He stared at the Captain for a moment without speaking. “But that’s all done with,” said he at last. “I’ve told you my story; you’ve had your share in the stuff—Don’t you believe me? And see here, what do you mean about a treasure ship? I never said a word about such a thing.”
“My friend,” said Sagesse, “between the captain and the mate’s cabin on my vessel there is only a plank, and when the man sleeping in the mate’s cabin shouts out in his sleep ‘Hullo there, Yves, look, I can see through her hatch; she’s full of gold; we’ll fetch it out—share and share alike,’ the captain sets himself to think. He says to himself, ‘this man talks of a ship full of gold in his sleep; he came on board my ship from an island over there; he had in his possession a number of old coins, old Spanish pieces; he confesses in drink that he has killed Monsieur Yves, the gentleman to whom in his dreams he talks of a ship full of treasure; well, don’t you see?”
“What?”
“The conclusion—come, confess, you have a secret; give me the full story of that affair, or by my soul and on my honour I will call the authorities right in here and tell them a lot of things I know.”
Sagesse, as he said the last words, changed completely, and in a moment, the bon bourgeois vanished, his upper lip raised slightly, disclosing the teeth. Just in that moment he shewed himself what he was, not a villain of romance, but that much more terrible individual, the petty trader, heartless, careful, calculating. The squid of society that, living on crabs and shell-fish, will, when opportunity offers, seize and devour a man.
What numbed the mind of Gaspard was not fear of the authorities, but fear of Sagesse and astonishment at his methods.
He felt as though in the grip of some gelatinous thing, this dusky mind had gripped him on board the Belle Arlésienne and had seemed to let him go; its tentacles had fallen from his arms, and now they were around his feet. It was useless to fight with Sagesse; he was at the man’s mercy; betrayed by drink, he had put himself in the grasp of the cuttlefish.
“Look here,” said he at last, “before I tell you anything, tell me this: Why did you not spring this on me before? Why did you trade with me for those coins? Why did you pretend to be my friend?”
“Why did I trade with you, ma foi? I traded with you because I wanted those coins at a fair price; I brought you here because I wanted to trade with you for your secret at a fair price with the law at my elbow. I did not wish to conclude the bargain on board my own ship; it gives a ship a bad name when men are brought off her in chains by the police. I wanted no police on board La Belle Arlésienne. And as to pretending to be your friend, ma foi, I am your friend, and you shall have your share of the profits of your secret. But the truth I must have, come—”
“Dieu!” cried Gaspard with a burst of irritation. “I was hiding nothing from you. There was a wreck on the island; I did think there was treasure on her, but I had put it from my mind. I talked of it in my sleep, did I? Well, it must have been there in my mind. You shall have the story.”