Ah, Claggett--you
never knew him, you see. I am _sure_ you would have liked him--such
charm! So _distingue_. Oh dear me yes. A most _unusual_ royal
personage," Osterbridge Hawsey said, smiling happily at his parakeet.
"Most of them are so _much_ alike--"

He singled out several fresh fruits, peeling some for Claggett Chew.
Silence fell over the cabin except for Osterbridge Hawsey's delicately
smacking lips as he finished the fruit and licked his fingers one by
one, the increasingly heavy breathing of Claggett Chew, who fell
asleep, and the distant sound of shouts and clamor from the shore.
Osterbridge Hawsey made a pouting face at the sleeping figure of Chew;
evidently Osterbridge was bored. He went to the door and clapped his
hands, but no one responded. Except for the two men and the parakeet,
the _Vulture_ was deserted.

Osterbridge Hawsey came back into the cabin holding a bottle of wine
which he uncorked and poured into a glass. Chris, foreseeing what
would follow, hopped up to the back of his new master's chair where he
hoped he would be forgotten, and tucked his head under his wing in
case Osterbridge should look at him.

Waiting for the right moment was the hardest thing Chris had to do,
but he knew, as Osterbridge Hawsey drank glass after glass and his
book fell from his fingers, that the right moment would not be long in
coming.

CHAPTER 26

The tropic coolness of the night intensified as the hours advanced. An
added freshness swept out from the shore carrying its scent of flowers
and earth. The feasting pirates had evidently fallen asleep over their
food and empty wine mugs, for they did not return.

With a growing sense of uneasiness, Chris cautiously brought his head
out from under his jade-green wing. He had had for the past hour the
eerie feeling of being stared at, and he pecked at his scarlet and
yellow breast feathers while sending a glance about the cabin.

He knew without having to look, where the source of his uneasiness
lay. Claggett Chew had turned on his right side and fixed him with a
pale, piercing, and unblinking eye. So fixed, it was, that for a
heart-thudding moment Chris imagined his enemy to be dead. But after a
longer pause than usual, the pale heavy lids finally blinked, though
the unwavering eyes did not move from where Chris was perched, as
nonchalantly as he knew how to, on the back of Osterbridge Hawsey's
chair.

The intelligence behind the stare was infinitely kee