e me an answer.

At the report of the pistol both Mr. Langely and Mr. White came running
to where I was, and I explained the suspicious circumstances to them,
whereupon Mr. Langely suggested that it might have been a shark that I
had seen, vast quantities of which voracious animals dwell in those and
the neighboring waters. I did not controvert what he said, although I
knew beyond a doubt that it was a craft of some sort which I had
discovered--possibly a canoe, for the dip of the paddle, which I had
distinctly seen in the phosphorescence of the water, appeared first upon
the one side of the wake and then upon the other, as the blade was
dipped into the water from side to side; so although, as I said, I did
not undertake to controvert Mr. Langely's opinion, I was mightily
discomposed in my own mind concerning the business.

At this time there was a vast deal of disturbance aboard the _Greenwich_
and the Ostender because of my hail and the discharge of the pistol,
which, however, soon quieted down when they found that nothing further
followed upon the alarm.

I walked up and down the poop-deck for a great while, endeavoring to
conceive what could be the meaning of the boat, which had most
undoubtedly been lying under the stern of the _Cassandra_, and how it
came that the watch had failed so entirely to discover its arrival. It
would not have been possible for an ordinary ship's boat to come upon us
so undiscovered, for, as I myself knew, the watch were keeping a sharper
lookout than usual; therefore this circumstance, together with that
which I had above observed concerning my opinion that the craft had been
rowed with a paddle, led me to conclude that it was one of the native
canoes, though I was as far as ever from guessing what the object of the
visit had been, or what it portended. As I sat ruminating upon this
subject, looking straight ahead of me, without thinking whither my
observation was directed, I presently perceived that I was looking
absently at the spot where Captain Leach had been sitting a little while
before. This led me to think of him, and from him of the jewel that was
in my keeping, and of its excessive value. Of a sudden it flashed into
my mind, as quick as lightning, what if Captain Leach should have it in
his mind to practice some treachery upon us all?

I may truly say that this thought would never have entered my brains had
not the circumstance of Captain Leach's conversation with me in my ca