His honest Scandinavian heart
throbbed with anticipated pleasure as he conjured up a mental
picture of the surprise and delight of Captain Scraggs at this
unexpected meeting with his old deckhand.
A Jacob's ladder was hanging over the side of the schooner as the
canoe shot in under her lee quarter, and half a minute later the
expectant Neils stepped upon her deck. A tall dark man, wearing
an ancient palmleaf hat, sat smoking on the hatch coaming, and
him Neils Halvorsen addressed.
"Aye bane want to see Cap'n Scraggs," he said.
The tall dark man stood erect and cast a quick, questioning look
at Neils Halvorsen. He hesitated before he made answer.
"What do you want?" he asked deliberately, and there was a subtle
menace in his tones. As for Neils Halvorsen, thinking only of the
surprise he had in store for his old employer, he replied
evasively:
"Aye bane want job."
"Well, I'm Captain Scraggs, and I haven't any job for you. Get
off my boat and wait until you're invited before you come aboard
again."
For nearly half a minute Neils Halvorsen stared open-mouthed at
the spurious Captain Scraggs, while slowly there sifted through
his brain the notion that he had happened across the track of a
deep and bloody mystery of the seas.
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