"Not since five o'clock this morning," said I.
"Why," said he, "you'll have to be fed, whether they hang you or no." Whereupon he fetched out from a locker a great lot of biscuit and a decanter of the very port-wine with which I had entertained Mr. Longways when he came aboard the Cassandra with The Rose of Paradise; nor have I ever tasted food that was more refreshing than that which I then ate, for I was wellnigh exhausted with hunger.
No one spoke for a while, and England walked up and down the cabin with his hands clasped behind his back. During all this time I had been looking around me, and of a sudden my heart seemed to leap into my throat, for in the corner of the cabin, lying amongst a lot of litter, where it seemed to have been flung as of no account, I saw the iron despatch-box.
My danger had been so great and my mind in such a maze for all this time that there had been no room in my brain for other matters, the very objects of my adventure having been forgotten for a while; but with the sight of this everything came back to me with a rush, and I wondered for the first time that I had not yet seen my betrayer.
"Where is Captain Leach?" said I to England.
He stopped short in his walk, and regarded me with a very strange expression, which at the time I could in no wise understand.
"Why," says he, presently, "he was shot—shot by accident—when we first came aboard of this here craft after you left her."
I sat silent for a great long time after this, nor could I think of one word to say, for of all the things which my mind had forecasted, this was the very furthest from my imaginings. So I sat staring at the pirate captain, who, upon his part, sat gazing back again at me, answering my look with a grin. I had been well assured that Captain Leach had stolen the jewel, but was it possible that I had misjudged him in suspecting that he had betrayed us to the pirates, and that they, finding him alive upon the vessel, whence he had not had sufficient time to escape, had thereupon instantly murthered him, as is their custom upon such occasions? "And tell me this," said I at last, "was it through Captain Leach's machinations that we were betrayed into your hands?"
"Why," says he, "I may tell you plain, if I had never met Captain Leach I should never have ventured into this harbor in the face of three armed vessels lying across the channel."
"Then I was not mistaken," said I. But I dared ask no more questions, lest the pirate captain's suspicions should be aroused, for, from the appearance of the despatch-box, which did not yet seem to have been tampered with, but rather held as of no account whatever, I did not believe that Captain Leach had betrayed the presence of the jewel to the pirate, but rather had reserved the secret for his own advantage, which, indeed, was the most likely supposition that could be imagined. If now I could but by some means or other contrive to find opportunity to examine the box, I could very speedily tell whether the lock had been forced; which would, in my estimation, decide whether or not the jewel was still safe and undiscovered.