"A quarter to seven," I exclaimed. "You will not wish to be late to-night, Helga. You require a good long sleep. By this time to-morrow we may have shifted our quarters; but we shall always gratefully remember Captain Bunting"s goodness."
"That reminds me," said he, "your cabins must be got ready.
Punmeamootty, go forward and tell Nakier to send a couple of hands aft to clear out two of the berths below. No! tell Nakier I want him, and then come aft and clear the table."
The man, gliding softly but moving swiftly, pa.s.sed through the door that led on to the quarter-deck.
"I wish I could tempt you, Miss Nielsen," continued the Captain, "to take Mr. Jones"s cabin. You will be so very much more comfortable there."
"I would rather be near Mr. Tregarthen, thank you," she answered.
"You are a fortunate man to be so favoured!" he exclaimed, smiling at me. "However, every convenience that my cabin can supply shall be placed at Miss Nielsen"s disposal. Alas! now, if my dear Judith were here! She would improve, by many womanly suggestions, my humble attempts as a Samaritan. Our proper business in this world, Mr. Tregarthen, is to do good to one another. But the difficulty," he exclaimed with a sweep of his hand, "is to do _all_ the good that can be done! Now, for instance, I am at a loss. How am I to supply Miss Nielsen"s needs?"
"They are of the simplest--are not they, Helga?" said I.
"Quite the simplest, Captain Bunting," she answered, and then, looking at him anxiously, she added: "My one great desire now is to get to England. I have been the cause of taking Mr. Tregarthen from his mother, and I shall not feel happy until they are together again!"
"Charity forbid," exclaimed the Captain, "that I should question for an instant the heroism of Mr. Tregarthen"s behaviour! But," said he, slightly lowering his voice and stooping his smiling face at her, so to say, "when your brave friend put off in the lifeboat he did not, I may take it, know that you were on board?"
"But I _was_ on board," she answered quickly: "and he has saved my life, and I wish him to return to his mother, who may believe him drowned and be mourning him as dead!"
CHAPTER VII.
ON BOARD "THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD."
At that moment the man whom the Captain styled Nakier entered the little cuddy, followed by the steward. He made a singular gesture, a sort of salaam, bowing his head and whipping both hands to his brow, but with something of defiance in the celerity of the gesture. He was the man whom I had seen haranguing the two boatmen. He had a large, fine intelligent eye, liquid and luminous, despite the Asiatic duskiness of its pupil; his features were regular and almost handsome: an aquiline nose, thin and well chiselled at the nostrils, a square brow, small ears decorated with thick gold hoops, and teeth as though formed of china.
The expression of his face was mild and even prepossessing, his complexion a light yellow. He bore in his hand what had apparently been a soldier"s foraging cap, and was dressed in an old pilot jacket, a red shirt, and a pair of canvas breeches held by a belt, to which was attached a sheath containing a knife lying tight against his hip. He took me and Helga in with a rapid roll of his handsome eyes, then looked straight at the Captain in a posture of attention, with a little contraction of the brow.
"I want a couple of the berths below cleared out at once," said the Captain. "Goh Syn Koh seems one of the smartest among you. Send him.
Also send Mow Lauree. He can make a bed, I hope? He is making a bed for himself! Bear a hand and clear this table, Punmeamootty, so as to be able to a.s.sist. You"ll superintend the work, Nakier. See all clean and comfortable."
"Yaas, sah," said the man.
He was going.
"Stop!" exclaimed the Captain, smiling all the time he continued to talk. "Did you eat your dinner to-day!"
"No, sah."
"What has become of it?"
"Overboard, sah," answered the man, preserving his slight frown.
"Overboard! As good a mess of pork and peasoup as was ever served out to a ship"s company. Overboard! For the third time! If it happens again----" he checked himself with a glance at Helga: "if it happens again," he went on, speaking with an air of concern, "I shall be obliged to stop the beef."
"We cannot eat pork, sah--we are Mussulmans----" he was proceeding.
The Captain silenced him with a bland motion of the hand.
"Send the men aft, Nakier," said he, with a small increase of nasal tw.a.n.g in his utterance, "and see that the cleaning and the clearance out is thorough."
He gave him a hard, significant nod, and the man marched out, directing an eager look at me as he wheeled round, as though for my sympathy.
Punmeamootty was clearing the table with much ill-dissembled agitation in the hurry of his movements: his swift glances went from the Captain to me, and then to Helga. They were like the flashing of a stiletto, keen as the darting blue gleam of the blade, and they would be as murderous, too, I thought, if the man could execute his wishes with his eyes. I believed the Captain would now make some signal to leave the table, but he continued to sit on.
"Did you observe that man just now?" said he, addressing Helga. She answered "Yes." "Handsome, do you think?" said he.
"He had a mild, pleasant face," she answered.
"His name," said he, "is Vanjoor Nakier. He is boss of the native crew, and I allow him to act as a sort of boatswain. It is hard to reconcile so agreeable a countenance with the horrible and awful belief which must make him for ever and ever a lost soul, if he is not won over in plenty of time for repentance, for prayer and mortification."
"You seem to have the fellows" names very pat," said I. "Are you acquainted with the Malay tongue?"
"Ah!" cried he, with a shake of the head; "I wish I were. I might then prove a true missionary to the poor benighted fellows. Yet I shall hope to have broken heavily into their deplorable and degraded superst.i.tions before I dismiss them at Cape Town."
I caught sight of the shadowy form of the steward lurking abaft the companion-steps, where he seemed busy with some plates and a basket.
"It is your hope," said I, "to convert the Mussulmans?"
"It is my hope, indeed," he answered; "and, pray, what honester hope should possess a man?"
"It is an admirable desire," said I, "but a little dangerous perhaps."
"Why?" asked he.
"Well," said I, "I am no traveller. I have seen nothing of the world, but I have read, and I have always gathered from books of voyages, that there is no cla.s.s of men more bigoted in their faith and more treacherous in their conduct than Malay seamen."
"Hush!" cried Helga, putting her finger to her lips and looking in the direction of the steward.
The Captain turned in his chair.
"Are you there, Punmeamootty?"
"Yes, sah;" and his figure came swiftly gliding into the light.
"Go below and help the others! They should be at work by this time."
The man went out on to the quarter-deck, where, close against the cuddy front, lay the little hatch that conducted to the steerage.
"You are quite right," exclaimed the Captain, lying back and expanding his waistcoat. "Malay seamen are, undoubtedly, treacherous. In fact, treachery is part and parcel of the Malay character. It is the people of that nation who run amuck, you know."
"What is that?" inquired Helga.
"A fellow falls crazy," answered the Captain, smiling, "whips out a weapon called a creese, and stabs and kills as many as he can encounter as he flies through the streets."