The surgeon was a very honest man, and carried indeed the index of it in his face; and the Padre said afterwards, he inclined to put this confidence in him because he thought he saw something of an honest man in his very countenance. After so frank a beginning, the surgeon made no scruple to tell him, that, seeing he inclined to treat him with such confidence, and to put a trust of so great importance in him, he would give him all the assurance in his power that he would be as faithful to him as it was possible to be to himself, and that the secret should never go out of his mouth to any one in the world, but to such and at such time as he should consent to and direct. In short, he used so many solemn protestations, that the Padre made no scruple to trust him with the secret, which, indeed, was no less than putting his life into his hands. The case was this. He told him he had heard them talk of going to Ireland in their return, and, as he had been thirty years out of his own country, in such a remote part of the world, where it was never likely that he should ever see it again, the notion he had entertained that this ship was going thither, and might set him on shore there, that he might once more see his native country, and his family and friends, had filled his mind with such a surprising joy, that he could no longer contain himself; and that, therefore, if he would procure leave of the captain that he might come privately on board and take his passage home, he would willingly pay whatever the captain should desire of him, but that it must be done with the greatest secrecy imaginable, or else he was ruined; for that, if he should be discovered and stopped, he should be confined in the Jesuit's house there as long as he lived, without hope of redemption. The surgeon told him the thing was easy to be done if he would give him leave to acquaint one man in the ship with it, which was not Captain Merlotte, but a certain Englishman, who was a considerable person in the ship, without whom the captain did nothing, and who would be more secure to trust, by far, than Captain Merlotte. The Padre told him, that, without asking him for any reasons, since he had put his life and liberty in his hands, he would trust him with the management of the whole, in whatever way he chose to conduct it.