I said: "Oh! He has asked for me twice.Then perhaps I had better go in.""You must! You must!"
The Shipping-Master led the way with a mincing gait around the whole system of desks to a tall and important-looking door, which he opened with a deferential action of the arm.
He stepped right in (but without letting go of the handle) and, after gazing reverently down the room for a while, beckoned me in by a silent jerk of the head.Then he slipped out at once and shut the door after me most delicately.
Three lofty windows gave on the harbour.
There was nothing in them but the dark-blue sparkling sea and the paler luminous blue of the sky.My eye caught in the depths and distances of these blue tones the white speck of some big ship just arrived and about to anchor in the outer road-stead.A ship from home--after perhaps ninety days at sea.There is something touching about a ship coming in from sea and folding her white wings for a rest.
The next thing I saw was the top-knot of silver hair surmounting Captain Ellis' smooth red face, which would have been apoplectic if it hadn't had such a fresh appearance.
Our deputy-Neptune had no beard on his chin, and there was no trident to be seen standing in a corner anywhere, like an umbrella.But his hand was holding a pen--the official pen, far mightier than the sword in making or marring the fortune of simple toiling men.He was looking over his shoulder at my advance.
When I had come well within range he saluted me by a nerve-shattering: "Where have you been all this time?"As it was no concern of his I did not take the slightest notice of the shot.I said simply that Ihad heard there was a master needed for some vessel, and being a sailing-ship man I thought Iwould apply....
He interrupted me."Why! Hang it! YOU are the right man for that job--if there had been twenty others after it.But no fear of that.They are all afraid to catch hold.That's what's the matter."He was very irritated.I said innocently: "Are they, sir.I wonder why?""Why!" he fumed."Afraid of the sails.
Afraid of a white crew.Too much trouble.Too much work.Too long out here.Easy life and deck-chairs more their mark.Here I sit with the Consul-General's cable before me, and the only man fit for the job not to be found anywhere.Ibegan to think you were funking it, too....""I haven't been long getting to the office," Iremarked calmly.
"You have a good name out here, though," he growled savagely without looking at me.
"I am very glad to hear it from you, sir," I said.
"Yes.But you are not on the spot when you are wanted.You know you weren't.That stew-ard of yours wouldn't dare to neglect a message from this office.Where the devil did you hide yourself for the best part of the day?"I only smiled kindly down on him, and he seemed to recollect himself, and asked me to take a seat.He explained that the master of a British ship having died in Bangkok the Consul-General had cabled to him a request for a competent man to be sent out to take command.
Apparently, in his mind, I was the man from the first, though for the looks of the thing the notifica-tion addressed to the Sailors' Home was general.
An agreement had already been prepared.He gave it to me to read, and when I handed it back to him with the remark that I accepted its terms, the deputy-Neptune signed it, stamped it with his own exalted hand, folded it in four (it was a sheet of blue foolscap) and presented it to me--a gift of ex-traordinary potency, for, as I put it in my pocket, my head swam a little.
"This is your appointment to the command," he said with a certain gravity."An official appoint-ment binding the owners to conditions which you have accepted.Now--when will you be ready to go?"I said I would be ready that very day if neces-sary.He caught me at my word with great alacrity.The steamer Melita was leaving for Bangkok that evening about seven.He would request her captain officially to give me a passage and wait for me till ten o'clock.
Then he rose from his office chair, and I got up, too.My head swam, there was no doubt about it, and I felt a certain heaviness of limbs as if they had grown bigger since I had sat down on that chair.I made my bow.
A subtle change in Captain Ellis' manner became perceptible as though he had laid aside the trident of deputy-Neptune.In reality, it was only his official pen that he had dropped on getting up.
