"Five hundred and forty miles!" I exclaimed, with an involuntary dejected glance aloft and at the passing water. "At this rate of progress, sir, the passage will occupy about five days."
Our gaze met as I said this and I observed a sudden fire in his eyes.
"Does the execution of any project you have in your mind depend upon the time we will take in reaching the coast?" said he, with suspicion sounding fiercely in the rich deep notes of his utterance.
I felt the blood in my face as I answered: "Mynheer, I have no project. Methought, if you sailed to a port, you would rid yourself of my company. I have been long in your ship; every day increases my sense of trespass——" which said, I broke off, being really dismayed by the passionate fixity of his regard. Such a searching for the heart in one's face was unbearable. My imagination, perhaps my conscience, imparted a wizard-like power to his burning eyes, and I felt that if I lingered, I should be constrained into a revelation of my intention to escape with Imogene, as certain birds are fascinated into motionlessness and charmed to their devourment by the gaze of serpents. With the abruptness of alarm I bowed and left him. As I walked I could feel that his searching, scorching gaze followed me.
However, it was something to have found out our whereabouts, to have gathered his intention, and to be able to calculate the time of our arrival off the coast. On this I plumed myself, making pretty sure that if my questions had caused him to suspect some project in my mind, his memory would loose its hold of the thing after a few hours. But I was mistaken, as you shall now see.
Whilst we were seated at the last meal, and with us in that Death Ship formed of soup or wine for drink, and such victuals as remained from dinner, I observed a peculiar air of distress and anxiety in Imogene's face. I do not know that she made the least effort to disguise it. A sharp gleam of resentment would sparkle in the soft violet depths of her eyes as she now and then turned them on Van Vogelaar or Vanderdecken, and then as they came to me they would soften into an exquisite wistfulness that was very near to a look of grievous pain.
On the captain filling his pipe I went on deck and stood out of sight of the cabin on the poop-front, wondering what Imogene's manner signified. Presently she joined me.
The sun was gone down; the stars shone singly or in clouds of bright dust over our northward-pointing bowsprit, and the air was soft and faint with the delicate light of the moon that was drawing out of her first quarter, and that could now rain her pearls with power into the dark waters under her.
"What is amiss, dearest?" said I, taking her hand in mine, and moved in a way I could not give expression to by the pallor of her face, her eyes showing large and dark, the paleness of lip and hair and throat—her whole countenance, yes and her figure too; stealing out of their realness into an elfin-like unsubstantiality to the wan complexion of the moon.
She answered: "Did not I tell you I was sorry you had questioned Vanderdecken? He is full of suspicion, and there is always Van Vogelaar at hand to exasperate his captain's temper and fancies by the poison of his own reptile-nature."