He threw away his cigarette, loaded his revolver and placed it in his breast, and then, with face pale with fear but determined in expression, he entered Carew's cabin.
The Englishman was reading a book, or pretending to do so. Baptiste took a seat in front of him, and commenced abruptly—
"Do you wish to live, sir?"
Carew looked up. "Why do you ask? If I wished to die, I could take away my life at any moment."
"You will probably be saved that trouble. I will be perfectly frank with you, because I understand you. You see that we are afraid of going into port in your company. We think you are losing your senses, and we cannot allow a madman to rave our secrets in Pernambuco. We wish you to live, because you might be very useful to us. But if, before we are in sight of port, you don't satisfy us that you are sane, by ridding yourself of your melancholia and taking an interest in this business, we shall be under the painful necessity of despatching you for our own protection. We will have to kill you, not in any ill-feeling, I assure you, but with real regret."
Baptiste had rightly imagined that this cool and almost ludicrously matter-of-fact way of broaching the subject was the best in the circumstances.
Carew first appeared to be lost in astonishment; then he smiled sadly, and said, "You are a strange man. You come here to tell me that I am mad, and that I must become sane in two days or die—is that it?"
"I don't think that you are exactly mad, but"—
"I know what you mean," interrupted Carew, "and you are right. I have been ill for several days; but I am not mad, as you will soon discover. I will allow that I might soon have become so had you not stolen my laudanum."
From that moment Carew changed his mode of life, and became much as he had been before his visit to the desert island. Though melancholy in his manner and miserable in his mind, he shook off his lethargy, bestirred himself, took an interest once more in the working of the ship, and exhibited all his old ingenuity in improving upon Baptiste's preparations for deceiving the authorities as to the fate of the barque.