The steamer was now well into the bay.  The sun was at the rim of hills between us and the open sea, and the sky was aflame in a gorgeous tropical sunset.

Harris, the mate, was busy on the fore-deck battening down hatches and clearing up the litter of ropes and slings.  The Kut Sang was plainly enough short-handed for the passage, for there were but half a dozen Chinese sailors in sight.  Petrak worked with a cloth on the brass-knob, and he was loafing without a doubt.

I suspected that he was afraid I was waiting for him to go away, so that I might go up the ladder to the bridge.  One of the men who had brought Meeker’s organ aboard had the wheel, a long, lanky cockney he was, from what I could see of him through the window of the pilot-house.

We were well clear of the ships at anchor outside the breakwater when four bells—­six o’clock—­struck, and Harris came up and went on the bridge, passing without apparently seeing me.  He growled something to Petrak, and the red-headed man went toward the forecastle.

“Time for Rajah to have the bell going,” said Riggs as he descended to the hurricane-deck and greeted me affably.  “What do you say to going below and seeing what’s on the table?”

As he spoke I heard the rattle of a gong, and as I turned to go below with Captain Riggs, Meeker came around the deck-house and joined us, regarding us from under his heavy brows as he approached, and rubbing his hands in a manner that increased my growing dislike for him.

“My dear sirs,” he said; “that is a beautiful sight.  I have never seen, in all my twenty years in the Orient, such a sunset.”

“Can’t keep me from my meals,” said Captain Riggs, waving to Meeker to precede him into the companionway.  I was rather pleased at the captain’s gruffness with him, and resolved that as soon as the opportunity offered I would discuss the crafty gentleman with Riggs.

We found Trego at table.  He looked up, and made no attempt to conceal his surprise at seeing Meeker.

“Ah!  Mr. Trenholm,” he said to me, and we shook hands, and the Malay boy gave me the seat opposite him.

“Mr. Trego—­allow me—­the Reverend Meeker,” said Riggs.

“So you and Mr. Trenholm have met before?” said Meeker, evidently astonished because Trego spoke to me without an introduction.

“Old friends,” and I winked at Trego, to the further mystification of the pseudo-missionary, who took the seat beside me.  Captain Riggs took the head of the table, so that he was between Trego and me.

“And this is Rajah, the mess-boy,” said Riggs, indicating the black boy who stood behind him, clad in a white jacket with brass buttons, below which he wore a scarlet sarong reaching to his bare feet, and evidently fashioned from an old table-cover.  The hilt of a kris showed above the folds of his sarong, and the two lower buttons of the jacket were left open, so that the dagger might be free to his hand.  He grinned and showed his teeth.