CHAPTER XVI
On the following day the fiery sun again blazed down upon the guilty ship out of a cloudless and windless sky. It seemed probable that one of those oppressive calms that are so frequent on this portion of the ocean would detain the barque for some days longer at her present anchorage.
In the early morning, when the west side of the island was still plunged in shade, Carew approached the mate, who was enjoying his matutinal cup of coffee and cigarette on the quarter-deck.
"Baptiste," he said, "I want a boat lowered; I am going on shore."
"Good, sir. How many of us do you wish to accompany you?"
"Thank you; I want none of you. Put the yacht's dinghy over the side. She is the handiest boat on board; and I will pull off by myself."
"That will not be safe," objected Baptiste; "there is no place to beach a boat yonder, and she would smash up if you left her banging about alongside that rocky landing-place; we nearly lost the cutter in that way last night. If you desire to take a solitary promenade on that cheerful island, I will pull you off there myself in the dinghy, leave you, and return for you at any hour you mention."
Carew assented to this proposal, and prepared himself for the journey by placing his sheath-knife and loaded revolver in his belt. Baptiste watched him curiously, and wondered whether this eccentric Englishman had at last summoned up resolution, and was about to despatch the prisoners outright, as being a more merciful proceeding than allowing them to starve to death. Baptiste ventured no remark on the subject, for he observed that his captain was in a taciturn and absent-minded mood; and there was a peculiar, far-off look in his eyes that the Frenchman could not understand, not knowing that Carew had been dosing himself for the last few days with laudanum from his medicine chest, in the vain hope that the drug might numb the tortures of his conscience.
The dinghy was got overboard, and while Carew sat in the sternsheets, Baptiste took the oars and pulled leisurely across the smooth ocean swell.
While they were yet half-way to the shore, the boat shot suddenly out of the fervent sunshine into the cool dark shadow cast by the lofty mountains.