‘Well, I can’t tell ‘ee what they’ll do. All they’ve said is, “If it ain’t there, it’ll be because he don’t mean it shall be.” But I’ve heard no threats—no talk of what ‘ud follow.’
‘If there should be no gold, no island,’ said I, ‘my opinion is that they will seize upon the ship and cargo, and compel me to navigate her to some port where they will find a market for their plunder.’
‘And where will that be?’ he asked.
‘Impossible to say. Lush will probably know. He has the airs and appearance of a man to whom a performance of the kind I suggest would be no novelty. I may tell you now, Wetherly, and, indeed, I might have done so long ago, that it was the carpenter whom Captain Braine charged with murder.’
‘Well, sir, you’ll excuse me. I’m not for believing that, Mr. Dugdale. That Lush has been a rare old sinner, ye need only watch him by daylight and hear him talk in his sleep at night, to know; but, as I said afore, when ye mentioned it—murder’—I saw him wag his head by the starlight—‘I’d choose to make sure afore believing it on the evidence of a madman.’
‘But don’t you think the carpenter and, let me add, most of the crew equal to the commission of any crime?’
‘Well, I won’t say no to that now with this here glittering temptation of money getting into their souls, to work everything that may be evil in ’em out through their skins. I wouldn’t trust ’em, and so I tell ‘ee, Mr. Dugdale; and if this here barque was any other ship than the Lady Blanche, and my mates any other men but what they are, I’d be content to pawn for sixpence all that I’ve got in my chest.’
I came to a stand with him for a while at the weather rail in feigned contemplation of the weather.
‘Wetherly,’ said I quietly, as we resumed our crosswise walk, ‘my position is a frightful one. Were it not for the cursed lunatic fancy that that shambling villain Wilkins overheard—the completest lie that ever took shape in a madman’s brain—I might hope to be able to tempt the crew with a handsome reward to allow me to sail this ship to a port whence the lady and I could get home. But what could I offer, with honest intention to pay, that should approach the thousands which those fools yonder dream about day and night?’
He made no answer.