Often, on the plantation, he had seen the white men take drinks.

But there was something somehow different in the manner of Borckman's taking a drink.

Jerry was aware, vaguely, that there was something surreptitious about it.

What was wrong he did not know, yet he sensed the wrongness and watched suspiciously.
After the mate departed, Jerry would have slept again had not the carelessly latched door swung open with a bang.

Opening his eyes, prepared for any hostile invasion from the unknown, he fell to watching a large cockroach crawling down the wall.