“Why, what is there to understand about her? Or rather, what is there that is incomprehensible about her?” he asked sharply.
“Everything,” I replied eagerly. “In the first place, we have only the statement of one man—and he a member of her own crew—that she actually is the veritable Vestale, French gun-brig, which we know to be cruising in these waters. Secondly, her very extraordinary resemblance to the Black Venus, which, as you are aware, I have seen, absolutely compels me, against my better judgment, to the belief that the two brigs are, in some mysterious way, intimately associated together, if, indeed, they are not absolutely one and the same vessel. And thirdly, my suspicion that the latter is the case receives strong confirmation from the fact that on both occasions when we have been after the one—the Black Venus—we have encountered the other—the Vestale.”
Mr Austin stared at me in a very peculiar way for a few minutes, and then said:
“Well, Hawkesley, your last assertion is undoubtedly true; but what does it prove? It can be nothing more than a curious coincidence.”
“So I have assured myself over and over again, when my suspicions were strengthened by the first occurrence of the coincidence; and so I shall doubtless assure myself over and over again during the next few days,” I replied. “But if a coincidence only it is certainly curious that it should have occurred on two occasions.”
“I am not quite prepared to admit that,” said the first lieutenant. “And, then, as to the remarkable resemblance between the two vessels, do you not think, now, honestly, Hawkesley, that your very extraordinary suspicions may have magnified that resemblance?”
“No,” said I; “I do not. I only wish Mr Smellie had been on deck just now to have caught a glimpse of that inexplicable brig; he would have borne convincing testimony to the marvellous likeness between them. Why, sir, but for the white ribbon round the one, and the difference in the figure-heads, the two craft would be positively indistinguishable; so completely so, indeed, that poor Richards was actually unable to believe the evidence of his own senses, and, I firmly believe, was convinced of the identity of the two vessels.”
“Indeed!” said Mr Austin in a tone of great surprise. “That is news to me. So Richards shared your suspicions, did he?”
“He did, indeed, sir,” I replied. “It was, in fact, his extraordinary demeanour on the occasion of our second encounter with the Vestale—you will remember the circumstance, sir?—which confirmed my suspicions; suspicions which, up to then, I had attributed solely to some aberration of fancy on my part. Then, again, when we questioned the skipper of the Pensacola relative to the Black Venus and the Vestale, how evasive were his replies!”
“Look here, Hawkesley; you have interested me in spite of myself,” said Mr Austin. “If you are not too tired I should like you to tell me the whole history of these singular suspicions of yours from the very moment of their birth.”