me, Mr. Rolfe; if you've finished your breakfast, you can
relieve Vandersee for his. We can talk as well on deck."

The second mate was relieved and went below. Barry examined him casually
as he passed, and again he was conscious of that same feeling that had
swept through him earlier in the morning. Again there was that vague
suggestion of a steel trap covered with velvet, or kidskin. Not to any
one feature, either, could this suggestion be traced; the man's ruddy
face was open and bland, his eyes sparkled like gems, his bearing was
that of a man who owes no man, either in money or favor.

Barry felt faintly angry with himself for harboring fancies and turned
back to the chief mate.

"I asked what opinion you had formed of the second mate, Mr. Rolfe," he
said, joining the other on the weather side of the poop.

"I never form an opinion of an owner's man, sir--not to talk about it,
anyhow," returned Rolfe slowly. "In any case, you've known him almost as
long as I have; you'll form your own ideas, no matter what mine are. I
only know that Vandersee knows his work, and that he's supposed to know
the Sandang River like one of its own fish."

Barry knew by the length of the mate's speech that he thought little of
his big junior officer. A good, or even fair opinion would have been
simply expressed as yes, or good enough. Having in view the possibility
of conflict when their destination was reached and the necessity for
singleness of purpose among the ship's company, he went quietly to work
on a mental register of every man on board from chief mate down to cook,
to the end that he might have to depend on nobody's judgment save his
own.

The _Barang_ wallowed through the islet-studded seas in a fashion that
brought many a grimace to the skipper's face. Frequently he caught
himself gazing astern and persuaded himself it was the wake he was
looking at; but when he snatched his eyes away from the stern and bent
them forward at the blustering, smashing bow-wave thrown off to the
leeward by the snub-nosed brigantine, he knew that his own wake was one
of his lesser worries. Leyden's schooner was the cause of his
uneasiness; for it would be a sluggish vessel indeed, of her rig and
lines, that could not easily allow the _Barang_ a full day's start in
the run to the river.

A brisk breeze holding steadily southeast gave the _Barang_ the fullest
advantage of her square rig and lessened the skipper's anxiety in some
degree; and