“Yes, you.”

The pilot looked anywhere but at his questioner, and a picture passed before the commander’s eyes—­a memory, perhaps, of something he had read about at school—­of Christians in Nero’s day being asked what their religion was.

“Are you afraid to tell me?” he asked, softening his voice to a kinder tone as he remembered that God did not make all men Englishmen, and turning just in time to cause Crothers to withdraw his right leg.

The pilot’s toes were, after all, not destined to be trodden on just then.

“No, sah, Ah’m not afraid.”

“What are you, then?”

“Ah’m—­”

“Well?  What?”

“Ah’m English!”

“What?”

“Captain, sah, Ah’m English!”

“Oh!  Are you?  Um-m-m!  Mr. White, give this man his ten pounds, will you?  And get his receipt for it.”

That appeared to end matters, so far as the commander was concerned; official dignity forbade any further interest.  But it was not so very long since Mr. White was senior midshipman, and it takes a man until he is admiral of the fleet to unlearn all he knew then and forget the curiosity of those days.

“Now, I should have thought you were a Scotchman,” he suggested without smiling, studying the salt-encrusted wrinkles on the ebony face.  “You like whisky?”

“Yes, sah—­positively, sah!  Yes, Captain, sah—­Ah do!”

Mr. White sent for whisky and poured out a stiff four fingers, to the awful disgust of Curley Crothers, who saw the whole transaction.  The pilot consumed it so instantly that there seemed never to have been any in the glass.

“I suppose your name’s Macnab—­or Macphairson—­which?  Sign here, please.”

The pilot took the proffered pen in unaccustomed fingers and made a crisscross scrawl, adorned with thirteen blots.  The pen nib broke under the strain, and he handed it back with an air of confidential remonstrance.

“That thing’s no mo-ah good,” he volunteered.

“So I see.  Now tell me your name in full, so that I can write it next to the mark.  It’s a wonder of a mark!  Mac—­what’s the rest of it?”

“Hassan Ah.”

“Machassan?”

“No, sah.  Hassan Ah.”

“And you’re English?”

“Yes, sah.”

“With that name?”

“Mah name makes no diffunts, sah.  Ah’m English.”

“Well—­here’s your money.  Cutter away, there!  Put the pilot and his crew ashore!  Sorry about your boat, pilot, but it couldn’t be helped.”

“Makes me believe that I’m a nigger!” muttered Curley Crothers, not yet released from duty on the bridge.

“First time I ever wished I was a Dutchman!” swore Joe Byng, coiling up his sounding line.

Ten minutes later the cutter’s captain swung the boat’s stern in shore when he judged that he was reasonably near enough and too far in for sharks.  He had his orders to put the pilot and his crew ashore, but the means had not been too exactly specified.