I do not know what he wishes to say to me, this Count d'Artigas, but I do know what I will say to him.
"Do these fits to which Thomas Roch is subject last long?" he asks me in English.
"Nothing at all. Let him alone until he falls asleep. After a night's sleep the fit will be over and Thomas Roch will be his own helpless self again."
"Very well, Warder Gaydon, you will continue to attend him as you did at Healthful House, if it be necessary."
"Yes--on board the schooner--pending our arrival."
"Where we shall be to-morrow afternoon," replies the Count.
To-morrow, I say to myself. Then we are not bound for the coast of Africa, nor even the Azores. There only remains the hypothesis that we are making for the Bermudas.
Count d'Artigas is about to go down the hatchway when I interrogate him in my turn:
"Sir," I exclaim, "I desire to know, I have the right to know, where I am going, and----"
"Here, Warder Gaydon," he interrupted, "you have no rights. All you have to do is to answer when you are spoken to." "I protest!"
"Protest, then," replies this haughty and imperious personage, glancing at me menacingly.
Then he disappears down the hatchway, leaving me face to face with Engineer Serko.
"If I were you, Warder Gaydon, I would resign myself to the inevitable," remarks the latter with a smile. "When one is caught in a trap----"
"What is the use when no one is near to hear you?"
"Some day--that's a long way off. However, shout as much as you please."
And with this ironical advice, Engineer Serko leaves me to my own reflections.
Towards four o'clock a big ship is reported about six miles off to the east, coming in our direction. She is moving rapidly and grows perceptibly larger. Black clouds of smoke pour out of her two funnels. She is a warship, for a narrow pennant floats from her main-mast, and though she is not flying any flag I take her to be an American cruiser.
I wonder whether the _Ebba_ will render her the customary salute as she passes.
No; for the schooner suddenly changes her course with the evident intention of avoiding her.
This proceeding on the part of such a suspicious yacht does not astonish me greatly. But what does cause me extreme surprise is Captain Spade's way of manoeuvring.