“There can be no reason why I should affect the least degree of secrecy about my island,” returned Attwater; “that came wholly to an end with your arrival; and I am sure, at any rate, that gentlemen like you and Mr. Whish I should have always been charmed to make perfectly at home. The point on which we are now differing—if you can call it a difference—is one of times and seasons. I have some information which you think I might impart, and I think not. Well, we’ll see to-night! By-by, Whish!” He stepped into his boat and shoved off. “All understood, then?” said he. “The captain and Mr. Whish at six-thirty, and you, Hay, at four precise. You understand that, Hay? Mind, I take no denial. If you’re not there by the time named, there will be no banquet; no song, no supper, Mr. Whish!”
White birds whisked in the air above, a shoal of parti-coloured fishes in the scarce denser medium below; between, like Mahomet’s coffin, the boat drew away briskly on the surface, and its shadow followed it over the glittering floor of the lagoon. Attwater looked steadily back over his shoulders as he sat; he did not once remove his eyes from the Farallone and the group on her quarter-deck beside the house, till his boat ground upon the pier. Thence, with an agile pace, he hurried ashore, and they saw his white clothes shining in the chequered dusk of the grove until the house received him.
The captain, with a gesture and a speaking countenance, called the adventurers into the cabin.
“Well,” he said to Herrick, when they were seated, “there’s one good job at least. He’s taken to you in earnest.”
“Why should that be a good job?” said Herrick.
“O, you’ll see how it pans out presently,” returned Davis. “You go ashore and stand in with him, that’s all! You’ll get lots of pointers; you can find out what he has, and what the charter is, and who’s the fourth man—for there’s four of them, and we’re only three.”
“And suppose I do, what next?” cried Herrick. “Answer me that!”
“So I will, Robert Herrick,” said the captain. “But first, let’s see all clear. I guess you know,” he said, with imperious solemnity, “I guess you know the bottom is out of this Farallone speculation? I guess you know it’s right out? and if this old island hadn’t been turned up right when it did, I guess you know where you and I and Huish would have been?”
“Yes, I know that,” said Herrick. “No matter who’s to blame, I know it. And what next?”
“No matter who’s to blame, you know it, right enough,” said the captain, “and I’m obliged to you for the reminder. Now, here’s this Attwater: what do you think of him?”