Читать книгу A Certain Dr. Thorndyke - Richard Austin Freeman - Страница 7

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For a man in search of quiet and retirement, the village of Adaffia would seem to be an ideally eligible spot; especially if the man in question should happen to be under a rather heavy cloud. Situated in a little-frequented part of the Slave Coast, many miles distant from any town or settlement where white men had their abodes, it offered a haven of security to the Ishmaelite if it offered little else.

Thus reflected John Osmond, late John Walker, and now “Mr. James Cook,” if the need for a surname should arise. But hitherto it had not arisen; for, to the natives, he was simply “the white man” or “mastah,” and no other European had passed along the coast since the day on which he had buried Larkom—and his own identity—and entered into his inheritance.

He reviewed the short interval with its tale of eventless and monotonous days as he sat smoking a thoughtful pipe in the shady coco-nut grove that encompassed the hamlet, letting his thoughts travel back anon to a more distant and eventful past, and all the while keeping an attentive eye on a shabby-looking brigantine that was creeping up from the south. It was not, perhaps, a very thrilling spectacle, but yet Osmond watched the approaching vessel with lively interest. For though, on that deserted coast, ships may be seen to pass up and down on the rim of the horizon, two or three, perhaps, in a month, this was the first vessel that had headed for the land since the day on which he had become the owner of the factory and the sole representative of European civilization in Adaffia. It was natural, then, that he should watch her with interest and curiosity, not only as a visitor from the world which he had left, but as one with which he was personally concerned; for if her people had business ashore, that business was pretty certainly with him.

At a distance of about a mile and a half from the shore the brigantine luffed up, fired a gun, hoisted a dirty red ensign, let go her anchor, scandalized her mainsail, lowered her head-sails, and roughly clewed up the square-sails. A fishing canoe, which had paddled out to meet her, ran alongside and presently returned shoreward with a couple of white men on board. And still Osmond made no move. Business considerations should have led him to go down to the beach and meet the white men, since they were almost certainly bound for his factory; but other considerations restrained him. The fewer white men that he met, the safer he would be; for, to the Ishmaelite, every stranger is a possible enemy, or, worse still, a possible acquaintance. And then, although he felt no distaste for the ordinary trade with the natives, he did not much fancy himself standing behind a counter selling gin and tobacco to a party of British shell-backs. So he loitered under the coco-nuts and determined to leave the business transactions to his native assistant, Kwaku Mensah.

The canoe landed safely through the surf; the two white men stepped ashore and disappeared towards the village. Osmond refilled his pipe and walked a little farther away. Presently a file of natives appeared moving towards the shore, each carrying on his head a green-painted gin-case. Osmond counted them—there were six in all—and watched them stow the cases in the canoe. Then, suddenly, the two white men appeared, running furiously. They made straight for the canoe and jumped in; the canoe men pushed off and the little craft began to wriggle its way cautiously through the surf. And at this moment another figure made its appearance on the beach and began to make unmistakable demonstrations of hostility to the receding canoe.

Now, a man who wears a scarlet flannelette coat, green cotton trousers, yellow carpet slippers, and a gold-laced smoking-cap is not difficult to identify even at some little distance. Osmond instantly recognized his assistant and strode away to make inquiries.

There was no need to ask what was the matter. As Osmond crossed the stretch of blown sand that lay between the palm-grove and the beach, his retainer came running towards him, flourishing his arms wildly and fairly gibbering with excitement.

“Dem sailor man, sah!” he gasped, when he had come within earshot, “he dam tief, sah! He tief six case gin!”

“Do you mean that those fellows didn’t pay for that gin?” Osmond demanded.

“No, sah. No pay nutting. Dey send de case down for beach and dey tell me find some country cloth. I go into store to look dem cloth, den dey run away for deir canoe. Dey no pay nutting.”

“Very well, Mensah. We’ll go on board and collect the money or bring back the gin. Can you get a canoe?”

“All canoe go out fishing excepting dat one,” said Mensah.

