I said: "You needn't worry.He won't get my job.My successor is on board already."He was surprised, and I believe his face fell a little at the news.Captain Giles gave a soft laugh.We got up and went out on the verandah, leaving the supine stranger to be dealt with by the Chinamen.The last thing I saw they had put a plate with a slice of pine-apple on it before him and stood back to watch what would happen.
But the experiment seemed a failure.He sat in-sensible.
It was imparted to me in a low voice by Captain Giles that this was an officer of some Rajah's yacht which had come into our port to be dry-docked.
Must have been "seeing life" last night, he added, wrinkling his nose in an intimate, confidential way which pleased me vastly.For Captain Giles had prestige.He was credited with wonderful ad-ventures and with some mysterious tragedy in his life.And no man had a word to say against him.
He continued:
"I remember him first coming ashore here some years ago.Seems only the other day.He was a nice boy.Oh! these nice boys!"I could not help laughing aloud.He looked startled, then joined in the laugh."No! No!
I didn't mean that," he cried."What I meant is that some of them do go soft mighty quick out here."Jocularly I suggested the beastly heat as the first cause.But Captain Giles disclosed himself possessed of a deeper philosophy.Things out East were made easy for white men.That was all right.The difficulty was to go on keeping white, and some of these nice boys did not know how.He gave me a searching look, and in a benevolent, heavy-uncle manner asked point blank:
"Why did you throw up your berth?"
I became angry all of a sudden; for you can understand how exasperating such a question was to a man who didn't know.I said to myself that I ought to shut up that moralist; and to him aloud I said with challenging politeness:
"Why...? Do you disapprove?"
He was too disconcerted to do more than mutter confusedly: "I!...In a general way.
..." and then gave me up.But he retired in good order, under the cover of a heavily humorous remark that he, too, was getting soft, and that this was his time for taking his little siesta--when he was on shore."Very bad habit.Very bad habit."There was a simplicity in the man which would have disarmed a touchiness even more youthful than mine.So when next day at tiffin he bent his head toward me and said that he had met my late Captain last evening, adding in an undertone:
"He's very sorry you left.He had never had a mate that suited him so well," I answered him earnestly, without any affectation, that I certainly hadn't been so comfortable in any ship or with any commander in all my sea-going days.
"Well--then," he murmured.
"Haven't you heard, Captain Giles, that I in-tend to go home?"
"Yes," he said benevolently."I have heard that sort of thing so often before.""What of that?" I cried.I thought he was the most dull, unimaginative man I had ever met.Idon't know what more I would have said, but the much-belated Hamilton came in just then and took his usual seat.So I dropped into a mum-ble.
"Anyhow, you shall see it done this time."Hamilton, beautifully shaved, gave Captain Giles a curt nod, but didn't even condescend to raise his eyebrows at me; and when he spoke it was only to tell the Chief Steward that the food on his plate wasn't fit to be set before a gentleman.The individual addressed seemed much too unhappy to groan.He cast his eyes up to the punkah and that was all.
Captain Giles and I got up from the table, and the stranger next to Hamilton followed our ex-ample, manoeuvring himself to his feet with difficulty.He, poor fellow, not because he was hungry but I verily believe only to recover his self-respect, had tried to put some of that un-worthy food into his mouth.But after dropping his fork twice and generally making a failure of it, he had sat still with an air of intense mortifica-tion combined with a ghastly glazed stare.Both Giles and I had avoided looking his way at table.
On the verandah he stopped short on purpose to address to us anxiously a long remark which Ifailed to understand completely.It sounded like some horrible unknown language.But when Captain Giles, after only an instant for reflection, assured him with homely friendliness, "Aye, to be sure.You are right there," he appeared very much gratified indeed, and went away (pretty straight, too) to seek a distant long chair.
"What was he trying to say?" I asked with disgust.
"I don't know.Mustn't be down too much on a fellow.He's feeling pretty wretched, you may be sure; and to-morrow he'll feel worse yet."Judging by the man's appearance it seemed im-possible.I wondered what sort of complicated de-bauch had reduced him to that unspeakable con-dition.Captain Giles' benevolence was spoiled by a curious air of complacency which I disliked.Isaid with a little laugh:
"Well, he will have you to look after him."He made a deprecatory gesture, sat down, and took up a paper.I did the same.The papers were old and uninteresting, filled up mostly with dreary stereotyped descriptions of Queen Victoria's first jubilee celebrations.Probably we should have quickly fallen into a tropical afternoon doze if it had not been for Hamilton's voice raised in the dining room.He was finishing his tiffin there.
The big double doors stood wide open permanently, and he could not have had any idea how near to the doorway our chairs were placed.He was heard in a loud, supercilious tone answering some state-ment ventured by the Chief Steward.
"I am not going to be rushed into anything.
They will be glad enough to get a gentleman Iimagine.There is no hurry."
A loud whispering from the Steward succeeded and then again Hamilton was heard with even intenser scorn.
"What? That young ass who fancies himself for having been chief mate with Kent so long?
...Preposterous."
Giles and I looked at each other.Kent being the came of my late commander, Captain Giles'
