yhow? How many of you are there in that boat?"

After these emphatic questions there was an interval of silence. During
that time the shape of the boat became a little more distinct. She must
have carried some way on her yet, for she loomed up bigger and nearly
abreast of where Lingard stood, before the self-possessed voice was
heard again:

"I will show you."

Then, after another short pause, the voice said, less loud but very
plain:

"Strike on the gunwale. Strike hard, John!" and suddenly a blue light
blazed out, illuminating with a livid flame a round patch in the
night. In the smoke and splutter of that ghastly halo appeared a white,
four-oared gig with five men sitting in her in a row. Their heads were
turned toward the brig with a strong expression of curiosity on their
faces, which, in this glare, brilliant and sinister, took on a deathlike
aspect and resembled the faces of interested corpses. Then the bowman
dropped into the water the light he held above his head and the
darkness, rushing back at the boat, swallowed it with a loud and angry
hiss.

"Five of us," said the composed voice out of the night that seemed now
darker than before. "Four hands and myself. We belong to a yacht--a
British yacht--"

"Come on board!" shouted Lingard. "Why didn't you speak at once? I
thought you might have been some masquerading Dutchmen from a dodging
gunboat."

"Do I speak like a blamed Dutchman? Pull a stroke, boys--oars! Tend bow,
John."

The boat came alongside with a gentle knock, and a man's shape began to
climb at once up the brig's side with a kind of ponderous agility. It
poised itself for a moment on the rail to say down into the boat--"Sheer
off a little, boys," then jumped on deck with a thud, and said to Shaw
who was coming aft: "Good evening . . . Captain, sir?"

"No. On the poop!" growled Shaw.

"Come up here. Come up," called Lingard, impatiently.

The Malays had left their stations and stood clustered by the mainmast
in a silent group. Not a word was spoken on the brig's decks, while the
stranger made his way to the waiting captain. Lingard saw approaching
him a short, dapper man, who touched his cap and repeated his greeting
in a cool drawl:

"Good evening. . . Captain, sir?"

"Yes, I am the master--what's the matter? Adrift from your ship? Or
what?"

"Adrift? No! We left her four days ago, and have been pulling that gig
in a calm, nearly ever since. My men are done. So is the water. Lucky