“Then we must wait for that one to come back,” was the reply; and Osmond seated himself on the edge of dry sand that overhung the beach and fixed a steady gaze on the dwindling canoe. Mensah sat down likewise and glanced dubiously at his grim-faced employer; but whatever doubts he had as to the wisdom of the proposed expedition, he kept them to himself. For John Osmond—like Father O’Flynn—had a “wonderful way with him”; a way that induced unruly intruders to leave the compound hurriedly and rub themselves a good deal when they got outside. So Mensah kept his own counsel.

The canoe ran alongside the brigantine, and, having discharged its passengers and freight, put off for its return shorewards. Then a new phase in the proceedings began. The brigantine’s head-sails, which lay loose on the jib-boom, began to slide up the stays; the untidy bunches of canvas aloft began to flatten out to the pull of the sheets. The brigantine, in fact, was preparing to get under way. But it was all done in a very leisurely fashion; so deliberately that the last of the square-sails was barely sheeted home when the canoe grounded on the beach.

Osmond wasted no time. While Mensah was giving the necessary explanations, he set his shoulder to the peak of the canoe and shoved her round head to sea, regardless of the cloud of spray that burst over him. The canoe-men were nothing loath, for the African is keenly appreciative of a humorous situation. Moreover, they had some experience of the white man’s peculiar methods of persuasion and felt a natural desire to see them exercised on persons of his own colour—especially as those persons had been none too civil. Accordingly they pushed off gleefully and plunged once more into the breakers, digging their massive, trident-shaped paddles into the water to the accompaniment of those uncanny hisses, groans, and snatches of song with which the African canoe-man sweetens his labour.

Meanwhile their passenger sat in the bow of the canoe, wiping the sea water from his face and fixing a baleful glance on the brigantine, as she wallowed drunkenly on the heavy swell. Slowly the tack of the mainsail descended, and then, to a series of squeaks from the halyard-blocks, the peak of the sail rose by slow jerks. The canoe bounded forward over the great rollers, the hull of the vessel rose and began to loom large above the waters, and Osmond had just read the name “Speedwell, Bristol” on her broad counter, when his ear caught a new sound—the “clink, clink” of the windlass-pawl. The anchor was being hove up.

But the canoe-men had heard the sound, too, and, with a loud groan, dug their paddles into the water with furious energy. The canoe shot forward under the swaying counter and swept alongside, the brigantine rolled over as if she would annihilate the little craft, and Osmond, grasping a chain-plate, swung himself up into the channel, whence he climbed to the bulwark rail and dropped down on the deck.

The windlass was manned by six of the crew, who bobbed up and down slowly at the ends of the long levers; a seventh man was seated on the deck, with one of the gin cases open before him, in the act of uncorking a bottle. The other five cases were ranged along by the bulwark.

“Good afternoon,” said Osmond, whose arrival had been unnoticed by the preoccupied crew; “you forgot to pay for that gin.”

The seated man looked up with a start, first at Osmond and then at Mensah, who now sat astride the rail in a strategic position that admitted of advance or retreat as circumstances might suggest. The clink of the windlass ceased, and the six men came sauntering aft with expectant grins.

“What are you doin’ aboard this ship?” demanded the first man.

“I’ve come to collect my dues,” replied Osmond.

“Have yer?” said the sailor. “You’ll be the factory bug, I reckon?”

“I’m the owner of that gin.”

“Now that’s where you make a mistake, young feller. I’m the owner of this here gin.”

“Then you’ve got to pay me one pound four.”

The sailor set the bottle down on the deck and rose to his feet.

“Look here, young feller,” said he, “I’m goin’ to give you a valuable tip—gratis. You git overboard. Sharp. D’ye hear?”

“I want one pound four,” said Osmond, in a misleadingly quiet tone.

“Pitch ’im overboard, Dhoody,” one of the other sailors counselled. “Send ’im for a swim, mate.”

“I’m a-goin’ to,” said Dhoody, “if he don’t clear out.”; and he began to advance, crabwise, across the deck in the manner of a wrestler attacking.

