I paced the cabin like mad. What am I to do? How was I to preserve my share of the dollars? There were eleven, and with me twelve, of us now to the brig’s company; the men were not likely to count Jimmy and the two Spaniards as partners. Teach--was it Teach?--talked of an equal division; _that_ would work out fifty thousand dollars a man; twenty thousand ahead of my present share. They’d promise me more, I daresay--offer me what I chose to take--Yes, and knife me, or drop me overboard in the hour of the coast of New Holland heaving into sight. Nor was that all of it either: I conceived the fifteen tons of silver buried in the island of New Amsterdam: we arrive at Port Jackson: Teach’s friend--think now of the respectability of a friend of Teach!--finds a little schooner. Would the fellows return to the island with me? or would they pick up some cheap ruffian of a navigator, leaving me to wait for them? If the money was buried my share was gone for good, my life not worth a hair of my beard. What was to be done? While I paced the cabin I had observed that the men continued to hang about the skylight. I supposed that they were looking at the chart. By this time the skylight lay clear: Jimmy came below with the bag of charts and the pair of compasses; I heard the voices of men singing out in pull-and-hauling choruses, and the brig heeled over a little. There hung under the seat that Greaves used to occupy a tell-tale compass: I looked at it and found the brig’s course east by south. I immediately went on deck and found the yards braced forward and both watches hauling down the larboard studding sail. Bol walked the quarter-deck and Galen was shouting orders from the forecastle. “Who’s captain here?” said I, stepping up to the great Dutchman. “You, Mr. Fielding.” “What are you doing with the brig?” “Heading her off for Amsterdam Island.” “So. Then you know your way there?” “No, sir. Der shart explains dot der island vhas in der east: so east it vhas mit der brig till ve vhas goodt friendts, Mr. Fielding, und shake hands und agree. And maybe he vhas all right mit you now, sir,” he added, looking at me out of the corner of his little eyes. “I want time to consider,” said I, realizing my extreme helplessness, and by that realization urged more than half-way to the acceptance of my fate, whatever it might prove, without further struggle.