With this intention he crept silently to a corner, where a coil of rope offered a support for his head, and curled up, intending to sleep there. It is easy enough to imagine what thoughts must have come to the desolate and lonely yet high-spirited boy as he lay there, clinging to his coil of rope to steady himself under the increasing motion of the boat. The bitterness of the present was mingled with regretful thoughts of the happy past.
The night was fresh, but not really cold--not cold enough, anyhow, to prevent his sleeping where he lay, and he had already dozed and opened his eyes twice or thrice, when it seemed to him that something like an animal stole past him, and he stared with wide eyes to see what it might be, or to determine whether or not he had been merely dreaming.
Not quite dreaming, nor yet wide awake. Something had passed him with a stealthy step and crouching body, and, dark as the night was, he could distinguish a human form; and, indeed, what other living thing was there on board the vessel? Dislike is sometimes keener than even love, and it was this that led Diego to the quick conclusion that the crouching figure, moving so softly and cautiously aft, was that of Juan Cacheco. And it seemed to his strained eyes that there was a gleam of a knife-blade once when a lantern swung around the foremast.
His first thought, with a gulp of terror, was that the convict boy was stealing aft with the intention of murdering Martin Alonzo Pinzon; but then, though the idea was not an irrational one, he reflected that it was not likely, since the after-cabin was too full of friends of his cousin to make the thing possible for a boy to accomplish. And yet Juan’s errand must be a wicked one, or he would not go about it in such fashion.
But be it what it might, Diego was determined to understand it, and with that idea was rising softly, when a new terror was added to the first by the sudden apparition of a man skulking along the opposite side of the vessel. And there was something about the movement of the man that made Diego fancy at once that he was Miguel de la Vega.
Some evil it certainly was that took these two wretches out on deck when they should have been asleep in the forecastle. Diego was a brave enough boy, and at this moment was nerved by the desperate feeling that his own safety--life, perhaps--depended upon his action; but, notwithstanding, a chill of fear crept over him as he stole from his shelter by the coil of rope and followed the dim figure of Juan.