“A lady?” said Lingard.  “You say there is a lady on board.  Are you armed?”

“Not much,” replied Carter, negligently.  “There are a few muskets and two sporting guns aft; that’s about all—­I fancy it’s too much, or not enough,” he added with a faint smile.

Lingard looked at him narrowly.

“Did you come out from home in that craft?” he asked.

“Not I!  I am not one of them regular yacht hands.  I came out of the hospital in Hongkong.  I’ve been two years on the China coast.”

He stopped, then added in an explanatory murmur: 

“Opium clippers—­you know.  Nothing of brass buttons about me.  My ship left me behind, and I was in want of work.  I took this job but I didn’t want to go home particularly.  It’s slow work after sailing with old Robinson in the Ly-e-moon.  That was my ship.  Heard of her, Captain?”

“Yes, yes,” said Lingard, hastily.  “Look here, Mr. Carter, which way was your chief officer trying for Singapore?  Through the Straits of Rhio?”

“I suppose so,” answered Carter in a slightly surprised tone; “why do you ask?”

“Just to know . . .  What is it, Mr. Shaw?”

“There’s a black cloud rising to the northward, sir, and we shall get a breeze directly,” said Shaw from the doorway.

He lingered there with his eyes fixed on the decanters.

“Will you have a glass?” said Lingard, leaving his seat.  “I will go up and have a look.”

He went on deck.  Shaw approached the table and began to help himself, handling the bottles in profound silence and with exaggerated caution, as if he had been measuring out of fragile vessels a dose of some deadly poison.  Carter, his hands in his pockets, and leaning back, examined him from head to foot with a cool stare.  The mate of the brig raised the glass to his lips, and glaring above the rim at the stranger, drained the contents slowly.

“You have a fine nose for finding ships in the dark, Mister,” he said, distinctly, putting the glass on the table with extreme gentleness.

“Eh?  What’s that?  I sighted you just after sunset.”

“And you knew where to look, too,” said Shaw, staring hard.

“I looked to the westward where there was still some light, as any sensible man would do,” retorted the other a little impatiently.  “What are you trying to get at?”

“And you have a ready tongue to blow about yourself—­haven’t you?”

“Never saw such a man in my life,” declared Carter, with a return of his nonchalant manner.  “You seem to be troubled about something.”

“I don’t like boats to come sneaking up from nowhere in particular, alongside a ship when I am in charge of the deck.  I can keep a lookout as well as any man out of home ports, but I hate to be circumvented by muffled oars and such ungentlemanlike tricks.  Yacht officer—­indeed.  These seas must be full of such yachtsmen.  I consider you played a mean trick on me.  I told my old man there was nothing in sight at sunset—­and no more there was.  I believe you blundered upon us by chance—­for all your boasting about sunsets and bearings.  Gammon!  I know you came on blindly on top of us, and with muffled oars, too.  D’ye call that decent?”