Volume III Part 16 (1/2)

When you have done, come aft and take charge of the barque for half an hour. Miss Nielsen wishes to go to her cabin, and I am no sailor to be left alone with this craft.'

'Send Punmeamootty here with something for us to eat, if you please, Nakier.'

He made a soft salaaming bow, and quitted us with s.h.i.+ning eyes and a highly pleased face. Presently the steward approached us with some cold salt beef, biscuit, and a bottle of wine. He spread a cloth upon the skylight, and then brought a couple of chairs from the cabin. While he was doing this I slipped into the mate's berth and took a tract-chart of the world from the bag and returned with it. I opened and pretended to examine it with anxious attention, speaking in an aside to Helga in a grumbling, doubting voice, and with a shake of my head, while Punmeamootty stood by waiting to learn if we had further orders. I told him we should require nothing more, and then, rolling up the chart, feigned to attack the repast before us. But as to _eating_!--not for ten times the value of this _Light of the World_ and her cargo could I have swallowed a morsel. Helga munched a biscuit and drank a little wine, eyeing me collectedly, with often a smile when my glance went to her.

'What a heart beats in you!' I cried gently, for it was impossible to know but that some wriggling, nimble-heeled coloured skin had slipped into the cabin, and was hanging motionless close under us, with his ear at the skylight. 'But it is not too late even yet to reconsider. I can do without you.'

'Not so well as with me.'

'But if we fail----'

'We shan't fail.'

'If we fail,' I continued, 'they may spare you as not apparently in the plot, and they will spare you the more readily, and use you well too, since they must be helpless without you to navigate them.'

'Hus.h.!.+' she whispered. 'The stratagem will be the surer for my presence.

And what is the danger? There can be none if we manage as we have arranged.'

'When d'ye reckon on starting on this here job, Mr. Tregarthen?' called Jacob from the wheel.

I shook my fist as a hint to him to hold his tongue. I waited a few minutes, during which I pretended to be busy with my knife and fork. The yellow-faced cook stood in the galley door smoking: there were two fellows beyond him conversing close against the forecastle hatch. The rest of the seamen were below at their dinner. I now opened the chart; Helga came round to my side, and the pair of us fell to pointing and motioning with our hands over the chart as though we were warmly discussing a difficulty. I raised my voice and shook my head, exclaiming: 'No, no! Any sailor will tell you that the prevailing gales off Agulhas are from the east'ard;' and continued in this fas.h.i.+on, delivering meaningless sentences, always very noisily, and with a great deal of gesticulation, while Helga acted a like part. The three fellows forward watched us steadfastly.

Just then Abraham rose out of the forecastle hatch and approached the p.o.o.p in a strolling, rolling gait, carelessly filling his pipe as he came, and sending the true 'longsh.o.r.e leisurely look at the sea from side to side. A couple of fellows followed him out of the hatch, entered the galley for a light, as I supposed, and emerged smoking. Helga and I still feigned to be wrangling. Then Abraham joined us, and after listening a minute or two, raised his voice with a wrangling note in it also.

'Come, Helga,' I whispered; 'this fooling has lasted long enough. Now for it, and may G.o.d s.h.i.+eld us! Abraham, stand by, my lad! Keep your eye forward!'

I had courted a few occasions of peril in my time, and knew what it was to have death close alongside of me for hour after hour; but then my blood was up, there was human life to be saved, and, outside that consideration, there was small opportunity for thought. It was otherwise now, and I own that my heart felt cold as stone as I advanced to the forecastle with Helga. I prayed that my cheeks would not betray my inward perturbation. I did not greatly fear for the girl. Though we should fail, I believed her life would be saved, horrible as the conditions of preservation _might_ prove to her. It was otherwise with me. Let but a suspicion of my intention enter the minds of the men, and I knew that in the s.p.a.ce of a pulse or two I must be a corpse pierced by every knife in that vessel's forecastle.

As I approached the hatch that led to the quarters of the crew, Nakier came out of it. I suppose that the fellows who had been watching us called down to him, and that he came up to gather what the discussion on the p.o.o.p might be about. He looked astonished by our presence in that forepart of the s.h.i.+p, and there was a mingling of puzzlement and of cunning in his eyes as he ran them over us.

'I cannot satisfy myself that Mossel Bay is a safe and easy destination for this vessel.'

'It was settle, sah,' he exclaimed quickly.

'There are more accessible ports on the South African coast. What are the views of your crew?'

'Dey are all of my 'pinion, sah.'

'The matter has not been discussed in their presence. Why do you wish to carry us round Agulhas? Besides, do not you know that there are s.h.i.+ps of war at Simon's Bay, and that there is every chance of our falling in with one of her Majesty's cruisers off that line of coast you wish us to sail round?'

By this time the few men on deck gathered about us, and were listening eagerly with their necks stretched and their eyes, like blots of ink upon ovals of yellow satin, but fire-touched, steadfast upon me.

'I do not agree with Mr. Tregarthen, Nakier,' said Helga. 'I believe there is nothing to fear from our sailing round the Cape. He speaks of the heavy seas of the Southern Ocean, and of strong easterly winds. It is not so.'

'No, no,' he cried, with a pa.s.sionate motion of the head; 'no easter wind dis time ob year. All fine-wedder sailing; beautiful smooth sea, allee same as now.'

'Now, see here,' said I, with a note of imperativeness in my speech. 'I have a right to express an opinion on this matter, and my contention is, that it is ridiculous to sail round to Mossel Bay, when you may get ash.o.r.e for your walk to Cape Town on this side of the stormy headland of Agulhas.'

The fellow's eyes sparkled with irritation and mischief as he looked at me.