close and oily smell, and the circle of silent, preoccupied
Chinese, each sitting on his bunk-ledge, devouring stewed pork and
holding his pannikin of Black Jack between his feet against the
rolling of the boat.

Wilbur looked fearfully at the mess in the pan, recalling the
chocolate and stuffed olives that had been his last luncheon.

"Well," he muttered, clinching his teeth, "I've got to come to it
sooner or later." His penknife was in the pocket of his waist-
coat, underneath his oilskin coat. He opened the big blade,
harpooned a cube of pork, and deposited it on his tin plate. He
ate it slowly and with savage determination. But the Black Jack
was more than he could bear.

"I'm not hungry enough for that just now," he told himself. "Say,
Jim," he said, turning to the Chinaman next him on the bunk-ledge,
"say, what kind of boat is this? What you do--where you go?"

The other moved away impatiently.

"No sabe, no sabe," he answered, shaking his head and frowning.
Throughout the whole of that strange meal these were the only
words spoken.

When Wilbur came on deck again he noted that the "Bertha Millner"
had already left the whistling-buoy astern. Off to the east, her
sails just showing above the waves, was a pilot-boat with the
number 7 on her mainsail. The evening was closing in; the
Farallones were in plain sight dead ahead. Far behind, in a mass