A NIGHT OF HORROR.
The gale broke on the morning of Thursday, November 2. The compacted
heaven of cloud scattered in swelling cream-coloured masses; the sun
shone out of the wide lakes of moist blue, and the sea turned from the
cold and sickly gray of the stormy hours into a rich sapphire, with a
high swell and a plentiful chasing of foaming billows. By four o'clock
in the afternoon the ocean had smoothed down into a tropical expanse of
quietly rising and falling waters, with the hot sun sliding westwards
and the barque stemming the sea afresh under all cloths which could be
piled upon her, the wind a small breeze, about west, and the sea-line a
flawless girdle.
The evening that followed was one of quiet beauty. There was a young
moon overhead, with power enough to drop a little trickling of silver
into the dark sea under her; the clouds had vanished, and the stars
shone brightly with a very abundant showering of meteoric lights above
the trucks of the silent swaying masts.
As we paced the deck the Captain joined us. Short of going to our
respective cabins, there was no means of getting rid of him; so we
continued to patrol the planks, with him at Helga's side, talking,
talking--oh, Heaven! how he talked! His manner was distressingly
caressing. Helga kept hold of my arm, and meanwhile I, true to that
posture I had maintained for the past three days, listened or sent my
thoughts elsewhere, rarely speaking. In the course of his ceaseless
chatter he struck upon the subject of his crew and their victuals, and
told us he was sorry that we were not present when Nakier and two other
coloured men came aft into the cuddy after he had taken sights and gone
below.
'I am certain,' he exclaimed, smiting his leg, 'that I have made them
reflective! I believe I could not mistake. Nakier in particular listened
with attention, and looked at his mates with an expression as though
conviction were being slowly borne in upon him.'
I pricked up my ears at this, for here was a matter that had been
causing me some anxious thought, and I broke away from my sullen,
resentful behaviour to question him.
'What brought the men aft?'
'The same tiresome story,' he answered, speaking loudly, and seemingly
forgetful of or indifferent to the pair of yellow ears which, I might
warrant him, were thirstily listening at the helm. 'They ask for beef,
for beef, for nothing but beef, and I say yes--beef one day, pork
another; beef for your bodies and pork for your souls. I shall conquer
them; and what a triumph it will be! Though I should make no further
progress with them, yet I could never feel too grateful for a decisive
victory over a gross imbecile superstition that, like a shutter, though
it be one of many, helps to keep out the light.'
He then went on to tell us what he had said, how he had reasoned, and I
shall not soon forget the unctuous, self-satisfied chuckle which broke
from the folds of his throat as he paused before asking Helga what she
thought of _that_ as an example of pure logic. I listened, wondering
that a man who could talk as he did could be crazy enough to attempt so
perilous an experiment as the attempting to win his crew over to his own
views of religion by as dangerous an insult as his fanatical mind could
have lighted upon. It was the more incomprehensible to me in that the
fellow had started upon his crude missionary scheme when there were but
two whites in the ship to eleven believers in the Prophet.
I waited until his having to fetch breath enabled me to put in a word. I
then briefly and quietly related what had passed in the forecastle as
described to me by Jacob Minnikin.
'And what then, Mr. Tregarthen?' said he, and I seemed to catch a sneer
threading, so to speak, his bland utterance: the moon gave but little
light, as I have said, and I could not see his face. 'When a man starts
on the work of converting, he must not be afraid.'
'Your men have knives--they are devils, so I have heard, when
aroused--_you_ may not be afraid, but you have no right to provoke
peril for us,' I said.
'The coxswain of a lifeboat should have a stout heart,' he exclaimed.
'Miss Nielsen, do not be alarmed by your courageous friend's
apprehension. My duty is exceedingly simple. I must do what is right.
Right is divinely protected;' and I saw by the pose of his head that he
cast his eyes up at the sky.
I nudged Helga as a hint not to speak, just breathlessly whispering, 'He
is not to be reasoned with.'
