“That, possibly, might be the case if the admiral happened to discover that I have been implicated in it,” replied my companion, with exasperating composure. “But then, you see, he never will! I have taken every possible precaution against that.”
“How about Caesar and Peter, the two negroes who brought me aboard here?” I inquired.
“Pshaw!” answered Dominguez impatiently, “do you suppose they would inform against me? Not they. Why, they are both—well, never mind what they are, except that I feel perfectly safe, so far as they are concerned.”
“Very well,” I retorted, “time will show whether your confidence in them is well founded or not. Meanwhile, my position is such that three thousand pounds is the outside figure I can offer you as my ransom, and you may take it or leave it as you please.”
“Then I fear, amigo, that your days are numbered,” replied Dominguez composedly, as he rose from his seat preparatory to returning on deck. “I am sorry for you,” he continued, “very sorry; but I must think of myself before all else, and three thousand is not nearly tempting enough. Possibly when you have had a little longer to think it over you will be able to see your way to make a very considerable advance upon that sum. There is plenty of time; the Joséfa is a grand little ship, but she has one fault, she is slow, and I do not expect that we shall reach Cariacou in less than a full week. You have therefore six or seven days before you in which to consider the matter; and should you see your way to raise the ten thousand, at any time before we sight the island, I shall be happy to talk with you again. Meanwhile, there is your bunk. Will you turn in at once, or would you prefer to take a turn on deck first?”
“Thanks,” answered I, with alacrity, delighted to discover that I was not to be confined to the cabin. “I think I will go on deck for half an hour or so, to get a breath of fresh air; it is rather close down here.”
“As you will,” returned Dominguez, amicably enough; “I have no fear of your attempting to escape. You are scarcely likely, I think, to go overboard and offer yourself as a meal to the sharks. Do you smoke? I can recommend these,” as he drew from a locker a box of cigars.
I helped myself to one mechanically, and lit it, Dominguez following my example, and then politely offering me precedence up the companion ladder. I accepted the courtesy, and made my way somewhat stiffly up the steep steps; for my limbs were still cramped from the compression of the ligatures wherewith I had been bound. After what I had passed through it was an inexpressible relief to me to find myself once more breathing the free, pure air of heaven, with the star-spangled sky arching grandly overhead.
It was a brilliantly fine night,—or morning rather, for it was by this time past two o’clock a.m.,—the sky cloudless save for a small shred of thin, wool-like vapour skimming rapidly athwart the stars; the trade wind was blowing a moderate breeze, and the felucca was bruising along on an easy bowline with long, swinging plunges and soarings over the low, jet-black, glistening surges at a pace of some five and a half knots perhaps, with a perfect thunder of roaring, breaking seas under her bluff bows, and a belt of winking, sparkling sea-fire, a couple of fathoms wide, sweeping past her lee rail and swirling into the broad, short wake that she trailed behind her. The land was still clearly in sight on our port quarter, the range of the Liguanea Mountains towering high into the star-lit sky and gradually sloping away to the eastward in the direction of Morant Point. Beside Dominguez and myself there was but one other figure visible on deck, that of the man at the helm—a long, thin, weedy-looking figure, so far as I could make out in the ghostly starlight, but one who had evidently used the sea for some time, if one might judge by the easy, floating poise of his figure on the plunging deck as he stood on the weather side of the tiller, with the tiller rope lightly grasped in his right hand, swaying rhythmically to the leaps and plunges of the little hooker. As Dominguez followed me out on deck he stepped aft to the small, dimly lighted binnacle, glanced into it, made some brief remark in a low tone to the silent helmsman, walked forward and took a long look ahead and on both bows, and then, returning aft, excused himself to me for turning in, upon the plea that it would soon be his watch on deck, and so dived below and left me.
Left thus to myself, I fell to mechanically pacing the short deck of the felucca for a few minutes, smoking thoughtfully the while and turning over in my mind the disquieting conversation that had just passed between Dominguez and myself; then, my gaze happening to wander aft to the solitary figure at the tiller, I sauntered aft and endeavoured to strike up a conversation with him. The fellow, however, proved to be so boorish and saturnine in his manner that I quickly abandoned the attempt and, pitching my half-smoked cigar over the rail, retired below and tumbled, “all standing,” into the bunk that Dominguez had indicated as mine, where, despite the food for serious reflection that the occurrences of the night afforded me, I soon fell into a sound sleep.