‘The brute!’ I exclaimed. ‘But I am rightly served. I have no business to address the surly illiterate baboon.’
‘You know that he knows you have learnt the captain’s motives, if it be true, as you suppose, that Wilkins has repeated to the men what he overheard; why, then, do you feign an ignorance that can only excite the creature’s suspicions?’
‘Suspicions of what?’
‘That you are acting a double part: with the captain for the sake of his buried money, and with the crew for the sake of your safety.’
‘You put it shrewdly, and I am fairly hit,’ said I. ‘I wanted to get at the fellow’s mind, if he has any; it did not occur to me for the moment that he would know through Wilkins of what had passed in the cabin. That is to say if he does know; for after all, Wilkins may not have overheard everything, and for aught we can tell he may not have repeated a syllable of the little that he managed to collect through that bulkhead. No matter, Miss Temple. A fortnight more, please God, and we shall be able to write the word finis to this passage of our adventures.’
‘I shall scarcely know myself again,’ she exclaimed cheerfully, whilst she extended her disengaged white hand to the sheen in the air flowing from the stars and scar of moon, ‘when I put my rings on once more. What an experience! How improbable, and how consistently possible and horribly absolute!’
And then she asked me how far it was from Rio to London; and we went on chatting and pacing, sometimes coming to a stand at the side to watch some sweep of foaming water roaring off from the blow of the lee bow into the weltering gloom until five bells were struck—half-past ten. She then said she felt chilly, and I took her below. It was a little early for bed, however; besides, the excitement of the day still lingered—the signing and witnessing of the queer documents: the captain’s insane dream of a treasure-quest, mad, as we deemed it, at all events: the sense of our speeding now towards a port whence we should be able to take ship and proceed comfortably to England.
I went to the cuddy door and called for Wilkins, and on his arrival told him to put a bottle of the wine that had been brought from the wreck on the table along with some biscuit, and thus furnished, Miss Temple and I managed to kill very nearly another hour. She removed her hat; the lamplight streamed fair upon the marble-like beauty of her face, upon her large, dark, soft, and glowing eyes, upon her rich neglected abundant hair.
‘Do you remember that night,’ I said, ‘in the English Channel, when after the collision with the Frenchman you came to where I stood and asked me to explain what had happened?’
‘I would rather not remember anything that passed between us on board the Indiaman, Mr. Dugdale,’ she replied with a droop of her long lashes as she spoke.