The steamer was a Portuguese, officered by Portuguese, and manned by Krooboys, and the smell of her drowned even the marigold scent of the river.  Her dusky skipper exuded perspiration and affability, but he was in a great hurry to get on with his voyage.  The forecastle windlass clacked as the pilot boat drew into sight, heaving the anchor out of the river floor; the engines were restarted so soon as ever the boat hooked on at the foot of the Jacob’s ladder; and the vessel was under a full head of steam again by the time the two white men had stepped on to her oily deck.

“When you catch a Portuguese in a hurry like this,” said Nilssen to Kettle as they made their way to the awninged bridge, “it means there’s something wrong.  I don’t suppose we shall be told, but keep your eyes open.”

However, there was no reason for prying.  Captain Rabeira was quite open about his desire for haste.  “I got baccalhao and passenger boys for a cargo, an’ dose don’ keep,” said he.

“We smelt the fish all the way from Banana,” said Nilssen.  “Guess you ought to call it stinking fish, not dried fish, Captain.  And we can see your nigger passengers.  They seem worried.  Are you losing ’em much?”

“I done funeral palaver for eight between Loanda an’ here, an’ dem was a dead loss-a.  I don’ only get paid for dem dat lib for beach at Boma.  Dere was a fire-bar made fast to the leg of each for sinker, an’ dem was my dead loss-a too.  I don’ get paid for fire-bars given to gastados—­” His English failed him.  He shrugged his shoulders, and said “Sabbey?”

“Sabbey plenty,” said Nilssen.  “Just get me a leadsman to work, Captain.  If you’re in a hurry, I’ll skim the banks as close as I dare.”

Rabeira called away a hand to heave the lead, and sent a steward for a bottle of wine and glasses.  He even offered camp stools, which, naturally, the pilots did not use.  In fact, he brimmed with affableness and hospitality.

From the first moment of his stepping on to the bridge, Kettle began to learn the details of his new craft.  As each sandbar showed up beneath the yellow ripples, as each new point of the forest-clad banks opened out, Nilssen gave him courses and cross bearings, dazing enough to the unprofessional ear, but easily stored in a trained seaman’s brain.  He discoursed in easy slang of the cut-offs, the currents, the sludge-shallows, the floods, and the other vagaries of the great river’s course, and punctuated his discourse with draughts of Rabeira’s wine, and comments on the tangled mass of black humanity under the forecastle-head awning.

“There’s something wrong with those passenger boys,” he kept on repeating.  And another time:  “Guess those niggers yonder are half mad with funk about something.”

But Rabeira was always quick to reassure him.  “Now dey lib for Congo, dey not like the idea of soldier-palaver.  Dere was nothing more the matter with them but leetle sickness.”