If I had witnessed the idleness of protest and remonstrance and appeal on board the barque, I must have held entreaty to be tenfold more useless in the face of the mortification of the carpenter and his crew, increased as their temper was by the irritation and the fatigue of hard and useless work. I might at once be sure that they had no intention of suffering me to leave the island until they quitted it themselves for good. There would be also distrust; the fear that I might contrive to run away with the ship. Yet I had still to find out what they meant to do; what their plans were for the night. I knew what I wanted, and I remember what I prayed for as I tramped solitarily backwards and forwards upon the edge of the herbage where it came thin to the beach.
Seven men entered the long-boat and shoved off. The carpenter remained; with him was the sailor named Woodward. They flung themselves down upon the ground with an air of exhaustion, and so lay smoking their pipes. After awhile, the carpenter called to me. I approached him leisurely. He asked me if I remembered the number of paces from the beach, and eyed me so surlily as he put the inquiry that I began to think he suspected I could tell if I chose.
‘If Wilkins can’t remember,’ I exclaimed, ‘why should I be able to do so—I, whose opinion of this business you well know? I do not recollect the number of paces. I wish I did, for I am more anxious than ever you can be that you should come at this gold, that we may sail away, and end the most cursed adventure that ever a man was forced into.’
The heat and the evident sincerity with which I spoke these words slightly subdued him, and his ugly face relaxed its threatening look. Finding him silent I said: ‘What do you mean to do?’
‘Stop here all night,’ he answered shortly. ‘Stop here, I’ve told ye, till we’ve found the money.’
‘You will leave some men aboard the ship to look after her?’
‘Two’ll be quite enough,’ he answered. ‘How much looking after do she want in weather of this pattern? If we don’t meet with the gold afore dark—and there’ll be no chance of that, I allow—we must all be at hand to tarn to at daybreak.’
I asked no further questions; and the fellow sank into silence, both he and the other sucking at their pipes, whilst they seemed to hunt with their eyes over the ground as they lay with their heads propped on their elbows.
I saw Miss Temple on the poop watching the approaching boat. Very well could I imagine the feeling which would possess her when she perceived that I was not among the occupants of the little craft! The boat clumsily drove alongside, and the men sprang on board over a short rope gangway ladder that had been dropped. They went to work at once, as though in a hurry to get the furling job over, that they might return; and with a swiftness that was surprising in fellows almost exhausted by previous labour, they furled the mainsail, foresail, and lighter canvas, leaving the topsails hanging, and the spanker loosely brailed in to the mast. This done, they descended, and came to a pause at the gangway, as though giving what news they had to the two seamen that had been left behind. They then entered the boat afresh and leisurely made for the island. As they jumped on to the beach, I noticed that the man Simpson had taken the place of Forrest, who had been left to keep a lookout with Wetherly. I felt instantly very uneasy on observing this. There was no other man of all the crew whom I would not sooner have wished to be Wetherly’s associate than that impudent, mutinous, bold-faced young seaman. To think of Miss Temple alone with those two men! one to be trusted, as I hoped and believed; but the other as insolent and defiant a rascal as could be imagined of any forecastle blackguardly hand! I gazed eagerly at the barque, and was glad to find that the girl had gone below. I earnestly prayed that she would have the sense to keep in hiding. There was the long night before her, and Wetherly might sleep.
Never since the hour of our losing sight of the Indiaman had I felt half so worried, half so distracted with fears and forebodings. I withdrew to a distance from that part of the beach where I had been walking, that the workings of my mind might not be seen in my face; and thankful was I afterwards, when I had somewhat cooled down, that the carpenter did not offer to approach or speak to me; for such was the passion my anxiety for Miss Temple had raised, that I believe a single syllable of rudeness would have caused me to fall upon him—with what result it would be useless here to imagine.