if he wrote and told them that he thought he had at last found a woman he would wish to make his wife.
“Tessa.”
“Yes, Harvey.”
She did not look at him, only bent her head still lower.
“Tessa!”
“Yes, Harvey.”
Her hands were trembling, and her courage was gone, for there was something in his voice that filled her with delight.
“Tessa,” he said, speaking softly, as he drew nearer to her, and tried to make her look at him; “do you know that you are a very beautiful woman?”
“I am glad you think so, Harvey,” she whispered. “You used to tell father that Carmela and Librada were the most beautiful women you had ever seen.”
“So they were. But you are quite as beautiful. And, Tessa–”
“Yes, Harvey”—this in the faintest whisper.
“Could you care for me at all, Tessa? I do not mean as a friend. I am only a poor trader, but if I thought you could love-me, I–”
She took a quick glance around the deck, and bent towards him. “I have always loved you, Harvey; always, always.” Then she pressed her lips to his, and in another moment was gone.
Harvey, with a sense of elation in his heart, walked for’ard to where Morrison was standing in the waist.
“Why, man, ye look as if ye could take the best man aboard on for four rounds,” said the engineer, with a smile.
“I do feel pretty fit, Morrison,” laughed the trader; “have you anything to drink in your cabin?”
“Some real Loch Dhu, not made in Sydney. Man, your eye is as bright as a boy’s.”
Just before eight bells were struck Chard came on deck. He was carefully dressed in shining, well-starched white duck, and his dark, coarsely-handsome face was aglow with satisfaction; he meant to “rub it in” to Carr, and was only awaiting till Tessa Remington and Captain Hendry were present to hear him do it. He knew she would be on deck in a minute or so, and Hendry he could see was sitting at his cabin table with his chart before him. Harvey was strolling about on the main deck, smoking his first pipe for many weeks.
Presently Tessa appeared with her woman attendant. She, too, had dressed in white, and for the time had discarded the wide Panama hat she usually wore. Her face was radiant with happiness as she took the deck-chair which Chard brought, and disposed herself comfortably, book in hand. She had seen Harvey on the main deck, and knew she would at least have him with her for a few minutes before dinner.
Hendry stepped out from his cabin.
“Ha, Miss Remington. You give an atmosphere of coolness to the whole ship. Mr. Chard, big as he is, is only a minor reflection of your dazzling whiteness.”
“Thank you, Captain Hendry. I am quite sure that my father will be astonished to learn that I have been paid so many compliments on board the Motutapu. Had he known that you and Mr. Chard were such flatterers he would not have let me come away.”
Neither Chard nor Hendry could detect the ring of mockery in her tones. They drew their chairs up near to that in which she was sitting and lit their cigars, and she, impatient for Harvey, talked and laughed with them, and wished them far away. Less than two hours before she had felt an intense hatred of them, now she had but a quiet contempt for both the handsome, “good-natured” supercargo and his sneaking, grey-bearded jackal.
Eight bells struck, and presently Carr ascended the poop deck, took in the little group on the starboard side of the skylight, and went over to his own lounge, beside which his watchful servant was seated. He knew that Tessa would be alone in a few minutes, and he was quite satisfied to wait till Chard and the Dane left her free.
He lay back in the lounge, and lazily conversed with Malua. Then Chard, who had been watching him keenly, rose from his seat.
“Pray excuse me for a few minutes, Miss Remington. Even your charming society must not make me forget business.”
He spoke so loudly that Carr could not fail to hear him, but he was quite prepared, and indeed had been on the alert.
Chard walked up to within a few feet of the trader.
“I want you to come below, Mr. Carr, and pick out your trade goods for the Mortlocks.”
Harvey leant back in his lounge. “I don’t think I shall require any goods for the Mortlocks Islands, Mr. Chard.”
“What do you mean?” and Chard’s face flushed with anger.
“I mean exactly what I say,” replied Carr nonchalantly. “I say that I shall not want any trade goods for the Mortlocks Islands. I have decided not to take another station from the firm of Hillingdon and McFreeland. I have had enough of them—and enough of you.”
Chard took a threatening step towards him.
“Stand back, Mr. Chard. I am not a man to be threatened.”
Something in his eyes warned the supercargo, whose temper, however, was rapidly taking possession of him.
“Very well, Mr. Carr,” he said sneeringly; “do I understand you to say that you refuse to continue your engagement with our firm?”
“I do refuse.”
“Then, by God, I’ll dump you ashore at the first island we sight. The firm will be glad to be rid of you.”
“I don’t doubt the latter part of your assertion; but their satisfaction will be nothing to equal mine,” he said with cutting irony. “But you’ll not ‘dump’ me ashore anywhere. I am going to land at Ponapé, and nowhere else.”
