VIII
For a while after his second's answering hoot Massy
hung over the engine-room gloomily. Captain Whal-
ley, who, by the power of five hundred pounds, had kept
his command for three years, might have been suspected
of never having seen that coast before. He seemed un-
able to put down his glasses, as though they had been
glued under his contracted eyebrows. This settled
frown gave to his face an air of invincible and just
severity; but his raised elbow trembled slightly, and
the perspiration poured from under his hat as if a
second sun had suddenly blazed up at the zenith by the
side of the ardent still globe already there, in whose
blinding white heat the earth whirled and shone like a
mote of dust.
From time to time, still holding up his glasses, he
raised his other hand to wipe his streaming face. The
drops rolled down his cheeks, fell like rain upon the
white hairs of his beard, and brusquely, as if guided
by an uncontrollable and anxious impulse, his arm
reached out to the stand of the engine-room telegraph.
The gong clanged down below. The balanced vibra-
tion of the dead-slow speed ceased together with every
sound and tremor in the ship, as if the great stillness
that reigned upon the coast had stolen in through her
sides of iron and taken possession of her innermost re-
cesses. The illusion of perfect immobility seemed to
fall upon her from the luminous blue dome without a
stain arching over a flat sea without a stir. The faint
breeze she had made for herself expired, as if all at
once the air had become too thick to budge; even the
slight hiss of the water on her stem died out. The nar-
row, long hull, carrying its way without a ripple,
seemed to approach the shoal water of the bar by
stealth. The plunge of the lead with the mournful,
mechanical cry of the lascar came at longer and longer
intervals; and the men on her bridge seemed to hold
their breath. The Malay at the helm looked fixedly
at the compass card, the Captain and the Serang stared
at the coast.
Massy had left the skylight, and, walking flat-footed,
had returned softly to the very spot on the bridge he
had occupied before. A slow, lingering grin exposed
his set of big white teeth: they gleamed evenly in the
shade of the awning like the keyboard of a piano in a
dusky room.
At last, pretending to talk to himself in excessive as-
tonishment, he said not very loud--
"Stop the engines now. What next, I wonder?"
He waited, stooping from the shoulders, his head
bowed, his glance oblique. Then raising his voice a
shade--
"If I dared make an absurd remark I would say that
you haven't the stomach to . . ."
But a yelling spirit of excitement, like some frantic
soul wandering unsuspected in the vast stillness of the
coast, had seized upon the body of the lascar at the lead.
The languid monotony of his sing-song changed to a
swift, sharp clamor. The weight flew after a single
whir, the line whistled, splash followed splash in haste.
The water had shoaled, and the man, instead of the
drowsy tale of fathoms, was calling out the soundings
in feet.
"Fifteen feet. Fifteen, fifteen! Fourteen, four-
teen . . ."
Captain Whalley lowered the arm holding the glasses.
It descended slowly as if by its own weight; no other
part of his towering body stirred; and the swift cries
with their eager warning note passed him by as though
he had been deaf.
Massy, very still, and turning an attentive ear, had
fastened his eyes upon the silvery, close-cropped back
of the steady old head. The ship herself seemed to be
arrested but for the gradual decrease of depth under
her keel.
"Thirteen feet . . . Thirteen! Twelve!" cried the
leadsman anxiously below the bridge. And suddenly
the barefooted Serang stepped away noiselessly to steal
a glance over the side.
Narrow of shoulder, in a suit of faded blue cotton, an
old gray felt hat rammed down on his head, with a hollow
in the nape of his dark neck, and with his slender limbs,
he appeared from the back no bigger than a boy of
fourteen. There was a childlike impulsiveness in the
curiosity with which he watched the spread of the
voluminous, yellowish convolutions rolling up from be-
low to the surface of the blue water like massive clouds
driving slowly upwards on the unfathomable sky. He
was not startled at the sight in the least. It was not
doubt, but the certitude that the keel of the Sofala must
be stirring the mud now, which made him peep over the
side.
His peering eyes, set aslant in a face of the Chinese
type, a little old face, immovable, as if carved in old
brown oak, had informed him long before that the ship
was not headed at the bar properly. Paid off from
the Fair Maid, together with the rest of the crew, after
the completion of the sale, he had hung, in his faded
blue suit and floppy gray hat, about the doors of the
Harbor Office, till one day, seeing Captain Whalley
coming along to get a crew for the Sofala, he had put
himself quietly in the way, with his bare feet in the dust
and an upward mute glance. The eyes of his old com-
mander had fallen on him favorably--it must have
been an auspicious day--and in less than half an hour
the white men in the "Ofiss" had written his name on
a document as Serang of the fire-ship Sofala. Since
that time he had repeatedly looked at that estuary, upon
that coast, from this bridge and from this side of the
bar. The record of the visual world fell through his
eyes upon his unspeculating mind as on a sensitized
plate through the lens of a camera. His knowledge was
absolute and precise; nevertheless, had he been asked
his opinion, and especially if questioned in the down-
right, alarming manner of white men, he would have
displayed the hesitation of ignorance. He was certain
of his facts--but such a certitude counted for little
against the doubt what answer would be pleasing.
