In the past few days Zachary's mind had returned often to Captain Chillingworth's account of the White Ladrone. In trying to fit the pieces of the story together, Zachary had extended to Serang Ali the benefit of every possible doubt – but no matter how charitably he looked at it, he could not rid himself of the suspicion that the serang had been priming him, Zachary, to step into Danby's shoes. The thought gave him no rest and he longed to discuss the matter with someone. But who? His relationship with the first mate being what it was, there was no question of broaching it with him. Zachary decided instead that he would take the Captain into his confidence.
It was the Ibis's eleventh day on the open sea, and as the sun began to descend the heavens filled with sonder-clouds and mares' tails: soon enough the schooner was beating to windward under what was undeniably a mackerel sky. At sunset the wind changed too, with the schooner being assailed by gusts and squalls that kept turning her sails aback, with thunderous detonations of canvas.
Mr Crowle was on the first watch of the night, and Zachary knew that the cluttery weather would serve to keep him occupied on deck. But just to be sure of having him out of the way, he waited till the second bell of the watch before crossing the cuddy to the Captain's stateroom. He had to knock twice before the Captain answered: 'Jack?'
'No, sir. It's me, Reid. Wondered if I might have a word? In private?'
'Can't it wait?'
'Well…'
There was a pause followed by a snort of annoyance. 'Oh very well then. But you'll have to ship your oars for a minute or two.'
Two minutes went by, and then some more: though the door remained closed, Zachary could hear the Captain padding about and splashing water into a basin. He seated himself at the cuddy table and after a good ten minutes the door swung open and Captain Chillingworth appeared in the gap. A beam from the cuddy's lantern revealed him to be wearing an unexpectedly sumptuous garment, an old-fashioned gentleman's banyan – not a striped sailor's shirt of the kind the word had lately come to designate, but a capacious, ankle-length robe, intricately embroidered, of the sort that English nabobs had made popular a generation ago.
'Come in, Reid!' Although the Captain was careful to keep his face averted from the light, Zachary could tell that he had been at some pains to freshen up, for droplets of water were glistening in the folds of his jowls and on his bushy grey eyebrows. 'And shut the door behind you, if you please.'
Zachary had never been inside the Captain's stateroom before: stepping through the door now, he noticed the signs of a hurried straightening-up, with a spread thrown haphazardly over the bunk and a jug lying upended in the porcelain basin. The stateroom had two portholes, both of which were open, but despite a brisk cross-breeze a smoky odour lingered in the air.
The Captain was standing beside one of the open portholes, breathing deeply as if to clear his lungs. 'You've come to give me an ear-wigging about Crowle, have you, Reid?'
'Well, actually, sir…'
The Captain seemed not to hear him, for he carried on without a break: 'I heard about the business on the jib-boom, Reid. I wouldn't make too much of it if I were you. Crowle's a knaggy devil, no doubt about it, but don't be taken in by his ballyragging. Believe me, he fears you more than you do him. And not without reason, either: we may sit at the same table while at sea, but Crowle knows full well that a man like you wouldn't have him for a groom if we were ashore. That kind of thing can eat a fellow up, you know. To fear and be feared is all he's ever known – so how do you think it sits with him, to see that you can conjure loyalty so easily, even in the lascars? In his place would it not seem equally unjust to you? And would you not be tempted to visit your grievance on somebody?'
Here the schooner rolled to leeward, and the Captain had to reach for the bulwark to steady himself. Taking advantage of the pause, Zachary said quickly: 'Well, actually, sir, I'm not here about Mr Crowle. It's about something else.'
'Oh!' This seemed to knock the wind out of Captain Chillingworth, for he began to scratch his balding head. 'Are you sure it can't wait?'
'Since I'm here, sir, maybe we should just get it done with?'
'Very well,' said the Captain. 'I suppose we may as well sit down then. It's too blashy to be on our feet.'
The only source of light in the stateroom was a lamp with a blackened chimney. Dim though it was, the flame seemed too bright for the Captain and he held up a hand to shield his eyes as he crossed the cabin to seat himself at his desk.
'Go on, Reid,' he said, nodding at the armchair on the other side of the desk. 'Sit yourself down.'
'Yes, sir.'
Zachary was about to sit when he glimpsed a long, lacquered object lying on the upholstery. He picked it up and found it warm to the touch: it was a pipe, with a bulb the size of a man's thumbnail, sitting on a stem that was as thin as a finger and as long as an arm. It was beautifully crafted, with carved knuckles that resembled the nodes of a stalk of bamboo.
The Captain too had caught sight of the pipe: half rising to his feet, he thumped his fist on his thigh, as if to chide himself for his absent-mindedness. But when Zachary held the pipe out to him, he accepted with an unaccustomedly gracious gesture, extending both his hands and bowing, in a fashion that seemed more Chinese than European. Then, placing the pipe on the desk, he cradled his jowls in his palm and stared at it in silence, as though he were trying to think of some way of accounting for its presence in his stateroom.
At last, he stirred and cleared his throat. 'You're not a fool on the march, Reid,' he said. 'I'm sure you know what this is and what it's used for. I'll be bail'd if I make any apologies for it, so please don't be expecting any.'
'I wasn't, sir,' said Zachary.
'You were bound to find out sooner or later, so maybe it's for the best. It's scarcely a secret.'
'None of my business, sir.'
'On the contrary,' said the Captain, with a wry smile, 'in these waters it's everyone's business and it'll be yours, too, if you intend to continue as a seaman: you'll be stowing it, packing it, selling it… and I know of no salt who doesn't sample his cargo from time to time, especially when it's of a kind that might help him forget the blores and bottom-winds that are his masters of misrule.'
The Captain's chin had sunk into his jowls now, but his voice had grown steadier and stronger. 'A man's not a sailor, Reid, if he doesn't know what it's like to be becalmed in a dead-lown, and there's this to be said for opium that it works a strange magic with time. To go from one day to another, or even one week to the next, becomes as easy as stepping between decks. You may not credit it – I didn't myself until I had the misfortune of having my vessel detained for many months in a ghastly little port. It was somewhere on the Sula Sea – as ugly a town as I've ever seen; the kind of place where all the giglets are travesties, and you can't step ashore for fear of being becketed by the forelift. Never had I felt as flat aback as I did in those months, and when the steward, a Manila-man, offered me a pipe, I confess I took it with a will. No doubt you expect me to blame myself for my weakness – but no sir, I do not regret what I did. It was a gift like none I've ever known. And like all the gifts that Nature gives us – fire, water and the rest – it demands to be used with the greatest care and caution.'