Osmond stood motionless in a characteristic attitude, with his long legs wide apart, his hands clasped behind him, his gaunt shoulders hunched up, and his chin thrust forward, swaying regularly to the heave of the deck, and with his grim, hatchet face turned impassively towards his adversary, presented a decidedly uninviting aspect. Perhaps Dhoody appreciated this fact; at any rate, he advanced with an ostentatious show of strategy and much intimidating air-clawing. But he made a bad choice of the moment for the actual attack, for he elected to rush in just as the farther side of the deck was rising. In an instant Osmond’s statuesque immobility changed to bewilderingly rapid movement. There was a resounding “Smack, smack”; Dhoody flew backwards, capsizing two men behind him, staggered down the sloping deck, closely followed by Osmond (executing a continuous series of “postman’s knocks” on the Dhoodian countenance), and finally fell sprawling in the scuppers, with his head jammed against a stanchion. The two capsized men scrambled to their feet, and, with their four comrades, closed in on Osmond with evidently hostile intentions. But the latter did not wait to be attacked. Acting on the advice of the Duke of Wellington—whom, by the way, he somewhat resembled in appearance—to “hit first and keep on hitting,” he charged the group of seamen like an extremely self-possessed bull, hammering right and left, regardless of the unskilful thumps that he got in return, and gradually drove them, bewildered by his extraordinary quickness and the weight of his well-directed blows, through the space between the foremast and the bulwark. Slowly they backed away before his continuous battering, hitting out at him ineffectively, hampered by their numbers and the confined space, until one man, who had had the bad luck to catch two upper cuts in succession, uttered a howl of rage and whipped out his sheath-knife. Osmond’s quick eye caught the dull glint of the steel just as he was passing the fife-rail. Instantly he whisked out an unoccupied iron belaying-pin, whirled it over and brought it down on the man’s head. The fellow dropped like a pole-axed ox, and as the belaying-pin rose aloft once more, the other five men sprang back out of range.

How the combat might have ended under other circumstances it is impossible to say. Dhoody had disappeared—with a bloody scalp and an obliterated eye; the man with the knife lay unconscious on the deck with a little red pool collecting by his head; the other five men had scattered and were hastily searching for weapons and missiles, so far as was possible with this bloodthirsty Bedlamite of a “factory bug” flying up and down the deck flourishing a belaying-pin. Their principal occupation, in fact, was in keeping out of reach; and they did not always succeed.

Suddenly a shot rang out. A little cloud of splinters flew from the side of the mainmast, and the five seamen ducked simultaneously. Glancing quickly forward, Osmond beheld his late antagonist, Dhoody, emerging from the forecastle hatch and taking aim at him with a still smoking revolver. Now, the “factory bug” was a pugnacious man and perhaps over-confident, too. But he had some idea of his limitations. You can’t walk up twenty yards of deck to punch the head of a man who is covering you with a revolver. At the moment, Osmond was abreast of the uncovered main hatch. A passing glance had shown him a tier of kernel bags covering the floor of the hold. Without a moment’s hesitation he stooped with his hands on the coaming, and, vaulting over, dropped plump on the bags, and then, picking himself up, scrambled forward under the shelter of the deck.

The hold of the Speedwell, like that of most vessels of her class, was a simple cavity, extending from the forecastle bulkhead to that of the after-cabin. Of this the forward part still contained a portion of the outward cargo, while the homeward lading was stowed abaft the main hatch. But the hold was two-thirds empty and afforded plenty of room to move about.

Osmond took up a position behind some bales of Manchester goods and waited for the next move on the part of the enemy. He had not long to wait. Voices from above told him that the crew had gathered round the hatch; indeed, from his retreat, he could see some of them craning over the coamings, peering into the dark recesses of the hold.

“What are yer goin’ to do, Dhoody?” one of the men asked.

“I’m goin’ below to finish the beggar off,” was the reply in a tone of savage determination.

