“Yes,” answered I, replying to his last question first, “there is something out there, but what it is I cannot for the life of me make out. There—there it is! You can see it now lifting on the back of the swell, about a point on the weather bow.”
“Ay,” he answered eagerly, “I see it, and, unless I am greatly mistaken, I know what it is. Keep her away a little, señor, if you please; let her go off a point. I do not want to pass too close to that object if it be what I imagine.”
“And pray what do you imagine it to be, señor, if one may be permitted to ask the question?” inquired I, as I gave a pull upon the tiller rope and kept the felucca away, as requested.
“A turtle! a sleeping turtle, and an unusually fine one, too!” answered Dominguez, in a low voice, as he stood staring out away over the weather bow, with one hand shading his eyes while the other held his smouldering cigar.
As Dominguez spoke a little thrill of sudden excitement swept over me, for I thought, “Just so; I know what he means. He intends to make an effort to capture that turtle,—probably by means of the boat,—and, if he does, my chance will have come!” But I steadied myself instantly, and returned, in a perfectly nonchalant tone of voice—
“And supposing that it be, as you imagine, a sleeping turtle, what then, señor?”
“Hush, señor, I pray you!” replied Dominguez, in a low, excited whisper. “Keep silence; you will soon see!”
Presently the object lifted into view again, only some ten or a dozen fathoms away; and as it went drifting quietly past, we got so distinct and prolonged a view of it as to render its identity unquestionable. It was, as Dominguez had imagined, a sleeping turtle of enormous size.
“Holy Virgin, what a magnificent fellow!” ejaculated Dominguez, as the creature vanished in the trough on our weather quarter, “we must have him! Señor, if we lower the sail, so that the felucca cannot drift far, will you have any objection to being left by yourself for a few minutes, while Miguel and I and the boy go after that turtle with the boat?” he demanded eagerly.
So my chance had come, if I could but so demean myself for a few minutes as not to arouse the suspicions of this man by any ill-timed exhibition of eagerness or too earnest assent to his proposal. I took a second or two to steady my nerves, and then asked—