Mr. Van Wyk’s thoughts followed the Sofala down the river, winding about through the belt of the coast forest, between the buttressed shafts of the big trees, through the mangrove strip, and over the bar. The ship crossed it easily in broad daylight, piloted, as it happened, by Mr. Sterne, who took the watch from four to six, and then went below to hug himself with delight at the prospect of being virtually employed by a rich man—like Mr. Van Wyk. He could not see how any hitch could occur now. He did not seem able to get over the feeling of being “fixed up at last.” From six to eight, in the course of duty, the Serang looked alone after the ship. She had a clear road before her now till about three in the morning, when she would close with the Pangu group. At eight Mr. Sterne came out cheerily to take charge again till midnight. At ten he was still chirruping and humming to himself on the bridge, and about that time Mr. Van Wyk’s thought abandoned the Sofala. Mr. Van Wyk had fallen asleep at last.
Massy, blocking the engine-room companion, jerked himself into his tweed jacket surlily, while the second waited with a scowl.
“Oh. You came out? You sot! Well, what have you got to say for yourself?”
He had been in charge of the engines till then. A somber fury darkened his mind: a hot anger against the ship, against the facts of life, against the men for their cheating, against himself too—because of an inward tremor of his heart.
An incomprehensible growl answered him.
“What? Can’t you open your mouth now? You yelp out your infernal rot loud enough when you are drunk. What do you mean by abusing people in that way?—you old useless boozer, you!”
“Can’t help it. Don’t remember anything about it. You shouldn’t listen.”
“You dare to tell me! What do you mean by going on a drunk like this!”
“Don’t ask me. Sick of the dam’ boilers—you would be. Sick of life.”
“I wish you were dead, then. You’ve made me sick of you. Don’t you remember the uproar you made last night? You miserable old soaker!”
“No; I don’t. Don’t want to. Drink is drink.”
“I wonder what prevents me from kicking you out. What do you want here?”
“Relieve you. You’ve been long enough down there, George.”
“Don’t you George me—you tippling old rascal, you! If I were to die tomorrow you would starve. Remember that. Say Mr. Massy.”
“Mr. Massy,” repeated the other stolidly.
Disheveled, with dull bloodshot eyes, a snuffy, grimy shirt, greasy trousers, naked feet thrust into ragged slippers, he bolted in head down directly Massy had made way for him.
The chief engineer looked around. The deck was empty as far as the taffrail. All the native passengers had left in Batu Beru this time, and no others had joined. The dial of the patent log tinkled periodically in the dark at the end of the ship. It was a dead calm, and, under the clouded sky, through the still air that seemed to cling warm, with a seaweed smell, to her slim hull, on a sea of somber gray and unwrinkled, the ship moved on an even keel, as if floating detached in empty space. But Mr. Massy slapped his forehead, tottered a little, caught hold of a belaying-pin at the foot of the mast.
“I shall go mad,” he muttered, walking across the deck unsteadily. A shovel was scraping loose coal down below—a fire-door clanged. Sterne on the bridge began whistling a new tune.
Captain Whalley, sitting on the couch, awake and fully dressed, heard the door of his cabin open. He did not move in the least, waiting to recognize the voice, with an appalling strain of prudence.
A bulkhead lamp blazed on the white paint, the crimson plush, the brown varnish of mahogany tops. The white wood packing-case under the bed-place had remained unopened for three years now, as though Captain Whalley had felt that, after the Fair Maid was gone, there could be no abiding-place on earth for his affections. His hands rested on his knees; his handsome head with big eyebrows presented a rigid profile to the doorway. The expected voice spoke out at last.
“Once more, then. What am I to call you?”
Ha! Massy. Again. The weariness of it crushed his heart—and the pain of shame was almost more than he could bear without crying out.
“Well. Is it to be ‘partner’ still?”
“You don’t know what you ask.”
“I know what I want …”
Massy stepped in and closed the door.
“… And I am going to have a try for it with you once more.”
His whine was half persuasive, half menacing.
“For it’s no manner of use to tell me that you are poor. You don’t spend anything on yourself, that’s true enough; but there’s another name for that. You think you are going to have what you want out of me for three years, and then cast me off without hearing what I think of you. You think I would have submitted to your airs if I had known you had only a beggarly five hundred pounds in the world. You ought to have told me.”
“Perhaps,” said Captain Whalley, bowing his head. “And yet it has saved you.” … Massy laughed scornfully. … “I have told you often enough since.”
“And I don’t believe you now. When I think how I let you lord it over my ship! Do you remember how you used to bullyrag me about my coat and your bridge? It was in his way. His bridge! ‘And I won’t be a party to this—and I couldn’t think of doing that.’ Honest man! And now it all comes out. ‘I am poor, and I can’t. I have only this five hundred in the world.’ ”
He contemplated the immobility of Captain Whalley, that seemed to present an inconquerable obstacle in his path. His face took a mournful cast.
“You are a hard man.”
“Enough,” said Captain Whalley, turning upon him. “You shall get nothing from me, because I