The place of a ladder was supplied by wooden footholds nailed to the massive stanchion that supported the deck and rested on the kelson. Osmond kept a sharp eye on the top foothold, clambering quickly on the closely-packed bales to get within reach; and as a booted foot appeared below the beam and settled on the projection, he brought down his belaying-pin on the toe with a rap that elicited a yell of agony and caused the hasty withdrawal of the foot. For a minute or more the air was thick with execrations, and, as Osmond crept back into shelter, an irregular stamping on the deck above suggested some person hopping actively on one leg.

But the retreat was not premature. Hardly had Osmond squeezed himself behind the stack of bales when a succession of shots rang out from above, and bullet after bullet embedded itself in the rolls of cotton cloth. Osmond counted five shots and when there came an interval—presumably to reload—he ventured to peer between the bales, and was able to see Dhoody frantically emptying the discharged chambers of the revolver and ramming in fresh cartridges, while the five sailors stared curiously into the hold.

“Now then,” said Dhoody, when he had re-loaded, “you just nip down, Sam Winter, and see if I’ve hit him, and I’ll stand by here to shoot if he goes for yer.”

“Not me,” replied Sam. “You ’and me the gun and just pop down yerself. I’ll see as he don’t hurt yer.”

“How can I?” roared Dhoody, “with me fut hammered into a jelly?”

“Well,” retorted Sam, “what about my feet? D’ye think I can fly?”

“Oh,” said Dhoody, contemptuously, “if you funk the job, I won’t press yer. Bob Simmons ain’t afraid, I know. He’ll go.”

“Will he?” said Simmons. “I’m jiggered if he will. That bloke’s too handy with that pin for my taste. But I’ll hold the gun while you go, Dhoody.”

Dhoody cursed the whole ship’s company collectively and individually for a pack of chicken-livered curs. But not one of them would budge. Each was quite willing, and even eager, to do the shooting from above; but no one was disposed to go below and “draw the badger.” The proceedings seemed to have come to a deadlock when one of the sailors was inspired with a new idea.

“Look ’ere, mates,” he said, oracularly; “ ’Tis like this ’ere: ’ere’s this ’ere bloomin’ ship with a nomicidal maniac in ’er ’old. Now, none of us ain’t a-goin’ down there for to fetch ’im out. We don’t want our ’eds broke same as what ’e’s broke Jim Darker’s ’ed. Contrarywise, so long as ’e’s loose on this ship, no man’s life ain’t worth a brass farden. Wherefore I says, bottle ’im up, I says; clap on the hatch-covers and batten down. Then we’ve got ’im, and then we can sleep in our bunks in peace.”

“That’s right enough, Bill,” another voice broke in, “but you’re forgettin’ that we’ve got a little job to do down below there.”

“Not yet, we ain’t,” the other rejoined; “not afore we gets down Ambriz way, and he’ll be quiet enough by then.”

This seemed to satisfy all parties, including even the ferocious Dhoody, and a general movement warned Osmond that his incarceration was imminent. For one moment he was disposed to make a last, desperate sortie, but the certainty that he would be a dead man before he reached the deck decided him to lie low. Many things might happen before the brigantine reached Ambriz.

As the hatch-covers grated over the coaming and dropped into their beds, the prisoner took a rapid survey of his surroundings before the last glimmer of daylight should be shut out. But he had scarcely time to memorize the geographical features of the hold before the last of the hatch-covers was dropped into its place. Then he heard the tarpaulin drag over the hatch, shutting out the last gleams of light that had filtered through the joints of the covers; the battens were dropped into their catches, the wedges driven home, and he sat, in a darkness like that of the tomb.

The hold was intolerably hot and close. The roasting deck above was like the roof of an oven. A greasy reek arose from the bags of kernels, a strange, mixed effluvium from the bales of cotton cloth. And the place was full of strange noises. At every roll of the ship, as the strain of the rigging changed sides, a universal groan arose; bulkheads squeaked, timbers grated, the masts creaked noisily in their housings, and unctuous gurgles issued from the tier of oil puncheons.

