stocked cellarette, clockwork fans, and a double bed with silk sheets that would have done credit to a New Orleans sporting-house. Well, thinks I, this is better than riding the gridiron*(* Travelling on an East Indiaman.) we'll be right at home here.
The rest of the appointment was to match; the saloon, where we dined, couldn't have been bettered for grub, liquor and service - even old Morrison, who'd been groaning reluctantly, I gathered, ever since he'd agreed to come, had his final doubts settled when they set his first sea meal before him; he was even seen to smile, which I'll bet he hadn't done since he last cut the mill-hands' wages. Solomon was a splendid host, with every thought for our comfort; he even spent the first week pottering about the coast while we got our sea-legs, and was full of consideration for Elspeth - when she discovered that she had left her toilet water behind he had her maid landed at Portsmouth to go up to Town for some, with instructions to meet us at Plymouth; it was royal treatment, no error, and damn all expense.
Only two things raised a prickle with me in all this idyllic luxury. One was the crew: there wasn't a white face among 'em. When I was helped aboard that first night, it was by two grinning yellow-faced rascals in reefer jackets and bare feet; I tried 'em in Hindi, but they just grinned with brown fangs and shook their heads. Solomon explained that they were Malays; he had a few half-caste Arabs aboard as well, who were his engineers and black gang, but no Europeans except the skipper, a surly enough Frog with a touch of nigger in his hair, who messed in his cabin, so that we never saw him, hardly. I didn't quite care for the all-yellow crew, though - I like to hear a British or Yankee voice in the foc'sle; it's reassuring-like. Still, Solomon was a Far East trader, and part-breed himself, so it was perhaps natural enough. He had 'em under his heel, too, and they kept well clear of us, except for the Chink stewards, who were sleek and silent and first-rate.
The other thing was that the Sulu Queen, while she was fitted like a floating palace, carried ten guns, which is about as many as a brig will bear. I said it seemed a lot for a pleasure-yacht, and Solomon smiled and says:
'She is too valuable a vessel to risk, in Far Eastern waters, where even the British and Dutch navies can afford little protection. And'— bowing to us —'she carries a precious cargo. Piracy is not unknown in the islands, you know, and while its victims are usually defenceless native craft - well, I believe in being over-cautious.'
'Ye mean - there's danger?' goggled Morrison.
'Not,' says Solomon, 'with ten guns aboard.'
And to settle old Morrison's qualms, and show off to Elspeth, he had all forty of his crew perform a gun practice for our benefit. They were handy, all right, scampering about the white-scrubbed deck in their tunics and short breeches, running out the pieces and ramming home cold shot to the squeal of the Arab bosun's pipe, precise as guardsmen, and afterwards standing stock-still by their guns, like so many yellow idols. Then they performed cutlass-drill and arms drill, moving like clockwork, and I had to admit that trained troops couldn't have shaped better; what with her speed and handiness, the Sulu Queen was fit to tackle anything short of a man-of-war.
'It is merely precaution piled on precaution,' says Solomon. 'My estates lie on peaceful lanes, on the Malay mainland for the most part, and I take care never to venture where I might be blown into less friendly waters. But I believe in being prepared,' and he went on to talk about his iron water-tanks, and stores of sealed food - I'd still have been happier to see a few white faces and brown whiskers around us. We were three white folk - and Solomon himself, of course - and we were outward bound, after all.
However, these thoughts were soon dispelled in the interest of the voyage. I shan't bore you with descriptions, but I'm bound to say it was the pleasantest cruise of my life, and we never noticed how the weeks slipped by. Solomon had spoken of three months to Singapore; in fact, it took us more than twice as long, and we never grudged a minute of it. Through the summer we cruised gently along the French and Spanish coasts, looking in at Brest and Vigo and Lisbon, being entertained lavishly by local gentry - for Solomon seemed to have a genius for easy acquaintance - and then dipping on down the African coast, into the warm latitudes. I can look back now and say I've made that run more times than I can count, in everything from an Indiaman to a Middle Passage slaver, but this was not like any common voyage - why, we picnicked on Moroccan beaches, made excursions to desert ruins beyond Casablanca, were carried on camels with veiled drivers, strolled in Berber market-places, watched fire- dancers under the massive walls of old corsair castles, saw wild tribesmen run their horse races, took coffee with turbaned, white-bearded governors, and even bathed in warm blue water lapping on miles and miles of empty silver sand with palms nodding in the breeze - and every evening there was the luxury of the Sulu Queen to return to, with its snowy cloths and sparkling silver and crystal, and the delicate Chink stewards attending to every want in the cool dimness of the saloon. Well, I've been a Crown Prince, once, in my wanderings, but I've never seen the like of that voyage.
'It is a fairy-tale!' Elspeth kept exclaiming, and even old Morrison admitted it wasn't half bad - the old bastard became positively mellow, as why shouldn't he, waited on hand and foot, with two slant-eyed and muscular yellow devils to carry him ashore and bear him in a palki on our excursions? 'It's daein' me guid,' says he, 'I can feel the benefit.' And Elspeth would sigh dreamily while they fanned her in the shade, and Solomon would smile and beckon the steward to put more ice in the glasses - oh, aye, he even had a patent ice-house stowed away somewhere, down by the keel.
Farther south, along the jungly and desert coasts, there was no lack of entertainment - a cruise up a forest river in the ship's launch, with Elspeth wide-eyed at the sight of crocodiles, which made her shudder deliciously, or laughing at the antics of monkeys and marvelling at the brilliance of foliage and bird-life. 'Did I not tell you, Diana, how splendid it would be?' Solomon would say, and Elspeth would exclaim rapturously, 'Oh, you did, you did - but this is quite beyond imagination!' Or there would be flying-fish, and porpoises, and once we were round the Cape - where we spent a week, dining out ashore and attending a ball at the Governor's, which pleased Elspeth no end - there was the real deep blue sea of the Indian Ocean, and more marvels for my insatiable relatives. We began the long haul across to India in perfect weather, and at night Solomon would fetch his guitar and sing dago dirges in the dusk, with Elspeth drowsing on a daybed by the rail, while Morrison cheated me at ecarte, or we would play whist, or just laze the time contentedly away. It was tame stuff, if you like, but I put up with it - and kept my eye on Solomon.
For there was no doubt about it, he changed as the voyage progressed. He took the sun pretty strong, and was soon the brownest thing aboard, but in other ways, too, I was reminded that he was at least half-dago or native; instead of the customary shirt sleeves and trousers he took to wearing a tunic and sarong, saying jokingly that it was the proper tropical style; next it was bare feet, and once when the crew were shark-fishing Solomon took a hand at hauling in the huge threshing monster - if you had seen him, stripped to the waist, his great bronze body dripping with sweat, yelling as he heaved on the line and jabbering orders to his men in coast lingo … well, you'd have wondered if it was the same chap who'd been bowling slow lobs at Canter-bury, or talking City prices over the port.
Afterwards, when he came to sit on the deck for an iced soda, I noticed Elspeth glancing at his splendid shoulders in a lazy sort of way, and the glitter in his dark eyes as he swept back his moist black hair and smiled at her - he'd been the perfect family friend for months, mind you, never so much as a fondling paw out of place - and I thought, hollo, he's looking d--d dashing and romantic these days. To make it worse, he'd started growing a chin- beard, a sort of nigger imperial; Elspeth said it gave him quite the corsair touch, so I made a note to roger her twice that night, just to quell these girlish fancies. All this reading Byron ain't good for young women.
It was the very next day that we came on deck to see a huge green coastline some miles to port; jungle-clad slopes beyond the beach, and mountains behind, and Elspeth cried out to know where it might be. Solomon laughed in an odd way as he came to the rail beside us.
'That's the strangest country, perhaps, in the whole wide world,' says he. 'The strangest - and the most savage and cruel. Few Europeans go there, but I have visited it - it's very rich, you see,' he went on, turning to old Morrison, 'gums and balsam, sugar and silk, indigo and spices - I believe there is coal and iron also. I have hopes of improving on the little trade I have started there. But they are a wild, terrible people; one has to tread warily - and keep an eye on your beached boat.'
'Why, Don Solomon!' cries Elspeth. 'We shall not land there, surely?'
'I shall,' says he, 'but not you; the Sulu Queen will lie well off - out of any possible danger.'
'What danger?' says I. 'Cannibals in war canoes?' He laughed.
'Not quite. Would you believe it if I told you that the capital of that country contains fifty thousand people, half of 'em slaves? That it is ruled by a monstrous black queen, who dresses in the height of eighteenth-century fashion, eats with her fingers from a table laden with gold and silver European cutlery, with place-cards at each chair and wall-paper showing Napoleon's victories on the wall - and having dined she will go out to watch robbers