Again Chard took a step nearer, his face purpling with rage; and then, as Hendry came to his side with scowling eyes, Tessa quickly slipped past them, and stood near her lover.
“You’ll land at Ponapé, will you?” sneered the supercargo, “It’s lucky for you we are not in port now, for I’d kick you ashore right-away.”
The insult had the desired effect, for, weak as he was, Harvey sprang forward and struck Chard full upon the mouth, but almost at the same moment the captain, who had quietly possessed himself of a brass belaying-pin, dealt him a blow on the back of the neck which felled him to the deck, and then bending on one knee, he would have repeated the blow on Harvey’s upturned face, when Tessa sprang at him like a tigress, and struck him again and again on the temple with her revolver. He fell back, bleeding and half stunned.
“You cowards—you pair of miserable curs!” she cried to Chard, who was standing with his handkerchief to his lips, glaring savagely at the prostrate figure of Harvey. “Stand back,” and she covered him with her weapon, as he made a step towards her, “stand back, or I will shoot you dead.” Then as the second mate, Huka, and another native appeared on the poop, she sank on her knees beside Harvey, and called for water.
Hendry, whose face was streaming with blood, though he was but little hurt, rose to his feet and addressed the second mate.
“Mr. Atkins, put that man in irons,” and he pointed to Harvey, who was now sitting up, with Tessa holding a glass of water to his lips.
The second mate eyed his captain sullenly. “He is scarcely conscious yet, sir.”
“Do you refuse to obey me? Quick, answer me. Where is the mate? Mr. Chard, I call on you to support my authority.”
Harvey looked at the second mate, whose features were working curiously. He rose and pressed Tessa’s hand.
“You must obey him, Atkins,” he said. “If you don’t he’ll break you. He’s a spiteful hound.”
Atkins, with a sorrowful face, went to his cabin and returned with a pair of handcuffs, just as the chief officer appeared. As he stepped on the poop he was followed by half-a-dozen of the native crew, who advanced towards Hendry and the supercargo with threatening glances.
“Go for’ard, you swine!” shouted Chard, who saw that they meant a rescue. He darted into Hendry’s cabin, and reappeared with the captain’s revolvers, one of which he handed to him.
Harvey looked contemptuously at the supercargo, then turning to the natives he spoke to them in Samoan, and earnestly besought them to go for’ard, telling them of the penalties they would suffer if they disputed the captain’s authority. They obeyed him with reluctance, and left the poop. Then he held out his hands to the second mate, who snapped the handcuffs on his wrists.
“Take him to the for’ard deck-house,” snarled Hendry viciously.
“I protest against this, sir,” said Oliver respectfully. “I beg of you to beware of what you are doing.”
Hendry gave him a furious glance, but his rage choked his utterance.
Tessa Remington followed the prisoner to the break of the poop and whispered to him ere he descended the ladder. He nodded and smiled. Then she turned and faced Chard and the captain.
“Perhaps you would like to put me in irons too, gentlemen,” she said mockingly. “I am not very strong, though stronger than Mr. Carr has been for many months.”
The captain eyed her with sudden malevolence; Chard, bully as he was, with a secret admiration as she stood before them, still holding her revolver in her hand. She faced them in an attitude of defiance for a second or two, and then with a scornful laugh swept by them and went below to her cabin.
CHAPTER IV
At six o’clock that evening the Motutapu was plunging into a heavy head sea, for the wind had suddenly hauled round to the northeast and raised a mountainous swell. Chard and his jackal were seated in the latter’s cabin on deck. A half-emptied bottle of brandy was on the table, and both men’s faces were flushed with drink, for this was the second bottle since noon. Hendry did not present a pleasant appearance, for Tessa’s pistol had cut deeply into his thin, tough face, which was liberally adorned with strips of plaster. The liquor he had taken had also turned his naturally red face into a purple hue, and his steely blue eyes seemed to have dilated to twice their size, as he listened with venomous interest to Chard. “Now, look here, Louis,” said the latter, “both you and I want to get even with him, don’t we?”
It was only when the supercargo was planning some especial piece of villainy that he addressed his confrere by his Christian name. Secretly he despised him as a “damned Dutchman,” to his face he flattered him; for he was a useful and willing tool, and during the three or four years they had sailed together had materially assisted the “good-natured, jovial” supercargo in his course of steady peculation. Yet neither trusted the other.
“You bet I do,” replied Hendry; “but I’d like to get even with that spiteful little half-bred Portuguese devil–”
“Steady, Louis, steady,” said Chard, with a half-drunken leer; “you must remember that she is to be Mrs. Samuel Chard.”
“Don’t think you have the ghost of a chance, as I said before. She’s in love with that fellow.”
