Three days after we boarded the ‘Saucy Susan’ I was the look-out man during a dark mid-watch. The wind was fresh, the sea high, and we were plunging rapidly along; the sails straining and surging, and the masts and rigging cracking with the pressure. I was standing on the heel of the bowsprit, with my arm round the forestay to balance myself, and occasionally ducking and stooping as I best could to avoid the cold showers of brine which our sharp bows tore up, when some one pulled my doublet, and, looking round, I saw Rumbold.
‘Is there any one about?’ quoth he; ‘I want to speak to you privately.’ But the breeze, although it blew strong, was steady, and the watch lay dozing under the lee of the long-boat between the masts.
‘My mind misgives me,’ says Rumbold, presently, ‘that they have a design on me. That fellow Nixon watches every motion as a cat does a mouse. I know that Jerry, Le Chiffon Rouge, and he, are aware that I have pearls about me, and I go in constant dread. Did you see the three rogues to-day, how long and how earnestly they talked, and what sly glances they, every one of them, threw at me? It was ticklish work living among the Spaniards at the Rio de la Hacha, but I warrant you I feel never a bit more comfortable among my countrymen here.’
I inquired where Jerry, the Captain, and Nixon were?
Rumbold replied, that they were all three drinking in the great cabin, and that being pretty far gone, he had been able to slip out to seek me.
‘Now,’ quoth he, ‘I don’t intend that these rascals shall have my pearls, if I can keep them—and what is more, I don’t intend that they shall have them, even although I may not be able to keep them—they shall go into the sea, which they came out of, first.’
I said, that surely the fellows would not murder him for his wealth.
‘Well,’ he answered, ‘they would not murder, if they could steal without it—but if they can’t, I do not suppose that a throat or so cut, would make much difference.’
Upon this I replied, heartily shaking Rumbold’s hand at the same time,—
‘You helped me, at my time of need, among the Spaniards. Perhaps, I can help you now—will you entrust the pearls to me?’