“Yes, sir—you haven’t many days left in it,” said Mr. Burns calming down. “One can see it by your face.”
“My face, eh? . . . Well, put up the helm and be damned to you.”
Burns flew on deck, got the ship before the wind, then came down again composed, but resolute.
“I’ve shaped a course for Pulo Condor, sir,” he said. “When we make it, if you are still with us, you’ll tell me into what port you wish me to take the ship and I’ll do it.”
The old man gave him a look of savage spite, and said those atrocious words in deadly, slow tones.
“If I had my wish, neither the ship nor any of you would ever reach a port. And I hope you won’t.”
Mr. Burns was profoundly shocked. I believe he was positively frightened at the time. It seems, however, that he managed to produce such an effective laugh that it was the old man’s turn to be frightened. He shrank within himself and turned his back on him.
“And his head was not gone then,” Mr. Burns assured me excitedly. “He meant every word of it.”
“Such was practically the late captain’s last speech. No connected sentence passed his lips afterward. That night he used the last of his strength to throw his fiddle over the side. No one had actually seen him in the act, but after his death Mr. Burns couldn’t find the thing anywhere. The empty case was very much in evidence, but the fiddle was clearly not in the ship. And where else could it have gone to but overboard?”
“Threw his violin overboard!” I exclaimed.