“Then she must get out of love with him. I tell you, Louis”—here he struck his fist on the table—“that I mean to make her marry me. And she’ll be glad to marry me before we get to Ponapé. And if you stick to me and help to pull me through, it’s a hundred quid for you.”
“How are you going to do it?” and the captain bent forward his foxy face and grinned in anticipation.
“Same old way as with that Raratongan girl last year. She’ll go to sleep after supper, and I can open any door in the saloon, as you know, don’t you, old man?” and he laughed coarsely. “Dear, dear, what times we have had together, Louis, my esteemed churchwarden of Darling Point, Sydney!”
The Dane tugged at his beard, and then poured out some brandy for himself and his fellow scoundrel. “We have, we have, Sam,” he said, uneasily. “But what about the native woman who sleeps with her?”
“The native woman, when she awakes, my Christian friend, will find herself in the trade-room in the company of Mr. Tim Donnelly, one of the firemen. And Mr. Tim Donnelly, to whom I have given two sovereigns, will bear me out, if necessary, that ‘the woman tempted him, and he did fall.’ Also he will be prepared to swear that this native woman, Maoni, told him that her mistress expected a visit from Mr. Chard, and had asked her to be out of the way.”
“Well, after that.”
“After that, my dear Christian friend, with the rudely executed diagrams in sticking-plaster on the facial cuticle, my pious churchwarden with the large family of interesting girls—after that, Miss Tessa Remington will be glad to marry Mr. Samuel Chard, inasmuch as when she awakes it will be under the same improper conditions as those of the dissolute Tim Donnelly and the flighty Miss Maoni; for the beauteous Tessa will be fortuitously discovered by Captain Louis Hendry and several other persons on board, in such circumstances that an immediate marriage of the indiscreet lovers by one of the American missionaries at Ponapé will present the only solution of what would otherwise be a ‘terrible scandal.’”
“And what will you do with this fellow Carr?”
“Chuck him ashore at the Mortlocks,” replied Chard with an oath; “we’ll be there in a couple of days, and I’ll kick him over the side if he turns rusty. Hillingdon doesn’t like him, so we are quite safe.”
“When is the love-making to come off?” asked Hendry, with a fiend-like grin.
“As soon as we are clear of Carr—or sooner; to-night maybe. We must log it that he was continually trying to cause the native crew to mutiny, and that for the safety of the ship we got rid of him. Hillingdon will back us up.”
Tessa did not appear at supper. She kept to her cabin with Maoni, her dear Maoni, who, though but little older than herself, was as a mother to her; for the native girl had been brought up with her and her sisters from their infancy. And as Tessa lay back with her dark head pillowed against the bosom of the native girl, and sobbed as she thought of her lover lying in the deck-house with the handcuffs on his wrists, Maoni pressed her lips to those of her mistress.
“Lie there, little one, lay thy head on my bosom,” she said; “‘tis a bad day for thee, but yet all will be well soon. These sailor men with the brown skins will not let thy lover be hurt. That much do I know already. Speak but one word, and the captain and the big fat man with the black eyes will be dead men.”
Tessa smiled through her tears. “Nay, Maoni, that must not be; I desire no man’s death. But yet if he be not set free to-morrow trouble will come of it, for he hath done nothing wrong; and the brown men, as thou sayest, have a strong friendship for him.”
“He shall be set free to-morrow,” said Maoni, with quiet emphasis. “The brown sailor men have talked together over this thing, and they say that they are ready at thy word to make captive the captain, the big fat man, and all those white men who tend the great fires in the belly of the ship.”
Tessa knew that the half-dozen of white firemen and stokers were on bad terms with the native crew. They were a ruffianly, drunken set of scoundrels, and their leader, a powerfully built man named Donnelly, had grossly insulted both the first and second mates. He was an especial protégé of the supercargo, who, as well as the captain, secretly encouraged him and his fellows to annoy and exasperate the two officers and the chief engineer.
They remained in their cabin talking together in low tones and without a light till they heard eight bells strike; and ten minutes afterwards, just as they were going on deck, some one tapped at the cabin door.
“It is me, Miss Remington,” said the voice of Oliver; “please let me come in for a moment. Be quick, please, as I don’t want the captain to know I am here.”
Tessa at once opened the door. “Come in Mr. Oliver. But we have no light.”
“Never mind that, miss,” he said in a low voice, carefully closing the door and then bolting it, “I cannot stay long. I came to warn you that there is likely to be trouble tonight about Mr. Carr, and you had better not come on deck. Keep to your cabin, and don’t open your door to any one except myself, the second mate, or the steward. The native crew are in a dangerous state of excitement, and I am sure they will attempt to liberate Mr. Carr before morning. Both the captain and Chard are more than half-drunk; and the chief engineer tells me that for some reason they have given liquor to the firemen and stokers, who have set him at defiance. I fear, I fear greatly, miss, that some calamity may occur on board this ship to-night. Therefore I beg of you to keep to your cabin.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Oliver. We certainly did intend to go on deck and remain some hours, but shall not do so now. But tell me, please, have you seen Mr. Carr? Is he well?”
“Quite well. I saw him a few minutes ago, and he bade me tell you to have no fear for him. I am now again going to Captain Hendry to ask him, for his own and the ship’s safety, to set Mr. Carr free. If he refuses I cannot say what will happen.”
Tessa put her little hand upon the mate’s huge, rough paw, and looked into his honest, troubled eyes through the darkness.
“It is good of you,” she whispered. “Oh, do try, Mr. Oliver, try your best to make the captain set him at liberty.”
“Indeed I will, miss,” replied the mate earnestly, as he pressed her hand, and went softly out into the main cabin. He stood by the table for a minute or two, thinking with wrinkled brow of the best way to approach the captain and bring him to reason. Presently he sat down, took his pipe from his pocket, filled it, and began to smoke.
A heavy step sounded on the companion steps, and Chard descended somewhat unsteadily, and calling for the second steward—who was in the pantry—to come to him, brushed past the chief officer, and went into his own cabin.
The second steward—a dirty, evil-faced little cockney named Jessop, whom Oliver and his fellow officers particularly abhorred—at once followed the supercargo in to his cabin, which was immediately closed. In less than five minutes it opened again, and Jessop came out and returned to the pantry, and presently Oliver heard the rattle of cups and saucers as the man made preparations for the coffee which was always served to Hendry, Chard, Carr, and Tessa and her attendant, and the officer on watch at nine o’clock every evening.
“Would you like a cup of coffee, sir, as you have not turned in?”
It was Jessop who was speaking, and Oliver looked up in some wonder, for the man knew that he disliked him, and indeed he (Oliver) had once smartly cuffed him for creating a disturbance for’ard with the native crew.
Most fortunately for himself, Oliver did not want any coffee, so merely giving the man a gruff “No, thank you,” he rose and went on deck.
The moment he was out of the cabin Chard appeared, and looked inquiringly at the second steward.
“‘E won’t ‘ave any, blarst him!” said the man, speaking in a whisper, for Latour, the chief steward, was in his cabin, which was abreast the trade-room.
Chard uttered a curse. “Never mind him, then. Sling it out of the port or you’ll be giving it to me instead perhaps. Are the other two cups ready?”
The man nodded. “All ready, but it’s a bit early yet.”
“That doesn’t matter. Pour it out and take it to them—the sooner the better.”
Chard, whose dark face was deeply flushed, sat down at the table, lit a cigar, and watched his villainous accomplice place the two cups of coffee with some biscuits on a tray, take it to Miss Remington’s door and knock.
“Coffee, ma’am.”
“Thank you, steward,” he heard Tessa’s soft voice reply as Maoni opened the door and took the tray from Jessop.
The supercargo rose from his seat with a smile of satisfaction. The crime he meditated seemed no crime to his base and vicious heart. He merely regarded it as a clever trick; dangerous perhaps, but not dangerous to him; for deeply steeped as he was in numerous villainies he had never yet been called to account for any one of his misdeeds, and long immunity had rendered him utterly hardened and callous to any sentiment of pity or remorse.
He went on deck and walked leisurely for’ard till he came abreast of the funnel. A big swarthy-faced man who was standing near the ash-hoist was awaiting him.
“Are you sober enough, Tim, not to make any mistakes?” asked Chard, leaning forward and looking eagerly into the man’s face.
“Just as sober as you are,” was the reply, given with insolent familiarity. “I’ve kept my head pretty clear, as clear as yours and the skipper’s, anyway.”
The two conversed for a few minutes, and then separated, the supercargo going up on the bridge to join his jackal. Half-way up the ladder he heard the sound of angry voices. Hendry was quarrelling with his chief officer.
“Go and keep your watch below,” said the captain furiously, his bloodshot eyes glaring fiercely upon the mate. “I tell you that I’ll keep the beggar in irons till he rots in them, or until Mr. Chard kicks him ashore.”
“Very well, sir,” said Oliver quietly, placing his hand on the bridge rail to steady himself, for the Motutapu was now plunging and labouring in the heavy head sea, and Hendry was staggering about all over the bridge—“very well. But I call on Mr. Atkins here to witness that I now tell you that you are putting the ship into great danger.”
“Say another word to me, and by God I’ll put you with your friend Carr to keep him company!” shouted Hendry, who had now completely lost control of himself.
Oliver smiled contemptuously, but made no answer. He at once descended the bridge, and in the starboard alleyway met the chief engineer.