It was clear to Osmond that this was no place for a prolonged residence. The sweat that already trickled down his face meant thirst in the near future, and death if he failed to discover the tank or water-casks. A diet of palm kernels did not commend itself; and, now that the hatch was covered, the water in the bilge made its peculiar properties manifest. The obvious necessity was to get out; but the method of escape was not obvious at all.

From his own position Osmond’s thoughts turned to the state of the vessel. From the first, it had been evident to him that there was something very abnormal about this ship. Apart from the lawless behaviour of the crew, there was the fact that since he had come on board he had seen no vestige of an officer. Dhoody had seemed to have some sort of authority, but the manner in which the men addressed him showed that he had no superior status. Then, where was the “afterguard?” They had not gone ashore. And there had been enough uproar to bring them on deck if they had been on board. There was only one reasonable conclusion from these facts, and it was confirmed by Dhoody’s proprietary air and by a certain brown stain that Osmond had noticed on the deck. There had been a mutiny on the Speedwell.

The inveterate smoker invokes the aid of tobacco in all cases where concentrated thought is required. Osmond made shift to fill his pipe in the dark, and, noting that his tobacco was low, struck a match. The flame lighted up the corner into which he had crept and rendered visible some objects that he had not noticed before; and, at the first glance, any lingering uncertainty as to the state of affairs on the Speedwell vanished in an instant. For the objects that he had seen comprised a shipwright’s auger, a caulking mallet, and a dozen or more large wooden pegs cut to a taper at one end.

The purpose of these appliances was unmistakable, and very clearly explained the nature of the “little job” that the sailors had to do down below. Those rascals intended to scuttle the ship. Holes were to be bored in the bottom with the auger and the plugs driven into them. Then, when the mutineers were ready to leave, the plugs would be pulled out, and the ship abandoned with the water pouring into her hold. It was a pretty scheme, if not a novel one, and it again suggested the question: Where were the officers?

Turning over this question, Osmond remembered that Dhoody had gone to the forecastle to fetch his revolver. Then the crew would appear to be still occupying their own quarters; whence it followed that, if the officers were on board, they were probably secured in their berths aft.

This consideration suggested a new idea. Osmond lit another match and explored the immediate neighbourhood in the hope of finding more tools; but there were only the auger and the mallet, the pegs having probably been tapered with a sheath-knife. As the match went out, Osmond quenched the glowing tip, and, picking up the auger and mallet, though for the latter he had no present use, began to grope his way aft. The part of the hold abaft the main hatch had a ground tier of oil-puncheons, above which was stowed a quantity of produce, principally copra and kernels in bags. Climbing on top of this, Osmond crawled aft until he brought up against the bulkhead that separated the cabin from the hold. Here he commenced operations without delay. Rapping with his knuckles to make sure of the absence of obstructing stanchions, he set the point of the auger against the bulkhead, and, grasping the cross lever, fell to work vigorously. It was a big tool, boring an inch and a half hole, and correspondingly heavy to turn; but Osmond drove it with a will, and was soon rewarded by feeling it give with a jerk, and when he withdrew it, there was a circular hole through which streamed the welcome daylight.

He applied his eye to the hole (which, in spite of the thickness of the planking, afforded a fairly wide view) and looked into what was evidently the cuddy or cabin. He could see a small, nearly triangular table fitted with “fiddles,” or safety rims, between which a big water-bottle slid backwards and forwards as the ship rolled, pursued by a dozen or more green limes and an empty tumbler—a sight which made his mouth water. Opposite was the companion-ladder and at each side of it a door—probably those of the captain’s and mate’s cabins. Above the table would be the skylight, though he could not see it; but he could make out some pieces of broken glass on the floor and one or two on the table; and he now recalled that he had noticed, when on deck, that the skylight glass was smashed.

