Part 27 (1/2)

”Beg pardon, sir. Sorry I forgot myself. It sha'n't occur again.”

”You'll go to your room for three days when we get back on board.”

”Ay, ay, sir.”

”I decided that before I left the s.h.i.+p. I can't have my officers staying away from duty without leave on any excuse. And if they have such low tastes as to bring themselves on the level of common mop-headed portrait painters and photographers, they must pay for it.”

”Ay, ay, sir.”

”What were you run in for?”

”Oh, photographing.”

”There you are, then! And did they bring you straight along here?”

”Yes, sir. And lowered me in a bowline to this cellar.”

”Ah,” said Kettle, ”then you don't want so much change out of them. They dropped me, and some one will have a heavy bill to square up for, over that. Do you know whose house this is?”

”Haven't a notion. After I'd been here an hour or so, some heathen sneaked round to a peep-hole in the wall and offered to take off a message to the s.h.i.+p, on payment. I hadn't any money, so I had to give up my watch, and before I'd written half the letter he got interrupted and had to clear off with what there was. Did he bring off the message, sir?”

”He did. And I came ash.o.r.e at once. You remember Rad el Moussa?”

”The man that consigned all that parcel of figs for London?”

”That man. I considered that as he'd been doing business with the steamer, he was the best person to make inquiries of ash.o.r.e. So I came to him, and asked where I could find the Kady to bail you out. He shuffled a bit, and after some talk he admitted he was the Kady, and took palm-oil from me in the usual way, and then I'll not deny that we had a trifle of a disagreement. But he seemed to simmer down all right, said he'd send along for you, and after a bit of time said you'd come, and wouldn't I walk through the house and see you myself. The crafty old fox had got his b.o.o.by trap rigged in the mean time, and then I walked straight into it like the softest specimen of blame' fool you can imagine.”

”Rad el Moussa,” came the foggy comment. ”By Jove! Captain, I believe we're in an awkward place. He's the biggest man in this town far and away, and about the biggest blackguard also from what I've heard. He's a merchant in every line that comes handy, from slaves and palm fibre to horses and dates; he runs most of those pearling dhows that we saw sweltering about at the anchorage; and he's got a little army of his own with which he raids the other coast towns and the caravans up-country when he hears they've got any truck worth looting. I say, this is scaring. I've been taking the thing pretty easily up to now, thinking it would come all right in time. But if I'd known it was old Rad who had grabbed me, I tell you I should have sat sweating.”

”It takes a lot more than a mere n.i.g.g.e.r, with his head in clouts, to scare me,” said Kettle truculently, ”and I don't care tuppence what he may be by trade. He's got a down on me at present, I'll grant, but I'm going to give Mr. Rad el Moussa fits a little later on, and you may stand by and look on, if you aren't frightened to be near him.”

”I'm not a funk in the open,” grumbled Murray, ”and you know it. You've seen me handle a crew. But I'm in a kind of cellar here, and can't get out, and if anybody chooses they can drop bricks on me, and I can't stop them. Have they been at you about those rifles, sir?”

”What rifles? No, n.o.body's said 'rifles' to me ash.o.r.e here.”

”It seems we've got some cases of rifles on board for one of those little ports up the coast. I didn't know it.”

”Nor did I,” said Kettle, ”and you can take it from me that we haven't.

Smuggling rifles ash.o.r.e is a big offence here in the Persian Gulf, and I'm not going to put myself in the way of the law, if I know it.”

”Well, I think you're wrong, sir,” said the Mate. ”I believe they're in some cases that are down on the manifest as 'machinery.' I saw them stowed down No. 3 hold, and I remember one of the stevedores in London joking about them when they were struck below.”

”Supposing they were rifles, what than?”

”Rad wants them. He says they're consigned to some of his neighbors up coast, who'll raid him as soon as they're properly armed; and he doesn't like the idea. What raiding's done, he likes to do himself, and at the same time he much prefers good Brummagen rifles to the local ironmonger's blunderbusses.”

”Well,” said Kettle, ”I'm waiting to hear what he thought you could do with the rifles supposing they were on board.”

”Oh, he expected me to broach cargo and bring them here ash.o.r.e to him.

He's a simple-minded savage.”