The mate went on deck and threw the bottle into the sea. "That coward will go mad if he drugs himself much longer," he said to himself. "When he got on shore he would ruin us all in some silly fit of garrulous remorse. He would disburden his conscience and hang us in his present temper. He shall have no more laudanum. I must look after him and cure him before we get into port. If I cannot do so, well, then, he must die. A pity that; for he is useful, almost necessary, to us." Baptiste consulted the chart, and determined to run for the port of Bahia, which is about seven hundred miles to the north-west of Trinidad. Having quickly formed his plans, he carried them out with considerable cleverness. He collected a quantity of combustible matter, and proceeded to set fire to some of the storerooms and other portions of the vessel in such a way that he could always keep the fires under control and extinguish them at will. It was a hazardous undertaking, but he omitted no precaution; and after the vessel had been three days at sea, and was still three hundred miles from Bahia, the effect he desired was satisfactorily produced. She appeared to have been ablaze almost from end to end, and so there was manifest a sufficient reason for the desertion of the crew at sea. The last spark having been extinguished, Baptiste hove the vessel to while he completed his preparations. He lowered two of the boats into the sea and sank them. "And now," he asked himself, "what things are the crew likely to have taken with them in the boats? For we must preserve the verisimilitude. Our story must be above suspicion; every circumstance must corroborate it." So he threw overboard a chronometer, a valuable sextant, a compass, and other articles which a captain deserting his ship would most certainly have carried away. The Spaniards ridiculed this excess of caution. "Thoughtless children!" Baptiste explained; "it is most probable that there are people on shore who know exactly how many chronometers, compasses, and so on, were on board this vessel. These things will be counted up, and if none are missing, the minds of men will be puzzled at the strange conduct of the captain. Now I do not want to puzzle people; very much otherwise, my imprudent children. For the same reason I am now going to burn the ship's papers. No captain ever leaves those behind him on a derelict." Carew had watched these preparations listlessly, assisting when asked to do so, but still suggesting nothing. He never alluded to the loss of his bottle of laudanum, and very probably he knew that Baptiste had taken it away. Early on the sixth day of the voyage the Brazilian coast was sighted, and the mate recognised the palm-clad hills that border the entrance to the Reconcava of Bahia--a beautiful inland sea, as extensive as that of Rio de Janeiro.