I was horribly puzzled. At the same time curiosity was growing in me; and with the swiftness of thought I reflected that whether I had his secret or not it would be all the same; he was most assuredly a madman in this direction, anyhow, if not in others; and it could be nothing more than some insane fancy which he had it in his head to impart, and which might be worth hearing if only for the sake of recalling it as an incident of this adventure when Miss Temple and I should have got away from the barque. ‘Mr. Dugdale, you will swear, sir,’ he exclaimed. ‘Very well,’ said I; ‘but put it a little more mildly, please. Leave out the gates of hell, for instance; or see—suffer me to swear in my own way. Give me that book.’ I observed that his hand was trembling violently as I took the volume from him. ‘I swear,’ I said, ‘to keep secret from all mortal persons in this world, saving Miss Temple, whatever it is your intention now to tell me. So help me God,’ and I put the book to my lips. ‘That oath excludes your crew,’ I added, ‘and I hope you’re satisfied?’ His face took a little complexion of life, and he almost smiled. ‘It’ll do—oh yes, it’ll do,’ he exclaimed. ‘I knew I could count upon you. Now then for it.’ He resumed his seat, and leaning towards me with his unwinking eyes fixed upon my face as usual, he proceeded thus. CHAPTER XXX THE CAPTAIN MAKES A PROPOSAL ‘Mr. Ruddiman and I got ashore and walked a little way up the beach, to see what sort of spot we had been cast away on. It was a small island, betwixt two and three miles long, and about a mile wide in the middle of it. There were no natives to be seen. We might be sure that it was uninhabited. There was nothing to eat upon it, and though we spent the hours till it came on dark in searching for fresh water, we found none. This made us resolve to land all we could out of the brigantine when daylight should arrive. The weather cleared at midnight, the stars shone, and the sea smoothed down with a light swell from the north-west, which the trend of the reef shouldered off and left the water about the stranded craft calm. As soon as daylight came we got aboard, and rigged a whip on the fore-yardarm, and by noon we had landed provisions enough, along with fresh water and wines and spirits in jars, to last us two men for three months; but that didn’t satisfy us. There was no other land in sight all round the horizon; we were without a boat; and though, if the vessel broke up, we had made up our minds to turn to and save as much of her as we could handle that might wash ashore, so as to have the materials for a raft at hand if it should come to it, we hadn’t the heart to talk of such a thing then, in the middle of that wide ocean, with such a sun as was shining over our heads all day, and the sure chance of the first of any squall or bit of dirty weather that might come along adrowning of us.