“Ay,” said he.
“What were the other ships, I wonder,” said I.
But he returned me no answer.
CHAPTER XXV.
A GAUDY PICTURE IN A DARK FRAME.
The common sort of pirates had their dwelling both in the Cells, and in a system of caves, in part natural, in part excavated out of the cliff, on the further shore of the island.
The Doctor had both a cell and a cave, sometimes taking up his abode in one, sometimes in the other. Adjacent to his cell, was his laboratory, which was described sufficiently by the Englishman in his narrative.
As concerning the Caves, I was never in them, nor so much as set eyes on them in all my sojourn on the island; being kept pretty busy from day to day with Ambrose in the Cloisters. On this account, also, I can tell you nothing of the ship-building which went on at the other side of the island. But, as that topping pirate told us, they built the ship on the pattern of the Tiger; wherein doth appear the main of the Doctor’s intent in enticing us to the island. And what we overheard him say at the volcan, as to the hatred he had for some nation, and his search for a combustible, may hint us he designed to cruise upon that nation, and with that combustible (when it was found), to destroy it. Further, as I surmise, that nation was none other than England.
But leaving this in the midst, I continue my relation.
Looking down from the cliff, then, on the morning after the destruction of the four ships, as I wended with Ambrose to the Cloisters, I spied the pirate ship lying at an anchor close in; and her longboat, heavy laden, was being rowed to the shore, to a point where some six or seven pirates stood ready to unlade her. But of the shipwracks there was never a trace.
Returning at midday, we fell in on the cliff with Surgeon Burke. He stood in converse with the surgeon of the pirate ship, and introduced me to him. I, in return, introduced Ambrose: we might have been at a country ball, there was such a ducking and bowing and doffing of hats!