The captain's boat was steered by Huka, the Savage Islander; Hendry himself was sitting beside Chard in the stern sheets, Morrison and Studdert amidships amidst the native crew, whose faces were sullen and lowering, for in the bottom of the boat one of their number, who had been shot in the stomach by either the captain or Chard, was dying.
Hendry's always forbidding face was even more lowering than usual as his eyes turned upon the chief officer. Chard, whose head was bound up in a bloodstained handkerchief, smiled in his frank, jovial manner as he rose, lifted his cap to Tessa, and nodded pleasantly to Oliver and Harvey.
“What are your orders, sir?” asked the chief mate addressing the captain.
Hendry gave him a look of murderous hatred, and his utterance almost choked him as he replied--
“I shall give my orders presently. But where are the other firemen--five of them are missing.”
“Six of them rushed this boat,” answered the mate quietly; “two of them--those scoundrels there,” and he pointed to the two in Hendry's boat, “let the after fall go by the run, and drowned the others.”
“I hold you responsible for the death of those men,” said Hendry vindictively.
“Very well, sir,” answered the mate, “but this is not the time nor place to talk about it.”
“No,” broke in Atkins fiercely; “no more is it the time or place to charge you, Captain Hendry, and you, Mr. Chard, with the murder of the two native seamen whose bodies we saw lying on the main hatch.”
Hendry's face paled, and even Chard, self-possessed as he always was, caught his breath.
“We fired on those men to suppress a mutiny----” began Hendry, when Oliver stopped him with an oath.
“What are your orders, I ask you for the second time?” and from the natives there came a hissing sound, expressive of their hatred.
Chard muttered under his breath, “Be careful, Louis, be careful.”
Suddenly the second steward raised himself from the bottom of Oliver's boat, where he had been lying, groaning in agony, and pointed a shaking finger at Chard.
“That's the man who caused it all,” he half sobbed, half screamed. “'E told me to let Tim Donnelly go into the trade-room, and it was Donnelly who upset the lamp and set the ship afire. 'E sent Donnelly to 'ell, and 'e's sending me there, too, curse 'im! But I'm goin' to make a clean breast of it all, I am, so help me Gawd. 'E made me give the young lady and the girl the drugged coffee, 'e did, curse 'im! I'll put you away before I die, you----”