Faintly through the still air came a faint sound--a boom--boom-bom.
“We're not way up there?” She stepped to the side and looked out ahead. “There's a city!”
She heard now other and more confused sounds. The junk was slowing down; working in toward the yellow shallows.
“Now listen!” said he. She glanced at him, then away, apparently considering the quiet landscape; alien he was indeed, and hostile, his manner that of an inarticulate man struggling with a set speech.... “Listen! You're smart enough. But I want you to understand I don't trust you.''
“When I go ashore, you're to stay here--right here on this deck--where you are now.”
“There'll be men to see that you do stay here. I want you to get this straight.”
“Of course,” said she musingly, “you won't be able to rob me outright. You'll have to give me enough of a share to keep me quiet afterward.”
“But what's to prevent the crew from getting away with the junk. I'm not very keen about being carried off that way.”
“You needn't worry. I'm taking the master along with me.”
He stood then; looked meaningly at her; then went forward. She noted that his two hip pockets bulged.
Slowly the long narrow craft was worked in toward the land. Trackers sculled ashore in sampans and made the great hawsers fast to stakes. Then the crew, with a deal of shouting and many casual blows, were assembled in the long well forward of the mast, where they huddled abjectly.
Keeping around the steersman's house, Dixie contrived to take in much of the scene. There was quarreling among the soldiers. Tom Sung towered over them, shouting rough orders. The two men that were told off (she judged to guard her and the junk) appeared to be objecting to their part in the affair. Obviously there would be small loot here.
Connor came back over the deck house; stood angrily over her. She sensed the mounting brutality in him. For that matter, his sort and their ways with women were familiar enough to her. She had learned to take brutal men for granted. But it had not occurred to her that Connor would strike her. However, he did. Knocked her to her knees; then to her face; even kicked her as she lay on the deck. He was suddenly loud, wild.
“None o' this peeking around!” he cried. “Keep your eyes where they belong!” And left her there.