Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/282

270 “If you like.”

“And remove them to my cabin for safer custody?”

“If you think that they will be safer there. You can stow ’em in the hold for all I mind. All I want is for them to be safe, and have my fair half. Only I don’t see what harm they’ll do in here, except that you’ve bursted off the lock, which is a thing as can be replaced. I’m not likely to leave the ship, and I’ll watch it that they don’t go without me.”

There seemed reason in what he said. It sounded fair; above-board enough. Though every pulse shrunk from his near neighbourhood, crying out that there was that about him which was good neither for man nor beast, I could not but admit to myself that this was so.

I was still holding in my hand the obscene image which, according to him, was worth fifty thousand pounds. I had been watching Mr. Batters. Glancing from him to it I saw that, perched upon its head, was a little doll-like looking figure, as long, perhaps, as my middle finger. It was not there a second before. I wondered whence it came, how it retained its place.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“That?” There was a curious something in Mr. Batters’ tone which set my nerves all jangling. “Where I’ve been they call that the God of Fortune. It’s my very own god. It watches over me. When you see it I’m never far away.”

I reached out my disengaged hand to take hold of it for examination. But I seemed to have grown dizzy all of a sudden, and clumsy. It must have been because I was clumsy that, instead of grasping it, I knocked it off its perch. It fell to the floor. I stooped to pick it up.

“I don’t think you’ll find it. I expect it’s gone.”

It did seem to have gone. Or perhaps my sudden dizziness prevented my seeing so small an object in the