He was thinking of other risks.
"The getting away from here is all right; but we may be sighted at sea,
and that may bring awkwardness later on. A ship's boat with three white
men in her, knocking about out of sight of land, is bound to make talk.
Are we likely to be seen on our way?"
"No, unless by native craft," said Schomberg.
Ricardo nodded, satisfied. Both these white men looked on native life as
a mere play of shadows. A play of shadows the dominant race could
walk through unaffected and disregarded in the pursuit of its
incomprehensible aims and needs. No. Native craft did not count, of
course. It was an empty, solitary part of the sea, Schomberg expounded
further. Only the Ternate mail-boat crossed that region about the eighth
of every month, regularly--nowhere near the island though. Rigid, his
voice hoarse, his heart thumping, his mind concentrated on the success
of his plan, the hotel-keeper multiplied words, as if to keep as many
of them as possible between himself and the murderous aspect of his
purpose.
"So, if you gentlemen depart from my plantation quietly at sunset on the
eighth--always best to make a start at night, with a land breeze--it's a
hundred to one--What am I saying?--it's a thousand to one that no
human eye will see you on the passage. All you've got to do is keep her
heading north-east for, say, fifty hours; perhaps not quite so long.
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