It was a little before ten o'clock that night when the girl retired to
her cabin. The Captain, addressing her in a simpering, loverlike voice,
had importuned her to change her cabin. She needed to grow fretful
before her determined refusals silenced him. He entered his berth when
she had gone, and I took my pipe to enjoy a quiet smoke on deck. After
the uproar of the past three days, the serenity of the night was
exquisitely soothing. The moon shone in a curl of silver; the canvas
soared in pallid visible spaces starwards; there was a pleasant rippling
sound of gently stirred waters alongside, and the soft westerly
night-wind fanned the cheek with the warmth of an infant's breath. The
decks ran darkling forwards; the shadow of the courses flung a dye that
was deeper than the gloom of the hour betwixt the rails, and nothing
stirred save the low-lying stars which slipped up and down past the
forecastle rail under the crescent of the foresail as the barque
curtseyed.
Nevertheless, though I could not see the men, I heard a delicate sound
of voices proceeding from the block of darkness where the forecastle
front lay. Mr. Jones had charge of the watch, and, on my stepping aft to
the wheel, I found Jacob grasping the spokes, having relieved the helm
at four bells--ten o'clock. He was not to be accosted while on that
duty; and my dislike of the mate had not been lessened by the few words
which had passed between us since the day when the Cape steamer had gone
by, and by my observation of his fawning behaviour to the Captain. I
briefly exclaimed that it was a fine night, received some careless,
drowsy answer from him, and, with pipe betwixt my lips, lounged lonely
on the lee side of the deck, often overhanging the rail, and viewing the
sea-glow as it crept by, with my mind full of Helga, of my home, of our
experiences so far, and of what might lie before us.
I was startled out of a fit of musing by the forecastle bell ringing
five. The clear, keen chimes floated like an echo from the sea, and I
caught a faint reverberation of them in the hollow canvas. It was
half-past ten. I knocked the ashes out of my pipe, and, going on to the
quarter-deck, dropped through the hatch.
The lantern swinging in the corridor betwixt the berths was burning. I
lightly called to Helga to know if all was well with her, but she was
silent, and, as I might suppose, asleep. I put out the light, as my
custom now was, and, partially unclothing myself in the dark, got into
my bunk and lay for a little watching the dance of a phantom star or two
in the dim black round of the scuttle close against my head, sleepily
wondering how long this sort of life was to continue, what time was to
pass, and how much was to happen before I should be restored to the
comfort of my own snug bedroom at home; and thus musing, too drowsy
perhaps for melancholy, I fell asleep.
I was awakened by someone beating heavily upon the bulkhead of the
next-door cabin.
'Mr. Tregarthen! Mr. Tregarthen!' roared a voice; then thump! thump!
went the blows of a massive fist or handspike. 'For Gor' a'mighty's sake
wake up and turn out!--there's murder a-doing! Which is your cabin?'
I recognised the voice of Abraham, disguised as it was by horror and by
the panting of his breath.
The exclamation, _There's murder a-doing!_ collected my wits in a flash,
and I was wide awake and conscious of the man's meaning ere he had
fairly delivered himself of his cry.
'I am here--I will be with you!' I shouted, and, without pausing further
to attire myself, dropped from my bunk and made with outstretched hands
for the door, which I felt for and opened.
It was pitch dark in this passage betwixt the cabins, without even the
dim gleam the porthole in the berth offered to the eye to rest on.
'Where are you, Abraham?' I cried.
'Here, sir!' he exclaimed, almost in my ear, and, lifting my hand, I
touched him.
'The crew's up!' he cried. 'They've killed the mate, and by this time,
I allow, the Capt'n's done for.'
'Where's Jacob?'
'Gor' He only knows, sir!'
'Are you armed? Do you grip anything?'
'Nothen, nothen. I run without stopping to arm myself. I'll tell ye
about it--but it's awful to be a-talking in this here blackness with
murder happening close by.'
