“What time do you propose to start?” asked the other. “Sunup. Barrett has got it into his head, somehow, we’re going at noon. I didn’t tell you, but I got wind he’d arranged for a tug with a brass band to lead us out and josh us. Can you see his face when he finds us gone?” They went below where the cabin lamp was lit, with Candon reading a newspaper under it. “The Chinks are come,” said Hank, taking his seat at the table, and fetching out his pipe. “There’s nothing more to come in but the mud-hook.72 Well, how do you feel, now we’re starting?” 72 “Bully,” said Candon. “I was beginning to feel like a caged canary. You chaps don’t know what it’s been the last week. Well, let’s get finished. There’s some truck still to be stowed in the after cabin and I want to do a bit more tinkering at the engine. There’s a day’s work on that engine—them cylinder rings were sure made in Hades.” “Well, you can leave it,” said Hank. “I’m putting out at sunup. I don’t count on that engine and you’ll have time to tinker with her on the way down.” He stopped suddenly, raised his head, and held up a finger. The night was warm and the skylight full open. In the dead silence that fell on the cabin they could hear through the open skylight the far-away rattle of a cargo winch working under the electrics, the whistle of a ferry boat and away, far away, though great as the voice of Behemoth, the boo of a deep sea steamer’s siren. “Yes,” began Hank again, gliding to the door of the saloon as he spoke, “you can tinker with it on the way down.” He vanished, and the others, taking his cue, kept up the talk. Then they heard him pounce. “What you doing here?” “Hullo! me—I ain’t doin’ nothin’—what you gettin’ at? You lea’ me go.” 73 73 “What you doing here, you low down scow-hunker? Answer up before I scrag you.” “Tell you I was doin’ nothin’. I dropped aboard to see if I couldn’t borry a light, seein’ the shine of your skylight.”
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