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"My dear sirs, I beg your pardon," said a familiar voice, and I stepped to the rail and looked over to see the Rev. Luther Meeker standing at the edge of the embankment, within a few feet of where Trego, Riggs, and Harris stood. "Get out the way!" bawled Riggs to him. "No offence, I hope," said the missionary, "but is this the steamer Kut Sang?"
That's what they're after, and that's what they'll get, and that's what it is all about Trego and all the rest of it!" "And you never knew?" I asked, more to take his mind off his troubles and rouse his fighting spirit than for the information, for the details mattered little to us now. "Mr. Trenholm," he began with fervor, "if I had known there were any dangers I could have met them.
Luther Meeker to throw all the suspicion of the murder of Trego on me and hold his own liberty and good-standing as a passenger. I fully realized the danger which confronted me and the ship, and as I crawled from under the bunk in the forecastle I had little hope of ever escaping from the vessel alive. It was no time to go over past mistakes, no time to moan over what had happened.
"Here's one of the new men, sir," said Harris, "Says he has been for'ard since going off watch. He's next at the wheel, sir." "Now, then," began Riggs, with pencil poised, "what's your name in the ship's articles?" "Buckrow, sir," said the sailor, staring at a lamp, and avoiding the figure of Trego almost at his feet. I observed him closely, and was not pleased with his appearance.
Trenhum knows; and what's more, that parson ain't no more a parson than I be if he's a parson I'm a bishop. Now, them two brought a bad lot aboard with 'em Petrak, thar in irons, and this Buckrow, and Long Jim." "It does look queer," admitted Riggs. "Trego had his suspicions all the time, cap'n. They got him before he could tell ye what he guessed. Trego never liked the both of 'em.
"It is," said Riggs, and turned his attention to Harris and Trego, who were giving orders to the Chinese at the winch. "Then all is well," said Meeker, and he turned away toward the gangplank, where the two men were standing with his organ between them, awaiting his orders. "Go right on board with it, my good men," he said to them. "This is my ship, sure enough," and he preceded them up the gang.
"Do you think Buckrow and the other two know about this, Mr. Harris?" "It ain't clear to me, so far as that goes, but Trenjum and the parson do. I looks at it this way they knowed ye didn't know, and that Trego might tell ye; so they ups and lets a knife into him before he can tell, and then we're up in the air.
It was obvious enough to me that in delivering the letter I had walked into some sort of a plot of which I had no knowledge, for Meeker was not only spying upon me, but he was spying upon Trego or the bank.
I've faced death enough in my day not to fear it, and I'm no weakling if I am an old man. But a master should know what's in his ship and what's before him, and not be caught in a mess of lies and sneaking. But perhaps the owners didn't know the ship's in charter for the voyage, and Mr. Trego took charge at the last minute.
It was a signal conveyed by Trego to the captain, in which he cautioned him to silence about something, by putting his finger to his lips, as if some subject were tabooed. Riggs nodded as if he understood. Before Meeker had finished, Trego looked at him and scowled, to convey to the captain that he did not like the missionary.
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