"Do these fits to which Thomas Roch is subject last long?" he asks me
in English.
"Sometimes forty-eight hours," I reply.
"What is to be done?"
"Nothing at all. Let him alone until he falls asleep. After a night's
sleep the fit will be over and Thomas Roch will be his own helpless
self again."
"Very well, Warder Gaydon, you will continue to attend him as you did
at Healthful House, if it be necessary."
"To attend to him!"
"Yes--on board the schooner--pending our arrival."
"Where?"
"Where we shall be to-morrow afternoon," replies the Count.
To-morrow, I say to myself. Then we are not bound for the coast of
Africa, nor even the Azores. There only remains the hypothesis that we
are making for the Bermudas.
Count d'Artigas is about to go down the hatchway when I interrogate
him in my turn:
"Sir," I exclaim, "I desire to know, I have the right to know, where I
am going, and----"
"Here, Warder Gaydon," he interrupted, "you have no rights. All you
have to do is to answer when you are spoken to." "I protest!"
"Protest, then," replies this haughty and imperious personage,
glancing at me menacingly.
Then he disappears down the hatchway, leaving me face to face with
Engineer Serko.
"If I were you, Warder Gaydon, I would resign myself to the
inevitable," remarks the latter with a smile. "When one is caught in a
trap----"
"One can cry out, I suppose?"
"What is the use when no one is near to hear you?"
"I shall be heard some day, sir.
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