“Good God!  What’s that for, sir?” came an anxious cry faintly.

“Kindness, I suppose,” Jasper, ironical, shouted with great deliberation.  “We might have been—­becalmed in here—­for days.  And hospitality.  I am invited to stay—­on board here.”

The answer to this information was a loud ejaculation of distress.  Jasper thought anxiously:  “Why, the fellow’s nerve’s gone to pieces;” and with an awkward uneasiness of a new sort, looked intently at the brig.  The thought that he was parted from her—­for the first time since they came together—­shook the apparently careless fortitude of his character to its very foundations, which were deep.  All that time neither Heemskirk nor even his inky shadow had stirred in the least.

“I am going to send a boat’s crew and an officer on board your vessel,” he announced to no one in particular.  Jasper, tearing himself away from the absorbed contemplation of the brig, turned round, and, without passion, almost without expression in his voice, entered his protest against the whole of the proceedings.  What he was thinking of was the delay.  He counted the days.  Makassar was actually on his way; and to be towed there really saved time.  On the other hand, there would be some vexing formalities to go through.  But the thing was too absurd.  “The beetle’s gone mad,” he thought.  “I’ll be released at once.  And if not, Mesman must enter into a bond for me.”  Mesman was a Dutch merchant with whom Jasper had had many dealings, a considerable person in Makassar.

“You protest?  H’m!” Heemskirk muttered, and for a little longer remained motionless, his legs planted well apart, and his head lowered as though he were studying his own comical, deeply-split shadow.  Then he made a sign to the rotund gunner, who had kept at hand, motionless, like a vilely-stuffed specimen of a fat man, with a lifeless face and glittering little eyes.  The fellow approached, and stood at attention.

“You will board the brig with a boat’s crew!”

“Ya, mynherr!”

“You will have one of your men to steer her all the time,” went on Heemskirk, giving his orders in English, apparently for Jasper’s edification.  “You hear?”

“Ya, mynherr.”

“You will remain on deck and in charge all the time.”

“Ya, mynherr.”

Jasper felt as if, together with the command of the brig, his very heart were being taken out of his breast.  Heemskirk asked, with a change of tone: 

“What weapons have you on board?”

At one time all the ships trading in the China Seas had a licence to carry a certain quantity of firearms for purposes of defence.  Jasper answered: 

“Eighteen rifles with their bayonets, which were on board when I bought her, four years ago.  They have been declared.”

“Where are they kept?”

“Fore-cabin.  Mate has the key.”

“You will take possession of them,” said Heemskirk to the gunner.