She removed her hat. I helped her to take off her jacket. While this was doing she was silent. She took her seat in silence, and viewed me without speech, reflecting in her own face the expression in mine, as I might suppose, for now was her look of ease gone. I waited until we had eaten and drunk, occasionally breaking the silence by commonplace remarks; then, closing my knife and fork, and draining my mug, I looked up at the skylight, round at the companion way, leaned my head on my elbow across the table, and told my companion, as best I could, what had happened, and what was still happening, aboard us.
Her intelligence was so keen, she was so apt in the interpretation of my looks and gestures, so quick in collecting the meaning of my words, that I found no difficulty in making her understand. She exclaimed often in Spanish; the shadows of many emotions swept her face; she stared with horror when she understood that the men meant I should carry the brig to the Indian Ocean, and that the vessel’s head was already pointed, according to their notions of navigation, for the Island of Amsterdam. But she received the news with a degree of calmness that was an astonishment and a reproach to me when I thought of my own distraction. I scarcely imagined she grasped the full meaning of the crew’s intention, till, pointing downward, by which she signified the brig’s hold, she said:
“The Casada had a demon on board. It is now the spirit of this ship.”
This she conveyed in Spanish and English. I understood her.
“Yet I mean to keep a hold of that demon,” said I, thinking aloud rather than talking to her. “I’d put the vessel ashore sooner than let the scoundrels plunder me of my share and divide—Jesus Maria! only think!—fifteen tons of dollars among them!” and I smote the table with my fist, and the blood, hot as flame, flushed my face.
Then the following conversation passed between us, managed as before. I give you the clear sense picked out of the interruptions, gestures, sentences, and looks:
“What shall you do, Señor Fielding?”
“Advise me.”
“I—a poor, helpless woman, ignorant of the sea? Yet does it not seem to you that, unless you comply, they will send you away with Antonio and Jorge.”
“Yes.”