Fifty years ago, in a jungle village, and before he was
a day old, his father (who died without ever seeing
a white face) had had his nativity cast by a man of
skill and wisdom in astrology, because in the arrange-
ment of the stars may be read the last word of human
destiny. His destiny had been to thrive by the favor
of various white men on the sea. He had swept the
decks of ships, had tended their helms, had minded their
stores, had risen at last to be a Serang; and his placid
mind had remained as incapable of penetrating the sim-
plest motives of those he served as they themselves were
incapable of detecting through the crust of the earth
the secret nature of its heart, which may be fire or may
be stone. But he had no doubt whatever that the Sofala
was out of the proper track for crossing the bar at
Batu Beru.
It was a slight error. The ship could not have been
more than twice her own length too far to the north-
ward; and a white man at a loss for a cause (since it
was impossible to suspect Captain Whalley of blunder-
ing ignorance, of want of skill, or of neglect) would
have been inclined to doubt the testimony of his senses.
It was some such feeling that kept Massy motionless,
with his teeth laid bare by an anxious grin. Not so the
Serang. He was not troubled by any intellectual mis-
trust of his senses. If his captain chose to stir the mud
it was well. He had known in his life white men indulge
in outbreaks equally strange. He was only genuinely
interested to see what would come of it. At last, appar-
ently satisfied, he stepped back from the rail.
He had made no sound: Captain Whalley, however,
seemed to have observed the movements of his Serang.
Holding his head rigidly, he asked with a mere stir of
his lips--
"Going ahead still, Serang?"
"Still going a little, Tuan," answered the Malay.
Then added casually, "She is over."
The lead confirmed his words; the depth of water in-
creased at every cast, and the soul of excitement de-
parted suddenly from the lascar swung in the canvas
belt over the Sofala's side. Captain Whalley or-
dered the lead in, set the engines ahead without haste,
and averting his eyes from the coast directed the
Serang to keep a course for the middle of the en-
trance.
Massy brought the palm of his hand with a loud smack
against his thigh.
"You grazed on the bar. Just look astern and see
if you didn't. Look at the track she left. You can see
it plainly. Upon my soul, I thought you would! What
made you do that? What on earth made you do that?
I believe you are trying to scare me."
He talked slowly, as it were circumspectly, keeping his
prominent black eyes on his captain. There was also a
slight plaintive note in his rising choler, for, primarily,
it was the clear sense of a wrong suffered undeservedly
that made him hate the man who, for a beggarly five
hundred pounds, claimed a sixth part of the profits
under the three years' agreement. Whenever his resent-
ment got the better of the awe the person of Captain
Whalley inspired he would positively whimper with
fury.
"You don't know what to invent to plague my life
out of me. I would not have thought that a man of
your sort would condescend . . ."
He paused, half hopefully, half timidly, whenever
Captain Whalley made the slightest movement in the
deck-chair, as though expecting to be conciliated by a
soft speech or else rushed upon and hunted off the
bridge.
"I am puzzled," he went on again, with the watchful
unsmiling baring of his big teeth. "I don't know what
to think. I do believe you are trying to frighten me.
You very nearly planted her on the bar for at least
twelve hours, besides getting the engines choked with
mud. Ships can't afford to lose twelve hours on a trip
nowadays--as you ought to know very well, and do
know very well to be sure, only . . ."
His slow volubility, the sideways cranings of his neck,
the black glances out of the very corners of his eyes,
left Captain Whalley unmoved. He looked at the deck
with a severe frown. Massy waited for some little time,
then began to threaten plaintively.
"You think you've got me bound hand and foot in
that agreement. You think you can torment me in any
way you please. Ah! But remember it has another
six weeks to run yet. There's time for me to dismiss
you before the three years are out. You will do yet
something that will give me the chance to dismiss you,
and make you wait a twelvemonth for your money before
you can take yourself off and pull out your five hundred,
and leave me without a penny to get the new boilers for
her. You gloat over that idea--don't you? I do be-
lieve you sit here gloating. It's as if I had sold my
soul for five hundred pounds to be everlastingly damned
in the end. . . ."
He paused, without apparent exasperation, then con-
tinued evenly--
". . . With the boilers worn out and the survey hang-
ing over my head, Captain Whalley-- Captain
Whalley, I say, what do you do with your money? You
must have stacks of money somewhere--a man like you
must. It stands to reason. I am not a fool, you know,
Captain Whalley--partner."
Again he paused, as though he had done for good.
