"And have you got another hundred guineas from him?" I asked.
"Ay, for him and the black. But they will not trouble you. The old gentleman--who seems to be something like a minister--tells me he is not well, and will not quit his cabin. The negro will berth near him; they will not interfere with you."
"Do they know there is another passenger aboard?"
"I have not spoken to the old man; maybe, however, some of the sailors may have told the servant. Yet none know your name; but I--it can be kept secret an you wish." And again he winked at me, thinking, of course, as he had done before, that my business was of a ticklish nature, as indeed it was, though not quite that which he supposed. Nay, he felt very sure it must be so, since otherwise he would have got no hundred guineas out of me for such a passage.
"I do not wish it known," I said. "It _must_ be kept secret. Also my country. There must be no talking."
"Never fear," he replied. "I know nothing. And I do not converse with the men, most of whom are Hollanders, since I had to pick them up in a hurry. As for the old man, you need not see him; and, if you do, you can keep your own counsel, I take it."
I answered that I could very well do that; after which the captain left me--for now the night had come upon us, dark and dense, except for the stars, and we were about to run out into the open. But even as I watched the men making sail, and felt the little ship running through the water beneath me--I could soon hear her fore foot gliding through it with a sharp ripple that resembled the slitting of silk--I wished that those other passengers had not come aboard, that I could have made the cruise alone.
Yet we were aboard, he and I, and there was no help for it; it must be endured. But still I could not help wondering what any old minister should want to be making such a journey as this for; especially wondered, also, why he should be attended by a black servant; and why, again, it should be worth his while to pay a hundred guineas for the passage.
But you know now as well as I do that this man was no minister, but rather, if Tandy's surmises were right, some villainous old filibuster who had lived through evil days and known evil spirits; my meditations are, therefore, of no great import. Rather let me get on to what was the outcome of my journey.