“I suppose I must report a suicide.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Suicide! That’s what I’ll have to write to my owners directly I get
in.”
“Unless you manage to recover him before tomorrow,” I assented,
dispassionately.... “I mean, alive.”
He mumbled something which I really did not catch, and I turned my ear
to him in a puzzled manner. He fairly bawled:
“The land--I say, the mainland is at least seven miles off my
anchorage.”
“About that.”
My lack of excitement, of curiosity, of surprise, of any sort of
pronounced interest, began to arouse his distrust. But except for the
felicitous pretense of deafness I had not tried to pretend anything. I
had felt utterly incapable of playing the part of ignorance properly,
and therefore was afraid to try. It is also certain that he had brought
some ready-made suspicions with him, and that he viewed my politeness
as a strange and unnatural phenomenon. And yet how else could I have
received him? Not heartily! That was impossible for psychological
reasons, which I need not state here. My only object was to keep off his
inquiries. Surlily? Yes, but surliness might have provoked a point-blank
question. From its novelty to him and from its nature, punctilious
courtesy was the manner best calculated to restrain the man. But there
was the danger of his breaking through my defense bluntly. I could
not, I think, have met him by a direct lie, also for psychological (not
moral) reasons. If he had only known how afraid I was of his putting
my feeling of identity with the other to the test! But, strangely
enough--(I thought of it only afterwards)--I believe that he was not
a little disconcerted by the reverse side of that weird situation, by
something in me that reminded him of the man he was seeking--suggested a
mysterious similitude to the young fellow he had distrusted and disliked
from the first.
However that might have been, the silence was not very prolonged. He
took another oblique step.
“I reckon I had no more than a two-mile pull to your ship. Not a bit
more.”
“And quite enough, too, in this awful heat,” I said.
Another pause full of mistrust followed. Necessity, they say, is mother
of invention, but fear, too, is not barren of ingenious suggestions. And
I was afraid he would ask me point-blank for news of my other self.
“Nice little saloon, isn’t it?” I remarked, as if noticing for the first
time the way his eyes roamed from one closed door to the other. “And
very well fitted out, too. Here, for instance,” I continued, reaching
over the back of my seat negligently and flinging the door open, “is my
bathroom.”
He made an eager movement, but hardly gave it a glance. I got up, shut
the door of the bathroom, and invited him to have a look round, as if I
were very proud of my accommodation. He had to rise and be shown round,
but he went through the business without any raptures whatever.
“And now we’ll have a look at my stateroom,” I declared, in a voice as
loud as I dared to make it, crossing the cabin to the starboard side
with purposely heavy steps.
He followed me in and gazed around. My intelligent double had vanished.
I played my part.
“Very convenient--isn’t it?”
“Very nice. Very comf...” He didn’t finish and went out brusquely as
if to escape from some unrighteous wiles of mine. But it was not to be.
I had been too frightened not to feel vengeful; I felt I had him on the
run, and I meant to keep him on the run. My polite insistence must have
had something menacing in it, because he gave in suddenly. And I did
not let him off a single item; mate’s room, pantry, storerooms, the very
sail locker which was also under the poop--he had to look into them
all. When at last I showed him out on the quarter-deck he drew a long,
spiritless sigh, and mumbled dismally that he must really be going back
to his ship now. I desired my mate, who had joined us, to see to the
captain’s boat.
The man of whiskers gave a blast on the whistle which he used to wear
hanging round his neck, and yelled, “Sephora’s away!” My double down
there in my cabin must have heard, and certainly could not feel more
relieved than I. Four fellows came running out from somewhere forward
and went over the side, while my own men, appearing on deck too, lined
the rail. I escorted my visitor to the gangway ceremoniously, and nearly
overdid it. He was a tenacious beast. On the very ladder he lingered,
and in that unique, guiltily conscientious manner of sticking to the
point:
“I say... you... you don’t think that--”