He passed his tongue over his lips, gave a backward
glance at the Serang conning the ship with quiet whis-
pers and slight signs of the hand. The wash of the
propeller sent a swift ripple, crested with dark froth,
upon a long flat spit of black slime. The Sofala had
entered the river; the trail she had stirred up over the
bar was a mile astern of her now, out of sight, had dis-
appeared utterly; and the smooth, empty sea along the
coast was left behind in the glittering desolation of sun-
shine. On each side of her, low down, the growth of
somber twisted mangroves covered the semi-liquid banks;
and Massy continued in his old tone, with an abrupt
start, as if his speech had been ground out of him, like
the tune of a music-box, by turning a handle.
"Though if anybody ever got the best of me, it is you.
I don't mind saying this. I've said it--there! What
more can you want? Isn't that enough for your pride,
Captain Whalley. You got over me from the first. It's
all of a piece, when I look back at it. You allowed me
to insert that clause about intemperance without saying
anything, only looking very sick when I made a point
of it going in black on white. How could I tell what
was wrong about you. There's generally something
wrong somewhere. And, lo and behold! when you
come on board it turns out that you've been in the
habit of drinking nothing but water for years and
years."
His dogmatic reproachful whine stopped. He brooded
profoundly, after the manner of crafty and unintelli-
gent men. It seemed inconceivable that Captain
Whalley should not laugh at the expression of disgust
that overspread the heavy, yellow countenance. But
Captain Whalley never raised his eyes--sitting in his
arm-chair, outraged, dignified, and motionless.
"Much good it was to me," Massy remonstrated
monotonously, "to insert a clause for dismissal for in-
temperance against a man who drinks nothing but water.
And you looked so upset, too, when I read my draft in
the lawyer's office that morning, Captain Whalley,--
you looked so crestfallen, that I made sure I had gone
home on your weak spot. A shipowner can't be too
careful as to the sort of skipper he gets. You must
have been laughing at me in your sleeve all the blessed
time. . . . Eh? What are you going to say?"
Captain Whalley had only shuffled his feet slightly.
A dull animosity became apparent in Massy's sideways
stare.
"But recollect that there are other grounds of dis-
missal. There's habitual carelessness, amounting to in-
competence--there's gross and persistent neglect of
duty. I am not quite as big a fool as you try to make
me out to be. You have been careless of late--leaving
everything to that Serang. Why! I've seen you let-
ting that old fool of a Malay take bearings for you,
as if you were too big to attend to your work yourself.
And what do you call that silly touch-and-go manner
in which you took the ship over the bar just now? You
expect me to put up with that?"
Leaning on his elbow against the ladder abaft the
bridge, Sterne, the mate, tried to hear, blinking the
while from the distance at the second engineer, who had
come up for a moment, and stood in the engine-room
companion. Wiping his hands on a bunch of cotton
waste, he looked about with indifference to the right
and left at the river banks slipping astern of the
Sofala steadily.
Massy turned full at the chair. The character of his
whine became again threatening.
"Take care. I may yet dismiss you and freeze to your
money for a year. I may . . ."
But before the silent, rigid immobility of the man
whose money had come in the nick of time to save him
from utter ruin, his voice died out in his throat.
"Not that I want you to go," he resumed after a si-
lence, and in an absurdly insinuating tone. "I want
nothing better than to be friends and renew the agree-
ment, if you will consent to find another couple of hun-
dred to help with the new boilers, Captain Whalley.
I've told you before. She must have new boilers; you
know it as well as I do. Have you thought this over?"
He waited. The slender stem of the pipe with its
bulky lump of a bowl at the end hung down from his
thick lips. It had gone out. Suddenly he took it from
between his teeth and wrung his hands slightly.
"Don't you believe me?" He thrust the pipe bowl
into the pocket of his shiny black jacket.
"It's like dealing with the devil," he said. "Why
don't you speak? At first you were so high and mighty
with me I hardly dared to creep about my own deck.
Now I can't get a word from you. You don't seem to
see me at all. What does it mean? Upon my soul, you
terrify me with this deaf and dumb trick. What's go-
ing on in that head of yours? What are you plotting
against me there so hard that you can't say a word?
You will never make me believe that you--you--don't
know where to lay your hands on a couple of hundred.
You have made me curse the day I was born. . . ."
"Mr. Massy," said Captain Whalley suddenly, with-
out stirring.
The engineer started violently.
"If that is so I can only beg you to forgive me."
"Starboard," muttered the Serang to the helmsman;
and the Sofala began to swing round the bend into the
second reach.
"Ough!" Massy shuddered. "You make my blood
run cold. What made you come here? What made you
come aboard that evening all of a sudden, with your
high talk and your money--tempting me? I always
wondered what was your motive? You fastened yourself
on me to have easy times and grow fat on my life blood,
I tell you. Was that it? I believe you are the greatest
miser in the world, or else why . . ."
"No. I am only poor," interrupted Captain Whalley,
stonily.
"Steady," murmured the Serang. Massy turned away
with his chin on his shoulder.
"I don't believe it," he said in his dogmatic tone.
Captain Whalley made no movement. "There you sit
like a gorged vulture--exactly like a vulture."
He embraced the middle of the reach and both the
banks in one blank unseeing circular glance, and left the
bridge slowly.
