"I am not allowed to go aft, sir, without orders from the mate."
"Where is the mate?"
"I think he is below, sir."
"Asleep?"
"I wouldn't wonder."
Mayo did not trouble to use his dialect on this stranger, a mere
passenger, who spoke as if he were addressing a car-porter. The tone
produced instant irritation, resentment in the man who had so recently
been master of his ship.
The passenger set down his baggage and pondered a moment. He looked Mayo
over in calculating fashion; he stared up the wharf. Then he picked
up his bags and hurried along the port alley and disappeared down the
companionway.
He returned in a few moments, came into the waist of the vessel,
and made careful survey of all about him. There were two sailors far
forward, merely dim shadows. For some reason general conditions on the
schooner seemed to satisfy the stranger.
"The thing is breaking about right--about as I reckoned it would," he
said aloud. "Look here, George, how much talking do you do about things
you see?"
"Talking to who, sir?"
"Why, to your boss--the captain--the mate."
"A sailor before the mast is pretty careful not to say anything to a
captain or the mates unless they speak to him first, sir."
"George, I'm not going to do anything but what is perfectly all right,
you understand. You'll not get into any trouble over it. But what you
don't see you can't tell, no matter if questions are asked later on.
Here, take this!" He crowded two silver dollars into Mayo's hands and
gave him a push. "You trot forward and stay there about five minutes,
that's the boy! It's all right. It's a little of my own private
business. Go ahead!"
Mayo went. He reflected that it was none of his affair what a passenger
did aboard the vessel. It was precious little interest he took in the
craft, anyway, except as a temporary refuge. He turned away and put the
money in his pocket, the darkness hiding his smile.
He did not look toward the wharf. He strolled on past the forward house,
where the engineer was stoking his boiler, getting up steam for the
schooner's windlass engine. When he patrolled aft again, after
a conscientious wait, he found the passenger leaning against the
coachhouse door, smoking a cigarette. The electric light showed his
face, and it wore a look of peculiar satisfaction.
Just then some one fumbled inside the coach-house door at the stranger's
back, and when the latter stepped away the first mate appeared, yawning.