The door of the deck-house was still closed. There was no lookout forward, the individual who ought to have been the eyes of the ship was leaning over the rail to leeward.
Discipline in this respect was rather lax on board La Belle Arlésienne. She took chances in fine weather; she seemed blind very often, yet she found her way about, rarely making a serious mistake. Gaspard imagined that the crew of this blind and easy-going vessel were unobservant and that his expedition into the fo’cs’le had passed unnoticed. In this he was wrong.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE REVOLVER
Three days later, in a pink and pearl dawn, they passed the Virgin Islands, their shoals and sand spits.
By eight o’clock the islands were just palms low down on the sea, swimming in an azure haze; they had vanished completely before noon.
Not a word had been said by Sagesse about Pedro, and Gaspard imagined that the captain held off the subject under the impression that he (Gaspard) had forgotten the Porto Rican’s existence.
There was something almost uncanny in this vanishing of a man and the utter indifference of all on board. Imagination embroidered upon the situation and asked questions not the less disturbing because they were unanswerable.
Had the wretched man died in his bunk, delirious from brain fever following the injury, or had he been flung overboard before death?