There was a sound of footsteps on the deck, and the next moment the tub-shaped Willem entered the cabin. When he saw who was sitting opposite to his master he stood stock still, his jaw dropped, and an expression of extreme astonishment, which amounted to horror, settled on his stupid, honest face.
"What is the matter with you, Willem?" asked Carew, knowing well what was about to happen. "This is the mate I have engaged for the yacht."
"Dat—dat man!" cried the Dutchman, finding his voice with difficulty. "You know who dat man is?"
"I do. He has just left the court-house. He was unjustly accused of murder, and has been found innocent."
"Vat—you take dat man for mate! Oh, den I go—I go at vonce! I not stay on board vid dat man."
The usually stolid Dutchman trembled with excitement, and his broad face was scarlet with indignation. After a few minutes, finding that Carew was obdurate and would insist on engaging the most loathed man in all Rotterdam as mate, Willem rolled up his scanty luggage into a bundle, demanded and received the few guilders that were owing to him, and hurried on shore, grumbling uncouth Dutch oaths to himself as he went.
Then the Frenchman, who had been observing the scene with a cynical smile, laughed bitterly.
"Had I been the fiend himself that fat idiot could not have been much more terrified at the sight of me. Ah, how they love me—these worthy people of Rotterdam!"
For a moment there was a troubled look upon Carew's face. With his usual inconsistency he half regretted, when it was too late, that honest Willem had left him. It seemed to him that he had now broken the last tie between himself and the world of law-abiding men. He felt a vague sense of something lost to him for ever; as if his guardian angel, despairing of him, had forsaken him. But he quickly shook off the feeling as a foolish fancy, and turned his attention to the business he had on hand.
"Now, Baptiste," he said, "we must find your two comrades. Do you know where they are?"