Meanwhile, amidst his bellowings and howlings, which I need not again write down, since they varied not, I pondered on what I must do. I had the fellow caged now; if he attempted to come out of the hut I was resolved to shoot him down or run him through as I would a mad dog; indeed, any way, I was determined now to be his executioner. He was a pirate, a thief who had caused us of the _Furie_ much trouble and loss of good life--and here I thought of Israel Cromby and my other poor men, all dead!--also he was a secret murderer. He must die by my hand--but it must not be now when he was mad. I was ordained to be his executioner, I felt, but I would not be a secret murderer myself also. No! not unless I was forced to it. But, still, I decided now to advance in upon him--the position I was in was cramped and painful; the hut would be better than this, with now many night dews arising from the soil and enveloping of me, and--if the worst came to the worst--I would knock him on the head and secure him. Also, I remembered, I had the treasure to secure. So I moved into the path, rounded it, and, pistol in hand, advanced towards the door of the hut, and, standing in it, regarded him fixedly. At first he saw me not. The light was growing dimmer, so that to me he looked more like the dull, cloudy spectre of a man than a man itself as he sat there--perhaps, too, I, with nought behind me but the dark night, may have looked the same to him. Then, as he still sat talking to an imaginary figure behind him, his conversation running on the drinking and carousing he and his supposed comrade had once evidently had on the coast of Guinea, I said, clearly though low-- "Alderly, you seem gay to-night, and entertain good company." In truth, there was no intention in my heart to banter the man or jest with such a brute, only I had to let him know of my presence there, and one way seemed to me as good as another. Instead of starting up, as I had thought he might do, and, perhaps, discharging a pistol at me, he turned his head towards the door, put that head between his two hands, and peered between them towards where I stood. "Who is't?" he asked. "I cannot see you. Is it Martin come back from the isles with the sloop?" This gave me an idea that there were some comrades expected--perhaps from some other villainies! but I had just now no time for pondering on such things, so I replied: "No, 'tis not Martin. But, 'Captain' Alderly, you should know me; you drank a health to me not long ago. I am Lieutenant Crafer of the _Furie_." "I do not know you," he replied; "I never heard of you. Yet you must be dry in the throat. Come in and drink." In other circumstances I might have thought this to be a ruse--now I could not deem it such. Beyond all doubt he was mad--my only wonder was that such a desperado should not be more ferocious. Perhaps, however, this might be to come.