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“A white man should eat like a white man, dash it all,” he burst out impetuously. “Ought to eat meat, must eat meat. I manage to get meat for my patrons all the year round. Don’t I? I am not catering for a dam’ lot of coolies: Have another chop captain. . . . No? You, boy–take away!”

He threw himself back and waited grimly for the curry. The half-closed jalousies darkened the room pervaded by the smell of fresh whitewash: a swarm of flies buzzed and settled in turns, and poor Mrs. Schomberg’s smile seemed to express the quintessence of all the imbecility that had ever spoken, had ever breathed, had ever been fed on infamous buffalo meat within these bare walls. Schomberg did not open his lips till he was ready to thrust therein a spoonful of greasy rice. He rolled his eyes ridiculously before he swallowed the hot stuff, and only then broke out afresh.

“It is the most degrading thing. They take the dish up to the wheelhouse for him with a cover on it, and he shuts both the doors before he begins to eat. Fact! Must be ashamed of himself. Ask the engineer. He can’t do without an engineer–don’t you see–and as no respectable man can be expected to put up with such a table, he allows them fifteen dollars a month extra mess money. I assure you it is so! You just ask Mr. Ferdinand da Costa. That’s the engineer he has now. You may have seen him about my place, a delicate dark young man, with very fine eyes and a little moustache. He arrived here a year ago from Calcutta. Between you and me, I guess the money-lenders there must have been after him. He rushes here for a meal every chance he can get, for just please tell me what satisfaction is that for a well-educated young fellow to feed all alone in his cabin–like a wild beast? That’s what Falk expects his engineers to put up with for fifteen dollars extra. And the rows on board every time a little smell of cooking gets about the deck! You wouldn’t believe! The other day da Costa got the cook to fry a steak for him–a turtle steak it was too, not beef at all–and the fat caught or something. Young da Costa himself was telling me of it here in this room. ‘Mr. Schomberg’–says he– ‘if I had let a cylinder cover blow off through the skylight by my negligence Captain Falk couldn’t have been more savage. He frightened the cook so that he won’t put anything on the fire for me now.’ Poor da Costa had tears in his eyes. Only try to put yourself in his place, captain: a sensitive, gentlemanly young fellow. Is he expected to eat his food raw? But that’s your Falk all over. Ask any one you like. I suppose the fifteen dollars extra he has to give keep on rankling–in there.”

And Schomberg tapped his manly breast. I sat half stunned by his irrelevant babble. Suddenly he gripped my forearm in an impressive and cautious manner, as if to lead me into a very cavern of confidence.

“It’s nothing but enviousness,” he said in a lowered tone, which had a stimulating effect upon my wearied hearing. “I don’t suppose there is one person in this town that he isn’t envious of. I tell you he’s dangerous. Even I myself am not safe from him. I know for certain he tried to poison . . . .”

“Oh, come now,” I cried, revolted.

“But I know for certain. The people themselves came and told me of it. He went about saying everywhere I was a worse pest to this town than the cholera. He had been talking against me ever since I opened this hotel. And he poisoned Captain Hermann’s mind too. Last time the Diana was loading here Captain Hermann used to come in every day for a drink or a cigar. This time he hasn’t been here twice in a week. How do you account for that?”