CHAPTER XII. SAKI—STEWARD.

For the time being there was no opportunity to investigate the case of the eavesdropper. It was important that they should get under way at once. Herc hastened on deck after a few hurried words with Ned.

Just at that moment two bells—one o'clock—sounded in the slow, deep, mellow tones of the ship's bell. Simultaneously there appeared, through a doorway at one end of the wardroom, the figure of a dapper Japanese, dressed in white garments.

"Hullo! Who are you?" demanded Ned, looking up from a reverie into which he had fallen, following Herc's departure.

"Me Saki. Officer steward. Me getee lunch for honorable capitan," rejoined the Jap with a low bow.

[Pg 98]

"Mr. Summerville made no mention to me of you," said Ned, looking the Jap over.

"No doubt, sir, no doubt," was the reply; "me only joinee ship in New York."

Ned said no more, but, telling the steward to summon him when the meal was ready, he resumed his meditations. Truly the young skipper of the Seneca was in need of time to think and ponder.

This command of his, of which he had been so proud, evidently was not going to prove any sinecure. Then, somehow, the face of the Jap floated before his mind. He had seen it somewhere before, he was certain. Perhaps it was on some other naval craft, for Japanese stewards are much affected in the United States Navy.

It was a striking face, too: thick, bushy hair brushed up above a massive forehead, far squarer and more prominent than Jap's foreheads usually are, forming a sort of bristly aureole for a yellow face with dark, forbidding eyebrows and a heavy[Pg 99] jaw. Saki was not a common type of Jap. He was heavier, less obsequious and smiling, more sure of himself.

But such thoughts quickly flitted from Ned's mind as the problem of Kenworth put itself forward. Mated with this reflection came the image of Rankin. Both were men who disliked and, in one case at least, hated Ned and Herc.

True, Rankin had no cause but a purely unreasonable one—as it were—for his antipathy to the young captain of the Seneca and his first officer, but it was none the less plain, even without taking the overheard conversation on the bridge into account, that the man had made up his mind to do all the harm he could.

How soon he would strike, of course, Ned had no idea; nor what form his malice would take. That Ned had concluded that Kenworth had purposely run upon the shoal, we already know, but with how much justice he had arrived at such a deduction, he could not determine.

[Pg 100]

The course was soon worked out and Ned proceeded to the chart house. He summoned Herc and gave him his sailing directions, and then proceeded to make an inspection of the ship. On his return from this duty, he suddenly recollected that he had left the door of his stateroom unlocked.

He descended the stairs swiftly and almost noiselessly. As he reached the foot of them, he saw a form suddenly emerge from his cabin and glide silently as a cat across the wardroom in the direction of the stern door, where he knew the steward's cabin and pantry, as well as the store-room, were located.

"Who's that?" he called in a sharp, authoritative voice.

"That you, Mr. Capitan, sir?" came in Saki's voice. "Me just go by your cabin, tell you lunch is ready, sir."

"Very well. Come here, Saki."

[Pg 101]

"Yes, sir," rejoined Saki, hurrying back and bowing low.

"You must never enter my cabin, do you understand? That's private ground except when I am in it. And Saki."

"Honorable naval mister." Saki again bowed low, spreading his hands.

"Have I ever seen you before?"

"I have never had the felicity of looking upon the honorable capitan's face."

"Very well. You may call Ensign Taylor." For Ned and Herc, as befitted their respective ranks on board the Seneca, ate their meals in solitary state.

Midshipman Kenworth and the other warrant officers followed them. Such was the strict etiquette of the navy, even on so small a craft as the Seneca.

"Funny," thought Ned, "it's odd, but I can't get it out of my head that I have seen him before somewhere. Jove! I have it! It was at Nagasaki,[Pg 102] on the world cruise. He was found examining guns and firing systems on board the Manhattan. As he could give no satisfactory account of himself, he was ejected. I'm sure it's the same man. I wonder——"

But the entrance of Herc put a stop to further speculation. Saki waited on them during the meal with silent dexterity. Once or twice Ned sought a chance to study his face without being observed, but every time he found that the Jap's eyes were fixed on him, although quickly averted when the Oriental saw that he was being noticed.

After lunch he took an opportunity to make some inquiries concerning the Jap, and learned that he had come on board at New York, as he had said. Midshipman Kenworth was believed to have secured him, the Jap having been highly recommended as a servant by a relative of the former.

"Kenworth, again," muttered Ned to himself. "It's odd, very odd, how he is always bobbing[Pg 103] up. Jove," he broke off suddenly, "I never thought to overhaul that desk of mine. The way that Jap came out of there like a rabbit out of a hole was suspicious, to say the least. I'll go below and have a look."

But a narrow inspection of the cabin showed that nothing had been disturbed. Carefully Ned locked up his orders in his desk, and when he went out, secured the door.

"All right this time, but it's a risk I don't want to chance again," he said to himself as he ascended to the bridge. "Somehow I don't trust that Jap, any more than I do those other fellows."