He still panted as from heavy recent exertion, and his voice faltered as
though he were sinking from a wound.
'What is it?' cried the clear voice of Helga from her berth.
'Open your door!' I said, knowing that it was her practice to shoot the
bolt. 'All is darkness here. Let us in--dress yourself by feeling for
your clothes--the Malays have risen upon the Captain and mate--it may be
our turn next, and we must make a stand in your cabin. Hush!'
In the interval of her quitting her bunk to open the door, I strained my
ears. Nothing was to be heard save near and distant noises rising out of
the vessel as she heeled on the long westerly swell. But then we were
deep down, with two decks for any noise made on the poop to penetrate.
'The door is open,' said Helga.
I had one hand on Abraham's arm, and, feeling with the other, I guided
him into Helga's berth, the position of which, as he had never before
been in this part of the vessel, he could not have guessed. I then
closed the door and bolted it.
'Dress yourself quickly, Helga!' said I, talking to her in the mine-like
blindness of this interior that was untouched by the star or two that
danced in her cabin window as in mine.
'Tell me what has happened!' she exclaimed.
'Speak, Abraham!' said I.
'Lor'! but Oi don't seem able to talk without a light,' he answered.
'Ain't there no lantern here? If there's a lantern, I've got three or
four loocifers in my pocket.'
'Hist!' I cried. 'I hear footsteps.'
We held our breath: all was still. Some sound had fallen upon my ear. It
resembled the slapping of planks with naked feet to my fancy, that had
been terrified by Abraham's sudden horrible report, before there was
time for my muscles and nerves to harden into full waking strength.
'What d'ye hear?' hoarsely whispered Abraham.
'It was imagination. Helga, can we light the lantern?'
She answered 'Yes'--she was ready.
'Strike a match, Abraham, that I may see where the lantern hangs!' said
I.
He did so, holding the flame in his fist. I opened the door, whipped
out, took down the lantern and darted in again, bolting the door anew
with a thrill of fear following upon the haste I had made through
imagination of one of those yellow-skins crouching outside with naked
knife in hand. I swiftly lighted the lantern, and placed it in Helga's
bunk. Abraham was of an ashen paleness, and I knew my own cheeks to be
bloodless.
'Ought we to fear the crew?' cried Helga. 'We have not wronged them.
They will not want _our_ lives.'
'Dorn't trust 'em, dorn't trust 'em!' exclaimed Abraham. 'Ain't there
nothen here to sarve as weapons?' he added, rolling his eyes around the
cabin.
'What is the story? Tell it now, man, tell it!' I cried, in a voice
vehement with nerves.
He answered, speaking low, very hastily and hoarsely: 'Oi'd gone below
at eight bells. Oi found Nakier haranguing some of the men as was in the
fok'sle; but he broke off when he see me. Oi smoked a pipe, and then
tarned in and slep' for an hour or so; then awoke and spied five or six
of the chaps a-whispering together up in a corner of the fok'sle. They
often looked moy way, but there worn't loight enough to let 'em know
that my eyes was open, and I lay secretly a-watching 'em, smelling
mischief. Then a couple of 'em went on deck, and the rest lay down.
Nothen happened for some time. Meanwhile Oi lay woide awake, listening
and watching. 'Twas about seven bells, Oi reckon, when someone--Oi think
it was Nakier--calls softly down through the hatch, and instantly all
the fellows, who as I could ha' swore was sound asleep, dropped from
their hammocks like one man, and the fok'sle was empty. I looked round
to make sure that it were empty, then sneaks up and looks aft with my
chin no higher than the coaming. I heered a loud shriek, and a cry of "O
God! O God! Help! help!" and now, guessing what was happening, and
believing that the tastin' of blood would drive them fellows mad, and
that Oi should be the next if Jacob worn't already gone, him being at
the wheel, as I might calculate by his not being forrard, Oi took and
run, and here Oi am.'
