you will prove desirable--for
the quantity of you, I mean, and not otherwise. Now just who would you
consider undesirable?--the black nigger? He ain't got a gun."

But his pleasantries were cut short by the whale's next attack--another
smash at the stern that carried away the rudder and destroyed the
steering gear.

"How much water?" Captain Doane queried of the mate.

"Three feet, sir--I just sounded," came the answer. "I think, sir, it
would be advisable to part-load the boat; then, right after the next time
the whale hits us, lower away on the run, chuck the rest of the dunnage
in, and ourselves, and get clear."

Captain Doane nodded.

"It will be lively work," he said. "Stand ready, all of you. Steward,
you jump aboard first and I'll pass the chronometer to you."

Nishikanta bellicosely shouldered his vast bulk up to the captain, opened
his shirt, and exposed his revolver.

"There's too many for the boat," he said, "and the steward's one of 'em
that don't go along. Get that. Hold it in your head. The steward's one
of 'em that don't go along."

Captain Doane coolly surveyed the big automatic, while at the fore of his
consciousness burned a vision of his flat buildings in San Francisco.

He shrugged his shoulders. "The boat would be overloaded, with all this
truck, anyway. Go ahead, if you want to make it your party, but just
bear in mind that I'm the navigator, and that, if you ever want to lay
eyes on your string of pawnshops, you'd better see that gentle care is
taken of me.--Steward!"

Daughtry stepped close.

"There won't be room for you . . . and for one or two others, I'm sorry
to say."

"Glory be!" said Daughtry. "I was just fearin' you'd be wantin' me
along, sir.--Kwaque, you take 'm my fella dunnage belong me, put 'm in
other fella boat along other side."

While Kwaque obeyed, the mate sounded the well for the last time,
reporting three feet and a half, and the lighter freightage of the
starboard boat was tossed in by the sailors.

A rangy, gangly, Scandinavian youth of a sailor, droop-shouldered, six
feet six and slender as a lath, with pallid eyes of palest blue and skin
and hair attuned to the same colour scheme, joined Kwaque in his work.

"Here, you Big John," the mate interfered. "This is your boat. You work
here."

The lanky one smiled in embarrassment as he haltingly explained: "I tank
I lak go along cooky."

"Sure, let him go, the more the easier," Nishikanta took