of them were washing down the
decks with kaiar brooms. For the first time since he had come on board
Wilbur heard the sound of their voices.

The evening was magnificent. Never to Wilbur's eyes had the Pacific
appeared so vast, so radiant, so divinely beautiful. A star or two
burned slowly through that part of the sky where the pink began to fade
into the blue. Charlie went forward and set the side lights--red on
the port rigging, green on the starboard. As he passed Wilbur, who was
leaning over the rail and watching the phosphorus flashing just under
the surface, he said:

"Hey, you go talkee-talk one-piecey Boss, savvy Boss--chin-chin."

Wilbur went aft and came up on the poop, where Kitchell stood at the
wheel, smoking an inverted "Tarrier's Delight."

"Now, son," began Kitchell, "I natch'ly love you so that I'm goin' to
do you a reel favor, do you twig? I'm goin' to allow you to berth aft in
the cabin, 'long o' me an' Charlie, an' beesides you can make free of
my quarterdeck. Mebbee you ain't used to the ways of sailormen just
yet, but you can lay to it that those two are reel concessions, savvy?
I ain't a mush-head, like mee dear friend Jim. You ain't no water-front
swine, I can guess that with one hand tied beehind me. You're a toff,
that's what you are, and your lines has been laid for toffs. I ain't
askin' you no questions, but you got brains, an' I figger on gettin'
more outa you by lettin' you have y'r head a bit. But mind, now, you get
gay once, sonny, or try to flimflam me, or forget that I'm the boss of
the bathtub, an' strike me blind, I'll cut you open, an' you can lay to
that, son. Now, then, here's the game: You work this boat 'long with
the coolies, an' take my orders, an' walk chalk, an' I'll teach you
navigation, an' make this cruise as easy as how-do-you-do. You don't,
an' I'll manhandle you till y'r bones come throo y'r hide."

"I've no choice in the matter," said Wilbur. "I've got to make the best
of a bad situation."

"I ree-marked as how you had brains," muttered the Captain.

"But there's one thing," continued Wilbur; "if I'm to have my head a
little, as you say, you'll find we can get along better if you put me
to rights about this whole business. Why was I brought aboard, why are
there only Chinese along, where are we going, what are we going to do,
and how long are we going to be gone?"

Kitchell spat over the side, and then sucked the nicotine from his
mustache.

"Well," he said