He passed the back of his hand over his brow, following the action with
a fling of his fingers from the wrist; and, indeed, it was now to be
seen that his face streamed with sweat.
'Do you believe they have murdered the Captain?' cried Helga.
'I dorn't doubt it--I _can't_ doubt it. There seemed two gangs of 'em.
Oi run for my life, and yet I see two gangs,' answered Abraham.
'Horrible!' exclaimed the girl, looking at me with fixed eyes, yet she
seemed more shocked than frightened.
'Did not I foresee this?' I exclaimed. 'Where were your senses,
man--_you_ who lived amongst them, ate and drank with them? It would be
bad enough if they were white men; but how stands our case, do you
think, in a ship seized by savages who have been made to hate us for our
creed and for the colour of our skins?'
'Hark!' cried Helga.
We strained our hearing, but nothing was audible to me saving my heart,
that beat loud in my ears.
'I thought I heard the sound of a splash,' she said.
'If they should ha' done for my mate, Jacob!' cried Abraham. 'As the
Lord's good, 'twill be too hard. Fust wan, then another, and now nowt
but me left of our little company as left Deal but a day or tew ago, as
it seems when Oi looks back.'
'Are we to perish here like poisoned rats in a hole?' said I. 'If they
clap the hatch-cover on, what's to become of us?'
'Who among them can navigate the ship?' asked Helga.
'Ne'er a one,' replied Abraham; '_that_ I can tell 'ee from recollecting
of the questions Nakier's asted me from toime to toime.'
'But if the body of them should come below,' cried I, 'and force that
door--as easily done as blowing out that light there--are we to be
butchered with empty hands, looking at them without a lift of our arms,
unless it be to implore mercy? Here are two of us--Englishmen! Are we to
be struck down as if we were women?'
'There are three of us!' said Helga.
'What are our weapons?' I exclaimed, wildly sweeping the little hole of
a cabin with my eyes. 'They have their knives!'
'Give me the handling of 'em one arter the other,' said Abraham,
fetching a deep breath and then spitting on his hands, 'and I'll take
the whole 'leven whilst ye both sit down and look on. But all of them at
wanst--all dronk with rage and snapping round a man as if he was a sheep
and they wolves!'--he breathed deeply again, slowly shaking his head.
'The planks in that bunk are loose,' said I, 'but what can we do with
boards?'
'I will go on deck!' suddenly exclaimed Helga.
'You?' cried I. 'No, indeed! You will remain here. There must be two of
us for them to deal with before the third can be come at!'
'I will go on deck!' she repeated. 'I have less cause to fear them than
you. They know that I am acquainted with navigation--they have always
looked at me with kindness in their faces. Let me go and talk to them!'
She made a step to the door--I gripped her arm, and brought her to my
side and held her.
'What is to be done is for us two men to do!' said I. 'We must think,
and we must wait.'
'Let me go!' she cried. 'They will listen to me, and I shall be able to
make terms. Unless there be a navigator among them, what can they do
with the ship in this great ocean?' She struggled, crying again: 'Let me
go to them, Hugh!'
'Dorn't you do nothen of the sort, sir!' exclaimed Abraham. 'What'd
happen? They'd tarn to and lock her up until they'd made an end of you
and me, and then she'd be left alone aboard this wessel--alone, I mean,
with eleven yaller savages. Gor' preserve us! If you let go of her, sir,
_Oi_ shall have to stop the road.'
There was something of deliberateness in his speech: his English spirit
was coming back with the weakening of the horror that had filled him
when he first came rushing below.
Someone knocked lightly on the door. At the same instant my eye was
taken by the glance of lamp or candle flame in the opening in the
bulkhead overlooking the narrow passage.
'Hush!' cried I.
The knock was repeated. It was a very soft tapping, as though made by a
timid knuckle.
