Sagesse, as he said the last words, changed completely, and in a moment, the _bon bourgeois_ vanished, his upper lip raised slightly, disclosing the teeth. Just in that moment he shewed himself what he was, not a villain of romance, but that much more terrible individual, the petty trader, heartless, careful, calculating. The squid of society that, living on crabs and shell-fish, will, when opportunity offers, seize and devour a man.
What numbed the mind of Gaspard was not fear of the authorities, but fear of Sagesse and astonishment at his methods.
He felt as though in the grip of some gelatinous thing, this dusky mind had gripped him on board the _Belle Arlésienne_ and had seemed to let him go; its tentacles had fallen from his arms, and now they were around his feet. It was useless to fight with Sagesse; he was at the man’s mercy; betrayed by drink, he had put himself in the grasp of the cuttlefish.
“Look here,” said he at last, “before I tell you anything, tell me this: Why did you not spring this on me before? Why did you trade with me for those coins? Why did you pretend to be my friend?”
“Why did I trade with you, _ma foi_? I traded with you because I wanted those coins at a fair price; I brought you here because I wanted to trade with you for your secret at a fair price with the law at my elbow. I did not wish to conclude the bargain on board my own ship; it gives a ship a bad name when men are brought off her in chains by the police. I wanted no police on board _La Belle Arlésienne_. And as to pretending to be your friend, _ma foi_, I am your friend, and you shall have your share of the profits of your secret. But the truth I must have, come—”
“_Dieu!_” cried Gaspard with a burst of irritation. “I was hiding nothing from you. There _was_ a wreck on the island; I _did_ think there was treasure on her, but I had put it from my mind. I talked of it in my sleep, did I? Well, it must have been there in my mind. You shall have the story.”
Then, with his elbows on the table, he told how Yves had discovered the ship in the lagoon; he described her. Sagesse, also with his elbows on the table, listening intently, putting in a question now and then.
“That’s all,” finished Gaspard, “she may be up to the hatches with gold for all I know—and for the matter of that—for all I care.”