A few minutes later, the Spaniard crossed the after well. “Now,” he said, “we must decide when we ought to have our interview with Señor Kenwardine, and I think we should put it off until just before we land.”
“Why?” Jake asked. “It would be much pleasanter to get it over and have done with it.”
“I think not,” Don Sebastian answered quietly. “We do not know how Señor Kenwardine will meet the situation. He is a bold man, and it is possible that he will defy us.”
“How can he defy you when he knows you can hand him over to the British authorities?”
“That might be necessary; but I am not sure it is the British authorities he fears the most.”
“His employers, I imagine,” Don Sebastian answered with a curious smile. “It is understood that they trust nobody and are not very gentle to those who do not serve them well. Señor Kenwardine knows enough about their plans to be dangerous, and it looks as if he might fail to carry their orders out. If we give him too long a warning, he may escape us after all.”
“I don’t see how he could escape. You have him corralled when he’s under the British flag.”
Don Sebastian shrugged as he indicated the steamer’s low iron rail and the glimmer of foam in the dark below.
“There is one way! If he takes it, we shall learn no more than we know now.”