‘What is your scheme?’
‘As easy,’ he cried, ‘as the digging up of the money’ll be. I shall head straight away for Rio, and there discharge all my crew, then take in a few runners to navigate the vessel to the Sandwich Islands, where I’ll ship a small company of Kanakas, just as many as’ll help us to sail the Lady Blanche to my island. I shan’t fear them. Kanakas ain’t Europeans; they’re as simple as babies; and we can do a deal that they’ll never dream of taking notice of.’
I listened with a degree of astonishment and consternation it was impossible for me to conceal in my face; yet I managed to preserve a steady voice.
‘But you have a cargo consigned to Port Louis, I presume?’ said I. ‘You don’t mean to run away with this ship, do you? for that would be an act of piracy punishable with the gallows, as I suppose you know?’
He eyed me steadily and squarely.
‘I don’t mean to run away with this ship,’ he answered; ‘I know my owners, and what they’ll think. It’ll be a deviation that ain’t going to interfere with the ultimate delivery of my cargo at Port Louis, and I don’t suppose it’ll take me much time to fix upon a sum that’ll make my owners very well pleased with the delay, and quite willing that I should do it again on the same tarms.’
‘But why do you desire to bring me into this business?’ I exclaimed, startled by the intelligence I found in this last answer of his.
‘Because I can trust ye. You’re a gentleman, and you’ll be satisfied with the share we’ll settle upon. Where am I to find a sailor capable of helping me to navigate this ship that I could feel any confidence in, that I could talk to about this here gold with the sartinty that he wouldn’t play me some devilish trick? Can’t ye see my position. Mr. Dugdale?’ he cried with a wild almost pathetic air of eagerness and pleading. ‘I can’t work out such a traverse as this alone. I must have somebody alongside of me that I can confide in. Once the money’s aboard, we can rid ourselves of the Kanaka crew, and ship a company of white men for the run to the Mauritius. The gold’ll be aboard, and it’ll be my secret and yourn.’
Though I never doubted for a moment that all this was the emission of some mad, fixed humour, I was yet willing to go on questioning him as if I was interested, partly that he might think me sincere in my profession of belief in his tale, and partly that I might plumb his intentions to the very bottom; for it was certain that, lie or no lie, his fancy of buried treasure was a profound reality to his poor brains, and that it would influence him, as though it were the truth, to heaven alone knew what issue of hardship and fatefulness and even destruction to Miss Temple and me.
‘I presume,’ said I, assuming an off-hand manner, ‘that your men have signed for the run to Port Louis and back?’