The knock was repeated. It was a very soft tapping, as though made by a timid knuckle.

'Who is there?' I shouted, gathering myself together with a resolution to leap upon the first dark throat that showed; for I believed this soft knocking--this soundless approach--a Malay ruse, and my veins tingled with the madness that enters the blood of a man in the supreme moment whose expiry means life or death to him.

'It is me, master! Open, master! It is allee right!'

'That's Nakier!' exclaimed Abraham.

'Who is it?' I cried.

'Me, sah--Nakier. It is allee right, I say. Do not fear. Our work is done. We wish to speakee with you, and be friend.'

'How many of you are there outside?' I called.

'No man but Nakier,' he answered.

'How are we to know that?' bawled Abraham. 'The most of you have naked feet. A whole army of ye might sneak aft, and no one guess it.'

'I swear Nakier is alone. Lady, you shall trust Nakier. Our work is done; it is allee right, I say. See, you tink I am not alone: you are afraid of my knife; go a leetle way back--I trow my knife to you.'

We recoiled to the bulkhead, and Abraham roared 'Heave!' The knife fell upon the deck close to my feet. I pounced upon it as a cat upon a mouse, but dropped it with a cry. 'Oh, G.o.d, it is b.l.o.o.d.y!'

'Give it me!' exclaimed Abraham, in a hoa.r.s.e shout; 'it'll be bloodier yet, now I've got it, if that there Nakier's a-playing false.'

Grasping it in his right hand, he slipped back the bolt, and opened the door. The sensations of a lifetime of wild experiences might have been concentrated in that one instant. I had heard and read so much about the treachery of the Malay that when Abraham flung open the little cabin door I was prepared for a rush of dusky shapes, and to find myself grappling--but not for life, since death I knew to be certain, armed as every creature of them was with the deadly blade of the sailor's sheath knife. Instead--in the corridor, immediately abreast of our cabin, holding a bull's-eye lamp in his hand, stood Nakier, who on seeing us put the light on the deck, and saluted us by bringing both hands to his brow. Abraham put his head out.

'There ain't n.o.body here but Nakier!' he cried.

'What have you done?' I exclaimed, looking at the man, who in the combined light showed plainly, and whose handsome features had the modest look, the prepossessing air, I had found when my gaze first rested on him in this ship.

'The Captain is kill--Pallunappach.e.l.ly, he kill him. The mate is kill--with this han'.' He held up his arm.

'Where's moy mate?' thundered Abraham.

'No man touch him. Jacob, he allee right. Two only.' He held up two fingers. 'The Captain and Misser Jones. They treat us like dog, and we bite like dog,' he added, showing his teeth, but with nothing whatever of fierceness or wildness in his grin.

'What do you want?' I repeated.

'We wantchee you come speak with us. We allee swear on de Koran not to hurt you, but to serve you, and you serve we.'

I stood staring, not knowing how to act.

'He is to be trusted,' said Helga.

'But the others?' I said.

'They can do nothing without us.'

'Without _one_ of us. But the others!'

'We may trust them,' she repeated, with an accent of conviction.

Nakier's eyes, gleaming in the lantern-light, were bent upon us as we whispered. He perceived my irresolution, and, once again putting down the bull's-eye lamp on the deck, he clasped and extended his hands in a posture of impa.s.sioned entreaty.

'We allee swear we no hurt you!' he cried in a voice of soft entreaty that was absolutely sweet with the melody of its tones; 'dat beautiful young lady--oh! I would kill here,' he cried, gesticulating as though he would stab his heart, 'before dat good, kind, clever lady be harm. Oh, you may trust us! We hab done our work. Mr. Wise, he be Capt'n; you be gentleman--pa.s.sengaire; you live upstair and be very much comfortable.

De beautiful young lady, she conduct dis ship to Afric. Oh, no, no, no!

you are allee safe. My men shall trow down dere knives upon de table when you come, and we swear on de Koran to be your friend, and you be friend to we.'

'Let's go along with him, Mr. Tregarthen,' said Abraham. 'Nakier, I shall stick to this here knife. Where's moy mate Jacob? If 'ere a man of ye's hurted him----'

'It is no time to threaten,' I whispered angrily, shoving past him.

'Come, Helga! Nakier, pick up that bull's-eye and lead the way, and, Abraham, follow with that lantern, will you?'

In silence we gained the hatch. It lay open. Nakier sprang through it, and, one after the other, we ascended. The wind had fallen scantier since I was on deck last, and though the loftier canvas was asleep, silent as carved marble, and spreading in spectral wanness under the bright stars, there was no weight in the wind to hold steady the heavy folds of the fore and main courses, which swung in and out with the dull sound of distant artillery as the barque leaned from side to side.

The cuddy lamp was brightly burning, and the first glance I sent through the open door showed me the whole of the crew, as I for the instant supposed--though I afterwards found that one of them was at the wheel--standing at the table, ranged on either hand of it, all as motionless as a company of soldiers drawn up on parade. Every dark face was turned our way, and never was shipboard picture more startling and impressive than this one of stirless figures, dusky fiery eyes, knitted brows, most of the countenances hideous, but all various in their ugliness. Their caps and queer headgear lay in a heap upon the table.

Nakier entered and paused, with a look to us to follow. Helga was fearlessly pressing forwards. I caught her by the hand and cried to Nakier:

'Those men are all armed.'

He rounded upon them, and uttered some swift feverish sentence in his native tongue. In a moment every man whipped out his knife from the sheath in which it lay buried at the hip, and placed it upon the table.

Nakier again spoke, p.r.o.nouncing the words with a pa.s.sionate gesture, on which Punmeamootty gathered the knives into one of the caps and handed them to Nakier, who brought the cap to Helga and placed it at her feet.

On his doing this, Abraham threw the blood-stained knife he held into the cap.

It was at that moment we were startled by a cry of 'Below there!'

'Whoy, it's Jacob!' roared Abraham, and stepping backwards and looking straight up, he shouted, 'Jacob, ahoy! Where are ye, mate?'

'Up in the maintop, pretty nigh dead,' came down the leather-lunged response from the silence up above.

'Thank G.o.d you're alive!' cried Abraham. 'It's all roight now--it's all roight now.'

'Who's agoing to make me believe it?' cried Jacob.

I stared up, and fancied I could just perceive the black k.n.o.b of his head projected over the rim of the top.

'You can come down, Jacob,' I cried. 'All danger, I hope, is over.'

'Danger over?' he bawled. 'Whoy, they've killed the mate and chucked him overboard, and if I hadn't taken to my heels and jumped aloft they'd have killed me.'

'No, no--not true; not true, sah!' shrieked Nakier. 'Come down, Jacob!

It is allee right!'

'Where's the Captain?' cried Jacob.

'Him overboard!' answered Nakier. 'It is allee right, I say!'

A shudder ran through me as I glanced at the cabin which the Captain had occupied. I cannot express how the horror of this sudden, shocking, b.l.o.o.d.y tragedy was heightened by Nakier's cool and easy acceptance of the deed, as though the two men whom he and his had slain were less to his sympathies than had they been a couple of fowls whose necks had been wrung.

'Pray come down, Jacob!' said Helga, sending her voice clear as a bell into the silent towering heights. 'You, as well as Abraham, are to be known as an Englishman.'