He left me. I ate my supper, lighted a pipe, and sat musing. What had driven the lady mad? One could not put it down to any ill-usage she had met with aboard the schooner, because I might certainly know from the information of the negro boy that she had awakened mad from the death-like swoon or stupor she was plunged in when conveyed from the boat into the cabin. Had her joy on finding herself with her husband again—the husband of her adoration—proved too much for her mind? Had the sudden shock of his apparition—of the apparition of Don Christoval and his six armed associates—been rendered too enormous for her poor brains, through the fearful significance it gathered from the slaying of Captain Dopping by her father, and by her father's and brother's last rush and struggle to wrest her from the hands of the two Spaniards? But then the sailors were all agreed that she was already insensible when this final rush and struggle took place, that she was borne downstairs and carried out of the house bleeding and unconscious as she was when I beheld her lying in the cabin. A haunting suspicion grew darker, stronger, harder within me.
I was again on deck at midnight; the weather had somewhat moderated, but a strong sea was running, through which the schooner, under small canvas, crushed her way in thunder, whitening the water around her till the black atmosphere of the night about her decks was charged with the ghastly twilight of the beaten and boiling foam. But before my watch expired the deep shadow on high was broken up. A few stars sparkled, the seas ran with less weight, and the diminished breeze enabled me to make sail upon the schooner.
The cabin skylight was closed, and owing to the moisture upon the glass it was impossible to see into the interior. Throughout the night the lamps were kept dimly burning, and ardently as I might peer, thirsty with curiosity, I never could distinguish the movement of a shadow to indicate that those who occupied the cabin were stirring in it.
At four o'clock I went to my hammock, and at half-past seven was on deck again. It was a fine clear morning; large white clouds were rolling over the dark blue sky, and the sea, swept by the fresh wind that hummed sweet and warm over the quarter, ran in delicate lines of foam, which writhed and twisted in confused splendor in the glorious wake of the sun; while westward, the surface of the deep resembled a spacious field lustrous with fantastic shapes of frost. Butler had heaped canvas on the schooner, and she was sliding nobly through the water. The men had washed the decks down, and hung about waiting for their breakfast. From time to time Mariana's head showed in the galley-door. So far, aboard of us, there had been no discipline to speak of. The men, indeed, acknowledged me as captain, and sprang to my commands; but outside such absolutely essential duties as that of making and shortening sail and washing down the decks of a morning, nothing was done. The fellows would hang about smoking and yarning, always ready indeed for a call, but nothing more. Nor, indeed, was it for me to keep them employed. I could not accept this adventure seriously—could not regard the command I had been asked to take as imposing any further obligation upon me than that of navigating the schooner to a part of the coast of Cuba adjacent to Matanzas, and again and again I would ask myself, Will it ever come to Cuba? Will it ever come to half-way to Cuba? There was an element of unreality in the voyage we were now supposed to be pursuing that submitted it as a mere holiday jaunt to my fancy—a purposeless cruise, rendering needless and aimless the customary shipboard routine of the sea.
While I stood looking along the deck, Don Christoval arrived. He was haggard and blanched, as though risen from a bed of sickness. The fire of his fine eyes was quenched, and his gaze was extraordinarily melancholy and spiritless. He saluted me gravely, but stood for some time as though lost in thought, meanwhile taking a slow view of the whole compass of the sea, as though in search of some object he expected to behold upon the horizon. I believed he would return to the cabin without addressing me; but I was mistaken.
"Good morning, Captain Portlack."
"Good morning, sir."
"The bad weather is passed, I hope. The schooner is sailing very fast. It rejoices me to reflect that every hour diminishes, by something, the tedious miles we have to traverse."
He paused, eying me steadfastly, with the air of a man soliciting sympathy. He then beckoned to me with one of his grand gestures and went a little way forward, out of the hearing of the fellow who stood at the tiller.