was still clearly in
sight on our port quarter, the range of the Liguanea Mountains towering
high into the star-lit sky and gradually sloping away to the eastward in
the direction of Morant Point. Beside Dominguez and myself there was
but one other figure visible on deck, that of the man at the helm--a
long, thin, weedy-looking figure, so far as I could make out in the
ghostly starlight, but one who had evidently used the sea for some time,
if one might judge by the easy, floating poise of his figure on the
plunging deck as he stood on the weather side of the tiller, with the
tiller rope lightly grasped in his right hand, swaying rhythmically to
the leaps and plunges of the little hooker. As Dominguez followed me
out on deck he stepped aft to the small, dimly lighted binnacle, glanced
into it, made some brief remark in a low tone to the silent helmsman,
walked forward and took a long look ahead and on both bows, and then,
returning aft, excused himself to me for turning in, upon the plea that
it would soon be his watch on deck, and so dived below and left me.

Left thus to myself, I fell to mechanically pacing the short deck of the
felucca for a few minutes, smoking thoughtfully the while and turning
over in my mind the disquieting conversation that had just passed
between Dominguez and myself; then, my gaze happening to wander aft to
the solitary figure at the tiller, I sauntered aft and endeavoured to
strike up a conversation with him. The fellow, however, proved to be so
boorish and saturnine in his manner that I quickly abandoned the attempt
and, pitching my half-smoked cigar over the rail, retired below and
tumbled, "all standing," into the bunk that Dominguez had indicated as
mine, where, despite the food for serious reflection that the
occurrences of the night afforded me, I soon fell into a sound sleep.

The week that succeeded my abduction was so utterly barren of events
that it may be passed over with the mere remark that throughout the
whole of the time we had perfect weather, with a steady, moderate trade
wind, under the impulsion of which the felucca bruised along upon her
proper course, reeling off her five to six knots per hour with the
regularity of a clock; and during the whole of that time, strange to
say, we sighted not a single sail. I had been by no means idle during
this time, however, as may well be supposed; for every day at noon saw
the little hooker a hundred and thirty to a hundred and fi