“Never mind, sir,” answered Filhiol. “We’ve got a game to play, and—”
“Not just yet, sir! That damned native may be laying a curse on me, for all I know. Mr. Scurlock!” he suddenly shouted forward.
“Aye, aye, sir,” answered the mate’s voice, through the gloom.
“Send me a Malay—one that can talk United States!”
“Yes, sir!” And Scurlock was heard in converse with the brown men in the waist. Over the rail the captain leaned, staring at the singer and the crowd, the smoky torches, the confused crawling of life in Batu Kawan; and as he stared, he muttered to himself, and twisted at his beard with his left hand—his right still gripped the kris.
“You damned, outrageous blackguard!” the doctor thought. “If I ever get you into your cabin, God curse me if I don’t throw enough opium into you to keep you quiet till we’re a hundred miles at sea!”
Came the barefoot slatting of a Malay, _pad-pad-padding_ aft, and the sound of a soft-voiced: “Captain Briggs, sar?”
“You the man that Mr. Scurlock sent?” demanded Briggs.
“All right. Listen to that fellow down there—the one that’s singing!” Briggs laid a hand on the Malay, jerked him to the rail and pointed a thick, angry finger. “Tell me what he’s sayin’! Understand?”
The Malay put both lean, brown hands on the rail, squinted his gray eyes, impassive as a Buddha’s, and gave attentive ear. To him arose the droning words of the long-drawn, musical cadences:
_Arang itou dibasouh dengan ayer Mawar sakalipoun tiada akan poutih._ _Satahoun houdjan di langit ayer latout masakan tawar?_ _Sebab tiada tahon menari dikatakan tembad._ _Tabour bidjian diatas tasik tiada akan toumbounh—_
On, on wailed the chant. At last the Malay shook his head, shrugged thin shoulders under his cotton shirt, and cast an uneasy glance at Briggs, looming black-bearded and angry at his side.
“Well, what’s it all about?” demanded the captain, thudding a fist on the rail. “Sayin’ anythin’ about me, or the _Silver Fleece_? If he is—”
“He sing about wicked things. About sin. He say—”
“_What_ does he say, you cinder from the Pit?”
“He say, you take coal, wash him long time, in water of roses, coal never get white. Sin always stay. He say, rain fall long time, one year, ocean never get fresh water. Always salty water. Sin always stay. He say one small piece indigo fall in one jar of goat-milk, spoil all milk, make all milk blue. One sin last all life, always.” The Malay paused, trying to muster his paucity of English. Briggs shook him roughly, bidding him go on, or suffer harm.
