At the same moment Carter, exhausted by thirty hours of uninterrupted
toil at the head of whites and Malays in getting the yacht afloat,
dropped into Mrs. Travers' deck chair, on board the Hermit, said to the
devoted Wasub: "Let a good watch be kept to-night, old man," glanced
contentedly at the setting sun and fell asleep.
III
There was in the bows of the Emma an elevated grating over the heel of
her bowsprit whence the eye could take in the whole range of her
deck and see every movement of her crew. It was a spot safe from
eaves-droppers, though, of course, exposed to view. The sun had just set
on the supreme content of Carter when Jorgenson and Jaffir sat down
side by side between the knightheads of the Emma and, public but
unapproachable, impressive and secret, began to converse in low tones.
Every Wajo fugitive who manned the hulk felt the approach of a decisive
moment. Their minds were made up and their hearts beat steadily. They
were all desperate men determined to fight and to die and troubling not
about the manner of living or dying. This was not the case with Mrs.
Travers who, having shut herself up in the deckhouse, was profoundly
troubled about those very things, though she, too, felt desperate enough
to welcome almost any solution.
Of all the people on board she alone did not know anything of that
conference.
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