The Argosy — page 86: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

278 = THE ARGOSY, broached the subject of our delay he grew so exceedingly irritable that he never even took the trouble to be civil. I could see that his anxiety was playing the deuce with him, and that he shared none of the jaunty confidence of Murrell, or the new third officer, Mr. Gupp. Within the last two days that worthy had become quite a familiar figure on the quarter deck of the Pulo Way, and I saw with no little uneasiness that he exercised a considerable influence over the more vacillating captain. ‘This coupled with long con- ferences and much drink, brought about such a shocking state of discipline that I could not have been surprised to see the crew walk aft ina body and deniand saloon accommodation. As for Mr. Gupp, he puzzled me greatly. I was sure that I had met him before the advent of the big coolie. ‘That he had masqueraded as the latter was obvious. There were the unmistakable face and figure, coupled with which was the disappearance of the coolie to account for, and Mr. Gupp’s undoubted affection for the gun forward. I seemed to have tet the man somewhere—to have come in contact with -him in some way or other—but where or how I could not tell. Sometimes I was sure he knew and understood my thoughts. On the afternoon of the second day, as I took my constitutional up and down the deck, I saw the captain, Murrell, and Gupp upon the bridge, each with a glass in his hand, with which, at short intervals, he swept the distant horizon. What the men expected to see I guessed well enough, and as I approached them I caught many eager exclamations ; but I resumed my walk up and down as though oblivious of their presence. What they did, or what they intended to do, was no concern of mine, and so I was deter- mined to show them. Yet as I walked forward I noticed that the captain held in his hand a little slip of paper ; while the mate, a large sheet of paper before him, upon which he had evidently drawn some figures or designs, was pointing from one piece of paper to the other and speaking very earnestly. ‘Then the cap- tain grew excited and waved his slip in the mate’s face. As he did so the thing slid from his fingers and the wind caught it and blew it towards me. I saw it take an ominous flutter outwards, and I feared it would go overboard. Quickly springing forward, I made a grab and caught it just in time. I heard some one call from the bridge, ‘‘ Here, you, hand that over !”’ What I had caught was merely a newspaper cutting ; but as I felt my fingers close upon it I suddenly remembered that when I first saw Captain Macshiel he was studying such a piece of paper with a big black bearded individual. TI also recollected that he hastily crumpled up the slip and -hid it away in his pocket. Therefore, acting on some inward suggestion, I straightened it out. It was a very small cutting, and contained but three or four lines of print. At either end of the paragraph a cross was marked in red pencil. Between the crosses the print said : The Chung Tong, with the Australian mail on board, left Sydney for Port Darwin and Hong Kong on the 25th inst. Besides a large mail and several passengers, she carries £50,000 in gold. Eomicbooks (Eo)