“She is a fine boat, almost new, and would make a very desirable accession to our community.”
This was the first suggestion I received of the thought that afterward became a terrible reality. Thus were confirmed all my fears, and thus was I made aware of the cunningly contrived conspiracy by which I had been lured from my ship in order that she might fall an easy prey, by midnight surprise, to the heartless Sargassons. Nothing that had happened filled me with such terror as this information. My mortification and danger were enough to shatter the nerves of any man; but when I fully realized, as I did within the first half day aboard my prison-house, the tragic fate that awaited my companions, I was beside myself with rage and chagrin.
Meanwhile, I had been assigned to a small room that apparently had been prepared for me amidships, just under the deck. It would have been a comfortable enough place in which to have passed a few days in an overcrowded vessel, but when I discovered that it was closed by a heavy wooden door, with a strong bolt upon the outer side, I understood that I was virtually a prisoner, and that at such times as I could not be kept under the strictest surveillance I would be locked up.
The furnishings of the small cabin consisted of a bunk, without any bed coverings, made of woven grass cloth and stuffed with a pulpy seaweed that resembled the material from which our tapioca of commerce is made. I afterward found this bed comfortable enough, and, had it not been that I was a prisoner, my quarters would have been quite endurable. Strangely enough, one or two rude pictures adorned the walls. They were either carvings in wood or had been burned into the oak partitions with a hot iron years before the ship became a derelict. Each carving or picture was evidently by a different hand, and one of them, in my opinion, possessed considerable merit. They reminded me of the drawings and carvings upon the walls of the Tower of London in the cells of the condemned.
They added another chill to my already drooping spirits, and I concluded that escape from these unnatural human monsters would be difficult.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PEOPLE OF THE SEA.
During the first afternoon I was allowed on deck for exercise I encountered my former companion, the pretended artist. He had laid away his store clothes, and was dressed in the garb of his adopted people. His feet were bare, and his knee breeches and jacket were made of shark’s skin. His coat was laced together up the front like shoes, and fitted him tightly. His youthful face and long, curly, brown hair, combined with his costume, gave him a bizarre and interesting look.
I strode at once to his side and upbraided him in good Flatbush English for his contemptible treachery. He evinced neither regret nor humiliation, but smiled sarcastically and replied:
“We must grow. Take my advice and make the best of a mishap that might have come to any man who possessed the average amount of curiosity. In a few days we shall have your ship and most of your officers and crew under our control, and if you really think you will be lonely among us, our Chief Kantoon will make you the master of your own ship—after destroying her engines, of course, and twisting off her propeller, so that she can never escape from us.”