'Who is there?' I shouted, gathering myself together with a resolution
to leap upon the first dark throat that showed; for I believed this soft
knocking--this soundless approach--a Malay ruse, and my veins tingled
with the madness that enters the blood of a man in the supreme moment
whose expiry means life or death to him.
'It is me, master! Open, master! It is allee right!'
'That's Nakier!' exclaimed Abraham.
'Who is it?' I cried.
'Me, sah--Nakier. It is allee right, I say. Do not fear. Our work is
done. We wish to speakee with you, and be friend.'
'How many of you are there outside?' I called.
'No man but Nakier,' he answered.
'How are we to know that?' bawled Abraham. 'The most of you have naked
feet. A whole army of ye might sneak aft, and no one guess it.'
'I swear Nakier is alone. Lady, you shall trust Nakier. Our work is
done; it is allee right, I say. See, you tink I am not alone: you are
afraid of my knife; go a leetle way back--I trow my knife to you.'
We recoiled to the bulkhead, and Abraham roared 'Heave!' The knife fell
upon the deck close to my feet. I pounced upon it as a cat upon a mouse,
but dropped it with a cry. 'Oh, God, it is bloody!'
'Give it me!' exclaimed Abraham, in a hoarse shout; 'it'll be bloodier
yet, now I've got it, if that there Nakier's a-playing false.'
Grasping it in his right hand, he slipped back the bolt, and opened the
door. The sensations of a lifetime of wild experiences might have been
concentrated in that one instant. I had heard and read so much about the
treachery of the Malay that when Abraham flung open the little cabin
door I was prepared for a rush of dusky shapes, and to find myself
grappling--but not for life, since death I knew to be certain, armed as
every creature of them was with the deadly blade of the sailor's sheath
knife. Instead--in the corridor, immediately abreast of our cabin,
holding a bull's-eye lamp in his hand, stood Nakier, who on seeing us
put the light on the deck, and saluted us by bringing both hands to his
brow. Abraham put his head out.
'There ain't nobody here but Nakier!' he cried.
'What have you done?' I exclaimed, looking at the man, who in the
combined light showed plainly, and whose handsome features had the
modest look, the prepossessing air, I had found when my gaze first
rested on him in this ship.
'The Captain is kill--Pallunappachelly, he kill him. The mate is
kill--with this han'.' He held up his arm.
'Where's moy mate?' thundered Abraham.
'No man touch him. Jacob, he allee right. Two only.' He held up two
fingers. 'The Captain and Misser Jones. They treat us like dog, and we
bite like dog,' he added, showing his teeth, but with nothing whatever
of fierceness or wildness in his grin.
'What do you want?' I repeated.
'We wantchee you come speak with us. We allee swear on de Koran not to
hurt you, but to serve you, and you serve we.'
I stood staring, not knowing how to act.
'He is to be trusted,' said Helga.
'But the others?' I said.
'They can do nothing without us.'
'Without _one_ of us. But the others!'
'We may trust them,' she repeated, with an accent of conviction.
Nakier's eyes, gleaming in the lantern-light, were bent upon us as we
whispered. He perceived my irresolution, and, once again putting down
the bull's-eye lamp on the deck, he clasped and extended his hands in a
posture of impassioned entreaty.
'We allee swear we no hurt you!' he cried in a voice of soft entreaty
that was absolutely sweet with the melody of its tones; 'dat beautiful
young lady--oh! I would kill here,' he cried, gesticulating as though he
would stab his heart, 'before dat good, kind, clever lady be harm. Oh,
you may trust us! We hab done our work. Mr. Wise, he be Capt'n; you be
gentleman--passengaire; you live upstair and be very much comfortable.
De beautiful young lady, she conduct dis ship to Afric. Oh, no, no, no!
you are allee safe. My men shall trow down dere knives upon de table
when you come, and we swear on de Koran to be your friend, and you be
friend to we.'
'Let's go along with him, Mr. Tregarthen,' said Abraham. 'Nakier, I
shall stick to this here knife. Where's moy mate Jacob? If 'ere a man of
ye's hurted him----'
'It is no time to threaten,' I whispered angrily, shoving past him.
'Come, Helga! Nakier, pick up that bull's-eye and lead the way, and,
Abraham, follow with that lantern, will you?'
In silence we gained the hatch. It lay open. Nakier sprang through it,
and, one after the other, we ascended. The wind had fallen scantier
since I was on deck last, and though the loftier canvas was asleep,
silent as carved marble, and spreading in spectral wanness under the
bright stars, there was no weight in the wind to hold steady the heavy
folds of the fore and main courses, which swung in and out with the
dull sound of distant artillery as the barque leaned from side to side.
The cuddy lamp was brightly burning, and the first glance I sent through
the open door showed me the whole of the crew, as I for the instant
supposed--though I afterwards found that one of them was at the
wheel--standing at the table, ranged on either hand of it, all as
motionless as a company of soldiers drawn up on parade. Every dark face
was turned our way, and never was shipboard picture more startling and
impressive than this one of stirless figures, dusky fiery eyes, knitted
brows, most of the countenances hideous, but all various in their
ugliness. Their caps and queer headgear lay in a heap upon the table.
Nakier entered and paused, with a look to us to follow. Helga was
fearlessly pressing forwards. I caught her by the hand and cried to
Nakier:
'Those men are all armed.'
He rounded upon them, and uttered some swift feverish sentence in his
native tongue. In a moment every man whipped out his knife from the
sheath in which it lay buried at the hip, and placed it upon the table.
Nakier again spoke, pronouncing the words with a passionate gesture, on
which Punmeamootty gathered the knives into one of the caps and handed
them to Nakier, who brought the cap to Helga and placed it at her feet.
On his doing this, Abraham threw the blood-stained knife he held into
the cap.
It was at that moment we were startled by a cry of 'Below there!'
'Whoy, it's Jacob!' roared Abraham, and stepping backwards and looking
straight up, he shouted, 'Jacob, ahoy! Where are ye, mate?'
'Up in the maintop, pretty nigh dead,' came down the leather-lunged
response from the silence up above.
'Thank God you're alive!' cried Abraham. 'It's all roight now--it's all
roight now.'
'Who's agoing to make me believe it?' cried Jacob.
I stared up, and fancied I could just perceive the black knob of his
head projected over the rim of the top.
'You can come down, Jacob,' I cried. 'All danger, I hope, is over.'
'Danger over?' he bawled. 'Whoy, they've killed the mate and chucked
him overboard, and if I hadn't taken to my heels and jumped aloft they'd
have killed me.'
'No, no--not true; not true, sah!' shrieked Nakier. 'Come down, Jacob!
It is allee right!'
'Where's the Captain?' cried Jacob.
'Him overboard!' answered Nakier. 'It is allee right, I say!'
A shudder ran through me as I glanced at the cabin which the Captain had
occupied. I cannot express how the horror of this sudden, shocking,
bloody tragedy was heightened by Nakier's cool and easy acceptance of
the deed, as though the two men whom he and his had slain were less to
his sympathies than had they been a couple of fowls whose necks had been
wrung.
'Pray come down, Jacob!' said Helga, sending her voice clear as a bell
into the silent towering heights. 'You, as well as Abraham, are to be
known as an Englishman.'
This little scornful stroke, which was extremely happy in that it was
unintelligible to Nakier and the others, had the desired effect.
'Why, if it is all right, then I suppose it _be_ all right,' I heard
Jacob say, and a few moments after his figure, with 'longshore
clumsiness, came slowly down the rigging.