Having made this survey, he returned to his task. Above the hole that he had bored, he proceeded to bore another, slightly intersecting it, and above this another, and so on; tracing a continuous curved row of holes, each hole encroaching a little on the next, and the entire series looking, from the dark hold, like a luminous silhouette of a string of beads. It was arduous work, and monotonous, but Osmond kept at it with only an occasional pause to wipe his streaming face and steal a wistful look at the water-bottle on the cabin table. No sign did he perceive there of either officers or crew; indeed the latter were busy on deck, for he had heard the clink of the windlass, and when that had ceased, the rattle of running gear as the sails were trimmed. And meanwhile the curved line of holes extended along the bulkhead and began to define an ellipse some eighteen inches by twelve.

By the time he had made the twenty-fourth hole, a sudden weakening of the light that came through informed him that the sun was setting. He took a last peep into the cabin before the brief tropic twilight should have faded, and was surprised to note that the tumbler seemed to have vanished and that there appeared to be less water in the bottle. Speculating vaguely on the possible explanation of this, he fell to work again, adding hole after hole to the series, guiding himself by the sense of touch when the light failed completely.

The thirty-eighth hole nearly completed the ellipse, and was within an inch of the first one bored. Standing back from the bulkhead, Osmond gave a vigorous kick on the space enclosed by the line of holes, and sent the oval piece of planking flying through into the cabin. Passing his head through the opening, he listened awhile. Sounds of revelry from the deck, now plainly audible, told him that the gin was doing its work and that the crew were fully occupied. He slipped easily through the opening, and, groping his way to the table, found the water-bottle and refreshed himself with a long and delicious draught. Then, feeling his way to the companion-ladder, he knocked with his knuckles on the door at its port side.

No one answered; and yet he had a feeling of some soft and stealthy movement within. Accordingly he knocked again, a little more sharply, and as there was still no answer, he turned the handle and pushed gently at the door, which was, however, bolted or locked. But the effort was not in vain, for as he gave a second, harder push, a woman’s voice—which sounded quite near, as if the speaker were close to the door—demanded “Who is there?”

Considerably taken aback by the discovery of this unexpected denizen of the mutiny-ridden ship, Osmond was for a few moments at a loss for a reply. At length, putting his mouth near to the keyhole (for the skylight was open and the steersman, at least, not far away), he answered softly: “A friend.”

The reply did not appear to have the desired effect, for the woman—also speaking into the keyhole—demanded sharply:

“But who are you? And what do you want?”

These were difficult questions. Addressing himself to the first, and boggling awkwardly at the unaccustomed lie, Osmond stammered:

“My name, is—er—is Cook, but you don’t know me. I am not one of the crew. If you wouldn’t mind opening the door, I could explain matters.”

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” was the reply.

“There’s really no occasion for you to be afraid,” Osmond urged.

“Isn’t there?” she retorted. “And who said I was afraid? Let me tell you that I’ve got a pistol, and I shall shoot if I have any of your nonsense. So you’d better be off.”

Osmond grinned appreciatively but decided to abandon the parley.

“Is there anyone aft here besides you?” he asked.

“Never you mind,” was the tart reply. “You had better go back where you came from.”

Osmond rose with a grim smile and began cautiously to feel his way towards the companion-steps and past them to the other door that he had seen. Having found it and located the handle, he rapped sharply but not too loudly.

“Well?” demanded a gruff voice from within.

Osmond turned the handle, and, as a stream of light issued from the opening door, he entered hastily and closed it behind him. He found himself in a small cabin lighted by a candle-lamp that swung in gimballs from the bulkhead. One side was occupied by a bunk in which reclined a small, elderly man, who appeared to have been reading, for he held an open volume, which Osmond observed with some surprise to be Applin’s Commentary on the Book of Job. His head was roughly bandaged and he wore his left arm in a primitive sling.

“Well,” he repeated, taking off his spectacles to look at Osmond.

“You are the captain, I presume,” said Osmond.

“Yes. Name of Hartup. Who are you?”

Osmond briefly explained the circumstances of his arrival on board.

“Ah!” said the captain. “I wondered who was boring those holes when I went into the cabin just now. Well, you’ve put your head into a hornet’s nest, young man.”

