us voice.

"I've saved you once."

The chief engineer took off his coat with careful movements, and
proceeded to feel for the brass hook screwed into the wooden stanchion.
For this purpose he placed himself right in front of the binnacle, thus
hiding completely the compass-card from the quartermaster at the wheel.
"Tuan!" the lascar at last murmured softly, meaning to let the white man
know that he could not see to steer.

Mr. Massy had accomplished his purpose. The coat was hanging from the
nail, within six inches of the binnacle. And directly he had stepped
aside the quartermaster, a middle-aged, pock-marked, Sumatra Malay,
almost as dark as a negro, perceived with amazement that in that short
time, in this smooth water, with no wind at all, the ship had gone
swinging far out of her course. He had never known her get away like
this before. With a slight grunt of astonishment he turned the wheel
hastily to bring her head back north, which was the course. The grinding
of the steering-chains, the chiding murmurs of the Serang, who had come
over to the wheel, made a slight stir, which attracted Captain Whalley's
anxious attention. He said, "Take better care." Then everything settled
to the usual quiet on the bridge. Mr. Massy had disappeared.

But the iron in the pockets of the coat had done its work; and the
Sofala, heading north by the compass, made untrue by this simple device,
was no longer making a safe course for Pangu Bay.

The hiss of water parted by her stem, the throb of her engines, all the
sounds of her faithful and laborious life, went on uninterrupted in the
great calm of the sea joining on all sides the motionless layer of cloud
over the sky. A gentle stillness as vast as the world seemed to wait
upon her path, enveloping her lovingly in a supreme caress. Mr. Massy
thought there could be no better night for an arranged shipwreck.

Run up high and dry on one of the reefs east of Pangu--wait for
daylight--hole in the bottom--out boats--Pangu Bay same evening. That's
about it. As soon as she touched he would hasten on the bridge, get hold
of the coat (nobody would notice in the dark), and shake it upside-down
over the side, or even fling it into the sea. A detail. Who could
guess? Coat been seen hanging there from that hook hundreds of times.
Nevertheless, when he sat down on the lower step of the bridge-ladder
his knees knocked together a little. The waiting part was the worst
of it. At times he would b