“Maybe not, but it seems to me you were handy enough with that knife a moment ago. I did not say you were a fool alone; I said we were fools quarrelling in the after guard, with a crew like this and treasure ahead. The bon Dieu only knows if we may not be fighting together for our lives before long, if we are lucky, and if those black beasts choose to rise up against us. Do you know that my position here is not so much the master of a ship as the master of a menagerie? You got the better of me for a moment. I did not intend to shoot you. I drew in anger, I gave way for a second to that child’s passion. That was a fault, but I mastered it. But suppose—look you here—suppose one of those animals had come in and found us at grips, and you holding me like that, where would my authority have been? And, I tell you, it is by authority only that you and I will live through this business, for the fellows forward have hell in them, and they only want pricking to let it out.
“You say a man has gone overboard. Well, that is my business, and it is better that one man should go than that we should have our throats cut. That fellow was full of mutiny, and I sent him where he’d got to go sooner or later. That’s my business. And now hand me over that revolver. Or stay—” He went to his cabin and came back in a moment with another revolver. He handed it to Gaspard.
“It’s loaded. I brought it for you in case we had trouble with these fellows. You can take it now and give me back mine.”
Gaspard opened the breech. It was loaded. He handed Sagesse’s weapon back to him, and Sagesse put it in his pocket.
“Now,” said Sagesse, “let us be friends till this business is over. That is to say, let us work together, for if we do not, we will pull nothing out of the fire—and I can tell you this, we have our work cut out before us.”
He held out his hand, and Gaspard took it; but there was no friendship in the grip, only policy.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE VISION OF TREASURE
From that day Sagesse’s manner changed. One might have fancied that the man’s nature had changed; a friendliness and a bonhomie never exhibited before appeared in his tone and conversation. Gaspard’s simple and somewhat primitive mind rejected the first overtures towards this better understanding; he suspected treachery; but the manner of the captain was so uniformly equable and sustained that the primitive mind could not but fall under its spell.