'What's our point? We want to have a consul extrade us as far as San Francisco and that merchant's office door. My idea is that Samoa would be found an eligible business centre. It's dead before the wind; the States have a consul there, and 'Frisco steamers call, so's we could skip right back and interview the merchant.'
'Samoa?' said Herrick. 'It will take us for ever to get there.'
'Oh, with a fair wind!' said the captain.
'No trouble about the log, eh?' asked Huish.
'No, SIR,' said Davis. 'Ligbt airs and baffling winds. Squalls and calms. D. R.: five miles. No obs. Pumps attended. And fill in the barometer and thermometer off of last year's trip.' 'Never saw such a voyage,' says you to the consul. 'Thought I was going to run short . . .' He stopped in mid career. "Say,' he began again, and once more stopped. 'Beg your pardon, Herrick,' he added with undisguised humility, 'but did you keep the run of the stores?'
'Had I been told to do so, it should have been done, as the rest was done, to the best of my little ability,' said Herrick.
'As it was, the cook helped himself to what he pleased.'
Davis looked at the table.
'I drew it rather fine, you see,' he said at last. 'The great thing was to clear right out of Papeete before the consul could think better of it. Tell you what: I guess I'll take stock.'
And he rose from table and disappeared with a lamp in the lazarette.
"Ere's another screw loose,' observed Huish.
'My man,' said Herrick, with a sudden gleam of animosity, 'it is still your watch on deck, and surely your wheel also?'
'You come the 'eavy swell, don't you, ducky?' said Huish.
'Stand away from that binnacle. Surely your w'eel, my man.
Yah.'
He lit a cigar ostentatiously, and strolled into the waist with his hands in his pockets.
In a surprisingly short time, the captain reappeared; he did not look at Herrick, but called Huish back and sat down.
'Well,' he began, 'I've taken stock--roughly.' He paused as if for somebody to help him out; and none doing so, both gazing on him instead with manifest anxiety, he yet more heavily resumed. 'Well, it won't fight. We can't do it; that's the bed rock. I'm as sorry as what you can be, and sorrier. We can't look near Samoa. I don't know as we could get to Peru.'
'Wot-ju mean?' asked Huish brutally.
'I can't 'most tell myself,' replied the captain. 'I drew it fine; I said I did; but what's been going on here gets me!
Appears as if the devil had been around. That cook must be the holiest kind of fraud. Only twelve days, too! Seems like craziness. I'll own up square to one thing: I seem to have figured too fine upon the flour. But the rest--my land! I'll never understand it! There's been more waste on this twopenny ship than what there is to an Atlantic Liner.' He stole a glance at his companions; nothing good was to be gleaned from their dark faces; and he had recourse to rage. 'You wait till I interview that cook!' he roared and smote the table with his fist. 'I'll interview the son of a gun so's he's never been spoken to before.
I'll put a bead upon the--'
'You will not lay a finger on the man,' said Herrick. 'The fault is yours and you know it. If you turn a savage loose in your store-room, you know what to expect. I will not allow the man to be molested.'
It is hard to say how Davis might have taken this defiance; but he was diverted to a fresh assailant.
'Well!' drawled Huish, 'you're a plummy captain, ain't you?
You're a blooming captain! Don't you, set up any of your chat to me, John Dyvis: I know you now, you ain't any more use than a bloomin' dawl! Oh, you "don't know", don't you? Oh, it "gets you", do it? Oh, I dessay! W'y, we en't you 'owling for fresh tins every blessed day? 'Ow often 'ave I 'eard you send the 'ole bloomin' dinner off and tell the man to chuck it in the swill tub? And breakfast? Oh, my crikey! breakfast for ten, and you 'ollerin' for more! And now you "can't 'most tell"! Blow me, if it ain't enough to make a man write an insultin' letter to Gawd! You dror it mild, John Dyvis; don't 'andle me; I'm dyngerous.'
Davis sat like one bemused; it might even have been doubted if he heard, but the voice of the clerk rang about the cabin like that of a cormorant among the ledges of the cliff.
'That will do, Huish,' said Herrick.
'Oh, so you tyke his part, do you? you stuck-up sneerin' snob!
Tyke it then. Come on, the pair of you. But as for John Dyvis, let him look out! He struck me the first night aboard, and I never took a blow yet but wot I gave as good. Let him knuckle down on his marrow bones and beg my pardon. That's my last word.'
'I stand by the Captain,' said Herrick. 'That makes us two to one, both good men; and the crew will all follow me. I hope I shall die very soon; but I have not the least objection to killing you before I go. I should prefer it so; I should do it with no more remorse than winking. Take care--take care, you little cad!'
