tain gravity. He drank sparely and forbore the hideous recollections
or inventions he was used to bestow on me, and indeed could find nothing
to talk about but the explosion and what it was to do for us. I was very
glad he did not again refer to his project to bury the treasure and
carry the schooner to the Tortugas. The subject fired his blood, and it
was such nonsense that the mere naming of it was nauseous to me.
Eight-and-forty years had passed since his ship fell in with this ice,
and not tenfold the treasure in the hold might have purchased for him
the sight of so much as a single bone of the youngest of those
associates whom he idly dreamt of seeking and shipping and sailing in
command of. Yet, imbecile as was his scheme, having regard to the
half-century that had elapsed, I clearly witnessed the menace to me that
it implied. His views were to be read as plainly as if he had delivered
them. First and foremost he meant that I should help him to sail the
schooner to an island and bury the plate and money; which done he would
take the first opportunity to murder me. His chance of meeting with a
ship that would lend him assistance to navigate the schooner would be as
good if he were alone in her as if I were on board too. There would be
nothing, then, in this consideration to hinder him from cutting my
throat after we had buried the treasure and were got north. Two motives
would imperatively urge him to make away with me; first, that I should
not be able to serve as a witness to his being a pirate, and next that
he alone should possess the secret of the treasure.

He little knew what was passing in my mind as he surveyed me through the
curls of smoke spouting up from his death's-head pipe. I talked easily
and confidentially, but I saw in his gaze the eyes of my murderer, and
was so sure of his intentions that had I shot him in self-defence, as he
sat there, I am certain my conscience would have acquitted me of his
blood.

I passed two most uneasy hours in my cot before closing my eyes. I could
think of nothing but how to secure myself against the Frenchman's
treachery. You would suppose that my mind must have been engrossed with
considerations of the several possibilities of the morrow; but that was
not so. My reflections ran wholly to the bald-headed evil-eyed pirate
whom in an evil hour I had thawed into being, and who was like to
discharge the debt of his own life by taking mine. The truth is, I had
been too hard