“The owners nor the charter party can’t help us none with it now, say I, and as master ye’re got to do as ye see fit.  All this monkey-business to-night comes from it.  I don’t like the passengers and I don’t like these new whites in the crew.  They know one another, I’m tellin’ ye.  The long chap and Buckrow sailed with Petrak.  They pretend they don’t know one another—­all bosh—­thick as fleas when no one is a watchin’ of ’em.

“See how Buckrow was so smart handin’ over his knife to the red chap when he got in a jam?  I say, where did we git them three jewels—­the writin’ chap brought the little red killer, and the parson brought the long fellow and Buckrow.  Looks funny to me, cap’n—­and we don’t want no Devil’s Admiral aboard of us.”

“Mr. Harris!” exclaimed Captain Riggs getting to his feet, “you are not fool enough to believe stories about the Devil’s Admiral, are you?  That’s all newspaper talk and water-front gossip.”

“I ain’t so doggone sure about that, cap’n—­bein’ gossip.  Of course, I don’t suspect nothin’ like that aboard here, but from what Chips Akers told me before he died, after the loss of the Southern Cross, I’m not so sure this devil’s-admiral talk is all folderol.  Chips couldn’t tell much before he went under, but the Southern Cross was boarded by the Devil’s Admiral sure enough—­didn’t they find a sextant out of her in a store in Shanghai?

“Ships that go down in typhoons don’t have their chronometers pop up in Shanghai a year later, I’m tellin’ ye.  There ain’t nobody ever saw this here Devil’s Admiral, sure enough, that lived to tell it, but ships don’t always go down in deep water and never a boat got off or a life-preserver or a spar or a door found on the beach.

“Thar’s been bloody work in the last three or four years in these waters—­look at the Legaspi; never a man jack out of her, and sailed from Manila, as we did, for Hong-Kong, and never heard of.  Steamer she was, too, right in the steamer-lanes.  They say the Devil’s Admiral got her, and I more’n half believe it.”

“Sally Ann!  Sally Ann!” said Captain Riggs.  “I guess I better go down, Mr. Harris, and look this thing over and get it off yer mind, or ye’ll be fretting yerself and losing sleep with such yarns running wild in yer top-piece.  I don’t like this night prowling a mite, but take the bull’s-eye along, and never a bit of light until we are in the storeroom.

“I don’t want the crew hugging our heels on this trip below, ’cause ye may be right about it, at that.  Be sure the slide is shut in that lantern, and call the boy to watch for us.  Be sure that glim is doused—­I don’t want anybody to know about this.”

I slipped off the ladder and clung to the superstructure out of the range of the light which spurted from the open door as Harris came out.  He went aft for Rajah, and when he returned in a minute Captain Riggs was standing at the head of the fore-deck ladder waiting for them.  Harris whispered something, and I saw the three figures descend to the fore-deck and heard them enter the companionway to the lower deck.  I followed them.