Again, he would make them acquainted with the fact that he was taking no money with him on the yacht; and he would promise to pay them, on their arrival at Buenos Ayres, a considerably larger sum than sailors ever receive for such a voyage. Under these circumstances, it could not possibly be to their interest to do away with him. On the contrary, it would be to their manifest advantage to serve him faithfully. Unless the men were absolute idiots, they would see all this; and he knew that the Frenchman, at least, was far too intelligent a man to commit a senseless crime that could do him no good.
So argued the solicitor; and there was yet another more subtle motive that urged him to engage these three men in preference to honest sailors—a motive of which he himself was only dimly conscious. When a man has a sentimental objection to being a villain, and yet is one, and has no intention of reforming, he likes his surroundings not to be of a sort to reproach him and remind him of his crimes. It is painful to him to associate with good men. He prefers to be in the company of the bad; in their presence he does not feel the shame of his wickedness. So this man, with his strangely complex mind and conflicting instincts, was glad to take unto himself men worse even than himself as his companions across the ocean.
"And to what port did you say you were sailing?" asked the Frenchman.
"I will not tell you that until we are out at sea."
"Oh, very well," said the man, again casting a keen glance at Carew's face, and smiling, as one who should say, "Have you too your secret—have you too committed a crime? If so, there should at once be an agreeable bond of sympathy between us."
"How soon do you sail, sir?" he asked.
"If you are all on board to-night we will sail at daybreak. I am ready for sea. You need not trouble about getting an outfit, for I have plenty of clothes in the yacht for the lot of you." Carew was thinking of the effects of Allen and his man Jim.
"Oh, that is excellent!" cried the Frenchman. "And, excuse me, sir; what pay will you give us?—not that I wish to chaffer with one who has come to my rescue in so generous a manner."
"And I do not wish to stint you," replied Carew. "You, as mate, shall have seven pounds a month; your comrades five pounds a month each."
"That will do very well; but I should like you not to let the others know that I am receiving a higher pay than they. They might be jealous—not to say dangerous," said the cunning fellow. "Ha! what is that?" The Frenchman started, gripped Carew by the arm, and his cheeks again became white with fear.