We rambled along the shore in the moonlight, and though I suggested that two persons could afford each other considerable support, situated as we were, and might achieve an escape from the island, which one would find futile and fatal, he lessened my hopes of relief by assuring me that the Isle of Tortoises lay far out in the Caribean Sea, and quite beyond the usual track of vessels bound either for the Bay of Honduras or the Gulf of Venezuela; and so we might remain there till our heads were white as winter frost, or the bursting tufts on the cotton-tree, without being discovered or relieved. But this fate seemed so horrible, that I could not realize a conviction of its possibility.
My new companion soon discovered a species of toddy-tree, the distilled gum of which made him partially intoxicated, and for many days afterwards he almost lived at the root of it, sucking the twigs, or with his lips applied to the bark, till he sank on the ground like a gorged leech. Under the influence of this new liquor, he frequently sung, shouted to imaginary ships, crouched and shrieked in the grasp of fancied phantoms and tormentors, danced hornpipes on the beach, swore fearfully, and interlarded his conversation, and more particularly his ravings, with recollections of past days of crime, and always ended by an astounding malediction on the crew who had marooned him.
The solitude of my island had thoroughly departed now.
CHAPTER LV
WE VISIT THE "GALLEON."
On the morning of the day after I had discovered him, he suddenly said:
"Now, mister, what game were you up to, when you were poking in that dark hole, with this old stick, last night?"
"Stick," I reiterated, "I do not understand you."
"Oh, I know you understand me well enough; I mean this spar, which I can see by a squint to be a stout topsail-yard."
I felt the necessity of being extremely reserved with such a reckless companion—especially the possessor of a weapon such as I was without—to wit, a long clasped knife; and so replied, with some caution: