The sloop's accommodation for passengers was neither extensive nor luxurious. The small cabin aft was just big enough to hold Angela and myself, and once in it, we were like rats in a hole, as, to get out, we had to climb an almost perpendicular ladder. Kidd and Yawl were to sleep, turn and turn about, in a sort of dog-house which they had contrived in the bows. Ramon would roll himself in his _cobija_ and sleep anywhere.
Before going on board I made such arrangements as I hoped would insure us against foul play. I stitched one half of the diamonds in my waist-belt; the other half my wife hid away in her dress. Among the things brought down from Alta Vista was an exquisite little dagger with a Damascened blade, which I gave to Angela. I had my hunting-knife, and Ramon his _machete_.
I laid it down as a rule from which there was to be no departure, that Ramon and I were neither to sleep at the same time nor be in the cabin together, and that when we had anything particular to say we should say it in Quipai. As it happened, he knew a little English; I had taught my wife my mother-tongue, and Ramon, by dint of hearing it spoken, and with a little instruction from me and from her, had become so far proficient in the language that he could understand the greater part of what was said. This, however, was not known to Kidd and Yawl; I told him not to let them know; but whenever opportunity occurred to listen to their conversation, and report it to me. I thought that if they meditated evil against us I might in this way obtain timely information of their designs; and I considered that, in the circumstances (our lives being, as I believed, in jeopardy), the expedient was quite justifiable.
We sailed at sunset and got well away, and the clear sky and resplendent stars, the calm sea and the fair soft wind augured well for a prosperous voyage. Yet my heart was sad and my spirits were low. The parting with our poor Indians had been very trying, and I could not help asking myself whether I had acted quite rightly in deserting them, whether it would not have been nobler (though perhaps not so worldly wise) to throw in my lot with theirs and try to recreate the oasis, as Angela had suggested. I also doubted whether I was acting the part of a prudent man in embarking my wife, my fortune, and myself on a wretched little sloop (which would probably founder in the first storm), under the control of two men of whom I knew no good, and who, as I feared, might play us false?