As he sprang from the bulwark rail on to the deck, he whipped off his
cap and dashed it down on to the planks, and with the utmost agitation
of voice and manner danced around his cap as he vociferated while he
flourished his fist at Abraham:
'Now, what did Oi say? All along Oi've been a-telling ye that that there
pork job was agoing to get our throats cut. Whoy didn't ye stop it? Whoy
didn't ye tell the Capt'n what you seed and knowed? Froight! Whoy, I
moight ha' died in that there top and rolled overboards, and what yarn
was ye going to give my missis as to my hending, if so be as ever ye got
ashore at Deal agin?'
He continued to shout after this fashion, meanwhile tumbling and reeling
about his cap as though it were a mark for him upon the theatre of this
deck on which to act his part. But though it appeared a very ecstasy of
rage in him, the outbreak seemed wholly due to revulsion of feeling.
Nakier stood motionlessly eyeing him; the others also remained at
table, all preserving their sentinel postures. At last the fellow made
an end, put his cap on, and was silent, breathing hard.
'Will you come in, sah? Will you enter, lady? Misser Wise, it is allee
right. Come along, Jacob, my mate!'
Thus saying, Nakier re-entered the cuddy, and the four of us followed
him. There was a dark stain on the bare plank close against the coaming
or ledge of the door of the Captain's cabin. It was the short, wild,
startled sideways spring which Abraham gave that caused me to look at
it. The very soul within me seemed to shrink at the sight.
Nakier exclaimed, 'It is easy to scrape out,' motioning with his little
delicately-shaped hand as though he scraped. He then addressed one of
the fellows at the table, who nodded, sweeping the air with his arm as
he did so.
It now occurred to me, with the marvellous swiftness of thought, that
the cap containing the men's knives still lay upon the deck where Nakier
had lodged it at Helga's feet, and the instant motion of my mind was to
return to the quarter-deck, pick the cap up, and heave it over the rail.
But I reflected that not only might an act of this sort enrage the crew
by losing them their knives--it would also imply profound distrust on
our part. I also considered that, if they designed to kill us, they
would be able to manage that business very well without their
knives--for there was the carpenter's tool-chest forward, which would
supply them with plenty of deadly weapons, not to mention the cabin
knives, which Punmeamootty had charge of, and of which several were at
all times to be found in the galley. All this passed through my mind in
the space that a man might count five in, so amazing is the velocity of
imagination; and my resolution was formed in this matter even while I
continued to measure the few steps which separated the table from the
cuddy door.
Nakier went to the head of the table, and, putting his hand upon the
Captain's chair, exclaimed, bowing with inimitable grace to Helga as he
spoke:
'Will de sweet mees sit here?'
She passed along the little file of five men and took the chair. I do
not know whether she had seen that mark on the deck I have spoken of.
She was of a deathlike whiteness, but her eyes shone spiritedly as she
ran them over the coloured faces of the queer figures erect on either
hand the table, and never at any time since the hour when the dawn
showed me her pretty face aboard the _Anine_, apparelled as she then was
as a boy, had I observed more composure and resolution in her
countenance.
I stood close beside her, and Abraham and his mate were on her right.
Nakier went on gliding feet to the fore-end of the table and said
something to the men. What language he expressed himself in I did not
then, and still do not, know. The effect of his speech was to cause the
whole of them to extend their arms towards us with the forefingers of
both hands together. The posture, for the moment, was absolutely as
though to Nakier's command they had simultaneously levelled firearms at
us! Jacob fell back a step with a growl of alarm.
'What is all this, Nakier?' I called out.
'It is to say we are all your brodders, sah. It is my country sign of
friendship.'
Their hands fell to their sides, but immediately afterwards Nakier
spoke again to them, whereupon every man levelled his forefingers, as
before, at Helga. Again Nakier spoke, and Punmeamootty left the cuddy.
'I wish he'd talk English,' exclaimed Abraham, wiping his forehead.
'Who's to know what's agoing to happen?'
'It is allee right, Misser Wise,' said Nakier, with a soft smile, half
of reproach, half of encouragement. 'Punmeamootty hab gone to fetch de
Koran for we to swear to be true and not harm you.'