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Nilssen, even though she was as black and polished as a patent leather boot; and Mrs. Nilssen appreciated Captain Owen Kettle accordingly. With Captain Nilssen, pilot of the lower Congo, Kettle had one especially interesting talk during his convalescence. "You may as well take that troublesome wooden god for yourself now," said Nilssen.
"That's all right," said Nilssen cheerfully. "When a man keeps his courage he don't get small-pox, you bet." "Well," said Kettle, "I suppose we'll be fumigated and get a clean bill in about ten days from now, and I'm sure I don't mind the bit of extra rest. I've got a lot of stuff I want to write up. It's come in my head lately, and I've had no time to get it down on paper.
Dere was a fire-bar made fast to the leg of each for sinker, an' dem was my dead loss-a too. I don' get paid for fire-bars given to gastados " His English failed him. He shrugged his shoulders, and said "Sabbey?" "Sabbey plenty," said Nilssen. "Just get me a leadsman to work, Captain. If you're in a hurry, I'll skim the banks as close as I dare."
"My friend," he said at last, "you've not got long for this world, anyway, and I want to borrow your last moments. I suppose you won't like to shift, but it's in a good cause, and anyway you can't object." He stooped and lifted the loathsome bundle in his arms, and then, in spite of a cry of expostulation from Nilssen, walked off with his burden to Rabeira's room.
Nilssen eyed wistfully a swirl of the yellow water which hid a sandbar, and, with a sigh, gave the quartermaster a course which cleared it. "Guess I don't like ructions myself," he said. "Hullo, what's up now? There are two of the passenger boys getting pushed off the forecastle-head by their own friends on to the main deck."
He looked once more toward the photograph on the wall, and under his breath he said, with an odd, defiant fierceness: "I won't believe it!" But he did not explain what he wouldn't believe. He started out of the room, but, half-way, halted and turned back. He looked Olga Nilssen full in the eyes, saying: "It is safe to leave you here with him while I call the servant? There'll be no more ?"
Once, when the cackle of negro voices seemed to point to an immediate outbreak, Rabeira gave an order, and presently a couple of cubical green boxes were taken forward by the ship's Krooboys, broken up, and the square bottles which they contained, distributed to greedy fingers. "Dashing 'em gin," said Nilssen, looking serious.
Are you sure they were pukka dead when you put them over the side?" "Oh, yes," said Rabeira smilingly, "an' dey made no objection. It was best dey should go over quick. Bodies do not keep in this heat. An' pilot, I do you square-a, same as with Nilssen. You shall have your dash when doctor-palaver set." "No," said Kettle, "you may keep it in your own trousers, Captain.
I say this was a streak of luck, because by this time consciousness had entirely left him, and on the inner channels he would merely have died, and been eaten by alligators, whereas, as it was, he got picked up by a State launch, and taken down to the pilotage at Banana. It was Mrs. Nilssen who tediously nursed him back to health. Kettle had always been courteous to Mrs.
Marie had the natural sense of repulsion in such matters that most people have, and this man's appearance, as Olga Nilssen had said, was horrible. The face was drawn hideously, and in the strong, clear light of the electrics it was a deathly yellow. The eyes were half closed, and the eyeballs turned up so that only the whites of them showed between the lids.
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