"Then he has engaged a cook."
I knew that Mr. Whippleton sometimes employed a colored man, who had been a sailor and a cook on the lake, to help him work the yacht when I could not go with him; but I had never seen him, and did not think it probable that he knew me. I went into the cabin, and brought out one of Mr. Waterford's rifles; but as I did not intend to kill anybody, I did not take the precaution to load it.
"What are you going to do with that, Philip?" asked Marian, as I returned to the standing-room, with the rifle in my hand.
"I may have occasion to use it; but it is not loaded."
"Don't shoot any one, Philip—pray don't."
"I shall not be likely to do so while the rifle is not loaded."
"But you may do something you don't intend to do."
"I certainly don't intend to fire a rifle that isn't loaded; and I shall not shoot any one."
I had not yet decided what to do, though a desperate scheme was flitting through my mind. If Mr. Whippleton slept in the cabin of the Florina that night, it would be possible to board the yacht by stealth in the darkness, fall upon him, and bind him hand and foot. The plan looked practicable to me, and though I had not yet arranged the details of it in my mind, or considered its difficulties, I was disposed to undertake it. I did not care, therefore, to have the negro return to the Florina with the intelligence that I was in possession of the Marian. I intended, therefore, to make him sleep on board of our boat.
Before I had fully determined in what manner I should detain the cook on board of the Marian, the boat came alongside. I turned my head away from the man, so that her need not discover that I was not Mr. Waterford before he came on board. I opened a conversation with Miss Collingsby, and appeared to take no notice of the arrival. The negro was evidently one of the lazy kind, for he did not offer to come on board.