sanguine young man, much in need of some settled employment, built great hopes upon it. If he were to appear in Whitehall and say to the minister, 'Here, sir, is the treaty with the Sultan of Prabang', or 'Sir, I have the honour of bringing you the treaty concluded between His Majesty and the Sultan of Prabang' surely it must lead to something? Not indeed to the knighthood or baronetcy that Fox had expected, but surely to some little place under Government - attach?in one of the smaller, more remote legations, or Deputy Harbinger to the Board of Green Cloth? He was an honourable creature and he had no knowledge of the poisonous letter that Fox had enclosed with the duplicate, a letter that spoke ill of practically everyone aboard the Diane, particularly his secretary; but Stephen, who as an intelligence- agent was obliged to live by a different code, was well acquainted with its contents.
Edwards, bound by duty, a lingering affection for his chief, decent interest and everything that was proper had enveloped the treaty in linen, waxed silk and an outer case: he always carried it in his bosom, and now as he and Stephen stood side by side on the lofty poop of Li Po's junk, gazing astern, he tapped his chest, which gave out an answering hollow, cardboardy sound, and said, 'Sometimes it appears to me that this document is under a curse. It has been wrecked and very nearby sunk; it has been attacked by Dyaks and very nearly burnt; and now it is in grave danger of being seized by pirates, to the utter annihilation of all our efforts.'
'Sure, this is a sight calculated to freeze a man's blood in his veins,' replied Stephen, looking at the wicked proa tearing along in their wake, close-hauled to the south-west breeze, both its outriggers skimming white on the sea: wicked, in that it was certainly a pirate and much faster than the junk, but not very dangerous, in that it was small, containing no more than fifty men squeezed tight and possessing not a single gun. 'Yet even so, I think they will sheer away , as Captain Aubrey would put it, as soon as he and Mr Welby have ranged the Marines along the side. In any event, Mai-mai, who has more experience of sea-Dyaks and of pirates in general than any twelve of us, assures me that this is only a low Karimata proa. She wonders at its assurance, since this is Wan Da's territory. When he is neither hunting nor on duty at the palace he sails up and down the strait and to and fro in it, levying tribute on all those who have accepted his protection and sinking or burning the rest.'
At last the Marines came clumping up, red coats, white cross-belts, bright muskets and all, fit for any parade-ground. They lined the rail, all the rails, and Captain Aubrey called up to Stephen 'Pray tell him to port his helm.'
A series of barking falsetto orders in Chinese and the junk began a smooth curve that displayed her overwhelming armament, which included the two carronades. The pirates, having contemplated this for a while, turned and went racing away to the northwards in search of an easier prey.
'Mr Welby,' said Jack, 'it might save many valuable lives, was you to dismiss your jollies at once, and let them take off their stocks.' With Li Po he exchanged smiles and bows, and to Stephen and Edwards he said 'I am so sorry to have kept you in fear and trembling all this while, but the construction of the junk is so very unlike anything we are used to that the poor fellows could not come at their things - boots in one hold, accoutrements in another, bayonets far from cross-belts, and pipe-clay in the after-magazine with the gunpowder. Would you believe me, gentlemen, if I were to tell you that this vessel has no less than six separate holds? And when I say separate I mean divided from one another by a watertight bulkhead.' His officers came swarming up a ladder to a curious little deck or platform without a name in the Royal Navy vocabulary, looking about them with the lost amazement usual in landsmen aboard a man-of-war. 'Ain't I right, Mr Fielding,' he called, 'when I tell the Doctor here there are no less than six separate holds?'
'It is an understatement, sir,' replied Fielding. 'Richardson and I make seven and the master reckons eight: we are going to make another tour. The midshipmen say they have reached double figures.'
'Mai-mai, sweetheart,' said Stephen down through a grating beneath which the little girls could be seen playing an elaborate form of hopscotch, 'would you be a kind child and show these gentlemen each several compartment of the junk in turn? I am sure they will give you a whole ship's biscuit for yourself.' Ship's biscuit: they were passionately attached to it, old though it might be, and could not be brought to believe that in ordinary times the seamen were given a pound every single ordinary working day.
'It is a strange way of building a ship,' said Jack, 'but Lord, it has its advantages! If the Diane had had those bulkheads she would be swimming yet.' And he went on about the wonderful economy of knees, the flexible strength far surpassing even what Seppings could provide, until the vacant expressions before him quenched his flow.
'I must dress that boy's leg,' said Stephen. 'On the right there is still another pelican.'
He had not only the splints to attend to under the anxious parent's eye and the startling purple balm to renew, but also his serious rounds in company with Macmillan who, he found to his surprise, was drunk. Some degree of drunkenness was a common state aboard a man-of-war after dinner and here the degree was more pronounced than usual, the grog having been mixed with Li Po's arrack, a spirit almost twice as strong as that saved from the Diane after the purser had stretched it with pure rain water and a little vitriol; and Macmillan had of course dined in the midshipmen's berth at noon. For all that Stephen was surprised, Macmillan being ordinarily a most exact, abstemious man. Even now he was perfectly steady and his dressings were perfectly neat, but his more or less neutral English was invaded by his native Scotch, with its curious glottal stops, strong aspirates and rolling r's, and his general attitude was more assured and loquacious than usual. 'I lay awake the nicht,' he observed, 'and on a sudden it came to me why you had crackit yon wee bairn's leg. Heuch, heuch, you must have thocht me a puir slow-witted gowk.'
'Not at all, at all,' said Stephen. 'There is a naevus on his shank that we might do well to cauterize against future trouble. Did you remark it?'
'Aye, that I did. My wife had the very same, but abune the knee.'
They were in the relative privacy of the space that served both as captain's store-room and as dispensary, and Stephen, who had a real esteem and even affection for his assistant, felt required to say 'I was not aware you were a married man, Mr Macmillan.'
For some while Macmillan did not reply, being occupied with putting their pills, plaster, draughts and bandages away with his usual obsessive neatness, but when he did speak it was as though he had already made a comprehensive answer, his present words being a continuation. 'I had thocht a wife was a pairson a mon could tell his dreams to; but then one day she flung the collops in my face straight from the skillet, cried 'The Hell with your faukit dreamings,' whipped out of the door and locked it fast behind her.' He closed the medicine chest, making the same movement with the key, and said 'I never saw her more.' They lived at the very top of a lofty house in Canongate, he added in parenthesis before going on in a different voice 'But I never was a good husband to a canty young woman like her. Even as a boy I had dreams of tall candles bending over in the sun, right down to touch the shelf; and when I was a man it was much the same - I would be there pointing a pistol with a certain triumph, you understand; and the barrel would droop, droop.'
Some decks away, some holds away, Stephen heard the drum beat Roast Beef of Old England for the officers' dinner. 'You must forgive me, Mr Macmillan,' he said. 'The Captain is so particular about punctuality.'
The Roast Beef that day consisted of the remains of the babirussa, some cooked in the English, some in the Chinese way, a variety of little Javanese dishes and then the best bird's-nest soup that any man much under the
