A passenger, a young man of eight or nine-and-twenty, lounged on a camp-stool under the upper bridge awning, and watched the _Parakeet's_ captain as he walked briskly across and across, and presently, when the little sailor faced him, he nodded as though he had decided something that was in his thoughts.
"I wish you wouldn't look so anxious. We've started now, and may as well make up our minds to go through it comfortably."
"Quite so," said Kettle. "I'm thinking out how we are to do this business in comfort--and safety," and with that he resumed his walk.
The man beside him had introduced himself when the black workers were carrying the _Parakeet's_ cargo of coal in baskets from the holds to the lighters alongside; and Kettle had been rather startled to find that he carried a letter of introduction from the steamboat's owners. The letter gave him no choice of procedure. It stated with clearness that Mr. Hugh Wenlock, solicitor, had laid his wishes before them, and that they had agreed to further these wishes (through the agency of their servant--Captain Owen Kettle) in consideration of the payment of £200 sterling.
The _Parakeet_ was a cargo tramp, and carried no passenger certificate, but a letter of recommendation like this was equivalent to a direct order, and Kettle signed Mr. Wenlock on to his crew list as "Doctor," and put to sea with an anxious mind.
Wenlock waited awhile, watching squalid Suez sink into the sea behind; and then he spoke again.
"Look here, Captain," he said, "those South Arabian ports have got a lot worse reputation than they really deserve. The people down there twenty years ago were a pack of pirates, I'll grant you, but nowadays they know that if they get at any of their old games, a British gunboat promptly comes up next week and bombards them at two-mile range, and that's not good enough. They may not be honest from inclination, but they've got the fear of the gunboat always handy, and that's a wonderful civilizing power. I tell you, captain, you needn't be frightened; that pirate business is exploded for now and always."
"I know all about the piratical hankerings of those South Arabian niggers, sir," said Kettle stiffly, "and I know what they can do and what they can't do as well as any man living. And I know also what I can do myself at a push, and the knowledge leaves me pretty comfortable. But if you choose to think me frightened, I'll own I am. It's the navigation down there that gave me cold shivers the first moment you mentioned it."