“You are not to know the value of the freight of dollars.”
“I will know nothing when I converse with him.”
“But I shall want you to persuade him that my yarn is true,” said he with a faint smile, but with a gleam in his eyes which neutralized that weak expression of good humor.
The relations between the master and the mate—between the captain and the lieutenant—instantly made themselves felt by me. I looked him in the face awaiting instruction.
“You will be able to convince him that my yarn is true,” said he.
“He has all the reasons which I have for believing it.”
“Do you believe it?”
“Why, yes! Mynheer Tulp’s promotion of this voyage is all the proof that one wants.”
He cast his eyes upon the deck, and a light smile twitched his lips. When he next spoke it was to ask me some question that had no relation to the subject we had been conversing upon.
After this I created opportunities for Yan Bol to question me. I lingered when he came on deck to relieve me. I sought to coax him into asking about the ship in the cavern, by loitering in his company instead of at once going below, and by speaking of the voyage, of the Galapagos Islands, of the uncharted island to which we were bound; but his mind appeared to have suddenly and completely turned round; what was before an eager, was now a blank countenance; indeed, he would look at me suspiciously when I talked of the voyage and the dollar-ship as though I had a stratagem in my head which must oblige him to mind his eye. Thereupon I ceased to trouble myself to attempt to convince Yan Bol that the captain’s story was true, and that our errand was as real as a silver dollar itself is; and it was as well, perhaps, that this Dutchman found me no occasion to tax my wits by the invention of proofs for what I could by no means prove to myself. I did not like Greaves’ looks when he talked of his dollar-ship; I did not understand his half-smiles at such times; I was puzzled by the dreamy expression of his eye, and by the light that had kindled in his gaze when he asked me, with an unspoken doubt behind his words, to convince Yan Bol that his story was true, in order that the crew might be satisfied.