"There was a murmur of voices in her, metallic hollow clangs of the
engine-room, footsteps on the deck. Her ports shone, round like dilated
eyes. Shapes moved about, and there was a shadowy man high up on the
bridge. He heard my oars.

"And then, before I could open my lips, the East spoke to me, but it was
in a Western voice. A torrent of words was poured into the enigmatical,
the fateful silence; outlandish, angry words, mixed with words and even
whole sentences of good English, less strange but even more surprising.
The voice swore and cursed violently; it riddled the solemn peace of the
bay by a volley of abuse. It began by calling me Pig, and from that went
crescendo into unmentionable adjectives--in English. The man up there
raged aloud in two languages, and with a sincerity in his fury that
almost convinced me I had, in some way, sinned against the harmony of
the universe. I could hardly see him, but began to think he would work
himself into a fit.

"Suddenly he ceased, and I could hear him snorting and blowing like a
porpoise. I said--

"'What steamer is this, pray?'

"'Eh? What's this? And who are you?'

"'Castaway crew of an English barque burnt at sea. We came here
to-night. I am the second mate. The captain is in the long-boat, and
wishes to know if you would give us a passage somewhere.'

"'Oh, my goodness! I say . . . This is the Celestial from Singapore on