in his lap. His men were asleep already. 'I had a terrible time
of it,' he murmured. 'Mahon is behind--not very far.' We conversed
in whispers, in low whispers, as if afraid to wake up the land. Guns,
thunder, earthquakes would not have awakened the men just then.

"Looking around as we talked, I saw away at sea a bright light traveling
in the night. 'There's a steamer passing the bay,' I said. She was not
passing, she was entering, and she even came close and anchored. 'I
wish,' said the old man, 'you would find out whether she is English.
Perhaps they could give us a passage somewhere.' He seemed nervously
anxious. So by dint of punching and kicking I started one of my men into
a state of somnambulism, and giving him an oar, took another and pulled
towards the lights of the steamer.

"There was a murmur of voices in her, metallic hollow clangs of the
engine-room, footsteps on the deck. Her ports shone, round like dilated
eyes. Shapes moved about, and there was a shadowy man high up on the
bridge. He heard my oars.

"And then, before I could open my lips, the East spoke to me, but it was
in a Western voice. A torrent of words was poured into the enigmatical,
the fateful silence; outlandish, angry words, mixed with words and even
whole sentences of good English, less strange but even more surprising.
The voice swore and cursed violently; it riddled the solemn peace of the
bay by a volley of abuse. It began by calling me Pig, and from that went
crescendo into unmentionable adjectives--in English. The man up there
raged aloud in two languages, and with a sincerity in his fury that
almost convinced me I had, in some way, sinned against the harmony of
the universe. I could hardly see him, but began to think he would work
himself into a fit.

"Suddenly he ceased, and I could hear him snorting and blowing like a
porpoise. I said--

"'What steamer is this, pray?'

"'Eh? What's this? And who are you?'

"'Castaway crew of an English barque burnt at sea. We came here
to-night. I am the second mate. The captain is in the long-boat, and
wishes to know if you would give us a passage somewhere.'

"'Oh, my goodness! I say... This is the Celestial from Singapore on
her return trip. I'll arrange with your captain in the morning...
and,... I say... did you hear me just now?'

"'I should think the whole bay heard you.'

"'I thought you were a shore-boat. Now, look here--this infernal lazy
scoundrel of a caretaker has gone to