“Yes,” said Osmond, “and I’m going to keep it there until I’m paid to take it out.”

The captain smiled sourly. “You are like my mate, Will Redford; very like him you are to look at, and the same quarrelsome disposition, apparently.”

“Where is the mate now?”

“Overboard,” replied the captain. “He got flourishing a revolver and the second mate stabbed him.”

“Is the second mate’s name Dhoody?”

“Yes. But he’s only a substitute. The proper second mate died up at Sherbro, so I promoted Dhoody from before the mast.”

“I take it that your crew have mutinied?”

“Yes,” said the captain, placidly. “There is over a ton of ivory on board and two hundred ounces of gold dust in that chest that you are sitting on. It was a great temptation. Dhoody began it and Redford made it worse by bullying.”

“Dhoody seems to be a tough customer.”

“Very,” said the captain. “A violent man. A man of wrath. I am surprised that he didn’t make an end of you.”

“So is he, I expect,” Osmond replied with a grin; “and I hope to give him one or two more surprises before we part. What are you going to do?”

The captain sighed. “We are in the hands of Providence,” said he.

“You’ll be in the hands of Davy Jones if you don’t look out,” said Osmond. “They are going to scuttle the ship when they get to Ambriz. Can I get anything to eat?”

“There is corned pork and biscuit in that locker,” said the captain, “and water and limes on the cabin table. No intoxicants. This is a temperance ship.”

Osmond smiled grimly as a wild chorus from above burst out as if in commentary on the captain’s statement. But he made no remark. Corned pork was better than discussion just now.

“You seem to have been in the wars,” he remarked, glancing at the skipper’s bandaged head and arm.

“Yes. Fell down the companion; at least, Dhoody shoved me down. I’ll get you to fix a new dressing on my arm when you’ve finished eating. You’ll find some lint and rubber plaster in the medicine-chest there.”

“By the way,” said Osmond, as he cracked a biscuit on his knee, “there’s a woman in the next berth. Sounded like quite a ladylike person, too. Who is she?”

The captain shook his head. “Yes,” he groaned, “there’s another complication. She is a Miss Burleigh; daughter of Sir Hector Burleigh, the Administrator or Acting Governor, or something of the sort, of the Gold Coast.”

“But what the deuce is she doing on an old rattletrap of a windjammer like this?”

The captain sat up with a jerk. “I’ll trouble you, young man,” he said, severely, “to express yourself with more decorum. I am the owner of this vessel, and if she is good enough for me she will have to be good enough for you. Nobody asked you to come aboard, you know.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Osmond. “Didn’t mean to give offence. But you’ll admit that she isn’t cut out for the high-class passenger trade.”

“She is not,” Captain Hartup agreed, “and that is what I pointed out to the young woman when she asked for a passage from Axim to Accra. I told her we had no accommodation for females, but she just giggled and said that didn’t matter. She is a very self-willed young woman.”

“But why didn’t she take a passage on a steamer?”

“There was no steamer due for the Leeward Coast. Her father, Sir Hector, tried to put her off; but she would have her own way. Said it would be a bit of an adventure, travelling on a sailing ship.”

“Gad! She was right there,” remarked Osmond.

“She was, indeed. Well, she came aboard and Redford gave her his berth, he moving into the second mate’s berth, as Dhoody remained in the forecastle. And there she is; and I wish she was at Jericho.”

“I expect she does, too. What happened to her when the mutiny broke out?”

“I told her to go to her berth and lock herself in. But no one attempted to molest her.”

“I am glad to hear that,” said Osmond, and as he broke another biscuit, he asked: “Did you secure the companion-hatch?”

“Miss Burleigh did. She fixed the bar across the inside of the doors. But it wasn’t necessary, for they had barricaded the doors outside. They didn’t want to come down to us; they only wanted to prevent us from going up on deck.”

“She was wise to bolt the doors, all the same,” said Osmond; and for a time there was silence in the cabin, broken only by the vigorous mastication of stony biscuit.