Then a moment later he was gone from my side.
Leaving Spain and making for the open! What then did that mean? "Leaving Spain and making for the open!" I repeated to myself again. Was that true? And to assure myself I leant further forward into the night--as though half a yard nearer to those passing lights would assist my sight!--and peered at those countless clusters.
Was it the English fleet that was leaving Spain? Whether that was or not--whether 'twas in truth the English fleet or not--it was leaving Spain; I could understand that. We in our ship were almost stationary; that body was rapidly passing out to sea.
What did it mean? Perhaps that the English had done their work--destroyed Cadiz. I did not know if such were possible, but thought it might be so. Perhaps that the galleons had been on their way in, after all, and had been warned of those who were there before them, and so had turned tail and fled.
Yet I feared--became maddened and distraught almost at the very idea--that, having done their work, my countrymen should have left the place, gone out to the open on, perhaps, their way back to England. Became maddened because, if such were the case, there was no opportunity left me of advising them about the galleons. While, on the other hand, if that passing fleet was in truth the galleons, then were they saved, since never would they come near the coast of Spain again while British ships remained there. Rather would they keep the open for months, rather put back again to the Indies than run themselves into the lion's jaws.
Truly I was sore distressed in pondering over all this; truly my chance of promotion seemed very far off now. Yet I had one consolation: I had done my best; it was not my fault.
That night, to make things more unpleasant than they already were--and to me it seemed that nothing more was wanting to aid my melancholy!--Cuddiford began his drinkings and carousals again, shutting off himself with the negro in his cabin, from whence shortly issued the sounds of glasses clinking, of snatches of songs--in which the black joined--of halloaing and of toasts and other things. Ribald bawlings, too, of a song of which I could catch only a few words now and again, but which seemed to be about a mouse which had escaped from a trap and also from a great fierce cat ready to pounce on it. Then, once more, clappings and clinkings of glasses together--an intolerable noise, be sure!--and presently, with an oath, confusion drank to England.
"So," thinks I, "my gentleman, that is how you feel, is it? Confusion to England! Who and what are you, then, in the devil's name? Spy of France or Spain, besides being retired filibuster, or what? Confusion to England, eh?"
And even as I thought this and heard his evil toast, I determined to hear more. Whereon I slipped quietly off my bunk, got out into the gangway and listened across it to his cabin opposite, feeling very sure as I did so that both he and his black imagined I was up on deck.
Then I heard him say, going on, evidently, with a phrase he had begun: