“A day and a night. One additional mouth, Master Salkeld, is what I did not bargain for.”
“But you would not have allowed the man to drift away to starvation and death?” I said.
“His life was no concern of mine, Master Salkeld. But I can make him useful; therefore he was worth saving. I shall enroll him as one of my crew, and carry him to the Indies.”
“And then?”
“Then he will go ashore with you, unless he prefers to go back with me to Cadiz—which he probably will not do.”
He left me then, and I sat wondering what he meant by saying that the English sailor would probably not care to go back to Spain with him. There seemed something sinister in his meaning. But I gave over thinking about it, for I was by that time firmly convinced that Captain Manuel Nunez was a thorough-paced scoundrel, and well fitted to undertake all manner of villainy, despite his polished manners and fine words. Also, I was certain that there was in store for me some unpleasant and possibly terrible fate, which I was powerless to avoid and which was certain to come. Therefore I had resigned myself to my conditions, and only hoped to show myself a true Englishman when my time of trouble came.
Nevertheless, many a sad hour and day did I spend, looking across the great wild waste of gray water and wondering what they were doing at Beechcot. In my sad thoughts and in my dreams I could see the little hamlet nestling against the purple Wold; the brown leaves piled high about the shivering hedgerows; the autumn sunlight shining over the close-cropped fields; and in the manor-house the good knight, my uncle, seated by his wood-fire, wondering what had become of me. Also I could see the old vicarage and the vicar, good Master Timotheus, thumbing his well-loved folios, and occasionally pushing his spectacles from his nose to look round and inquire whether there was yet news of the boy Humphrey. But more than these, I saw my sweetheart’s face, sad and weary with fear, and her eyes seemed as if they looked for something and were unsatisfied. And then would come worse thoughts—thoughts of Jasper and his villainy, and of what it might have prompted him to in the way of lies. He would carry home a straight and an ingenious tale—I was very sure of that. He would tell them I was drowned or kidnaped, and nobody would doubt his story. That was the worst thought of all—that my dear ones should be thinking of me as one dead while I was simply a prisoner, being carried I knew not where, nor to what fate.
On the evening of the second day after the Cornish sailor came aboard, the weather having moderated and the ship making good progress, I was leaning over the port bulwarks moodily gazing at the sea, when I felt a touch on my hand. Looking round, I saw the Englishman engaged in coiling a rope close to me. He continued his task and spoke in a low voice.
“I recognized you, master,” said he. “I looked through the skylight last night as you talked with the captain, and I knew you again. I know not how you came here, nor why, but it is strange company for a young English gentleman.”