Kate Meredith, Financier (ePub)

Excerpt: 'Mighty beach to-day!' grumbled Captain Image, and handed binoculars across to the purser. Mr. Balgarnie tossed his cigarette over the lee rail and tucked a sheaf of papers into his mouth so as to have two spare hands. Day had ten minutes before glared up over an oily swell-writhing sea of bottle-green; dew lay in fat greasy gouts on the deck planks and the skylight frames, foretelling in clear prophecy another spell of scalding West African sunshine; and a mile out from the crashing, bellowing surf that smoked along the beach, the S.S. M'poso buttocked sullenly over the swells, with engines rung off, and sweating firemen on the top of the fiddley, slewing ventilators to catch a flavor of the breeze. 'They've seen us, sir, at the factory,' said Mr. Balgarnie. 'All the boys are out working cargo, and there's old Swizzle-Stick Smith sucking his eternal pipe and hustling them with a chiquot. I can catch the glint of his eyeglass. Wonder how long that man's been out on the Coast? Must be a matter of twenty years now by all accounts since he had his last run home. He's found the right kind of ju-ju to dodge fever-palaver, anyhow. They say he's a lazy old beach-comber as a general thing, but he's up bright and early this morning.'