“Better go slow than stop the ship altogether,” he admonished his admired superior.  Mr. Massy moved at last.  He turned in his chair, and grinding his teeth—­

“Dam’ you and the ship!  I wish she were at the bottom of the sea.  Then you would have to starve.”

The trusty second engineer closed the door gently.

Massy listened.  Instead of passing on to the bathroom where he should have gone to clean himself, the second entered his cabin, which was next door.  Mr. Massy jumped up and waited.  Suddenly he heard the lock snap in there.  He rushed out and gave a violent kick to the door.

“I believe you are locking yourself up to get drunk,” he shouted.

A muffled answer came after a while.

“My own time.”

“If you take to boozing on the trip I’ll fire you out,” Massy cried.

An obstinate silence followed that threat.  Massy moved away perplexed.  On the bank two figures appeared, approaching the gangway.  He heard a voice tinged with contempt—­

“I would rather doubt your word.  But I shall certainly speak to him of this.”

The other voice, Sterne’s, said with a sort of regretful formality—­

“Thanks.  That’s all I want.  I must do my duty.”

Mr. Massy was surprised.  A short, dapper figure leaped lightly on the deck and nearly bounded into him where he stood beyond the circle of light from the gangway lamp.  When it had passed towards the bridge, after exchanging a hurried “Good evening,” Massy said surlily to Sterne who followed with slow steps—­

“What is it you’re making up to Mr. Van Wyk for, now?”

“Far from it, Mr. Massy.  I am not good enough for Mr. Van Wyk.  Neither are you, sir, in his opinion, I am afraid.  Captain Whalley is, it seems.  He’s gone to ask him to dine up at the house this evening.”

Then he murmured to himself darkly—­

“I hope he will like it.”

XII

Mr. Van Wyk, the white man of Batu Beru, an ex-naval officer who, for reasons best known to himself, had thrown away the promise of a brilliant career to become the pioneer of tobacco-planting on that remote part of the coast, had learned to like Captain Whalley.  The appearance of the new skipper had attracted his attention.  Nothing more unlike all the diverse types he had seen succeeding each other on the bridge of the Sofala could be imagined.

At that time Batu Beru was not what it has become since:  the center of a prosperous tobacco-growing district, a tropically suburban-looking little settlement of bungalows in one long street shaded with two rows of trees, embowered by the flowering and trim luxuriance of the gardens, with a three-mile-long carriage-road for the afternoon drives and a first-class Resident with a fat, cheery wife to lead the society of married estate-managers and unmarried young fellows in the service of the big companies.