Upon discovering the direction in which my companion's arguments were trending, my first impulse had been to interrupt him indignantly by declaring that I saw through his purpose, and would have naught to do with it.  But he would not permit me to do this; he insisted upon saying his say to the end; and while he was doing this I had time for reflection.  I perceived that the man was an enthusiastic visionary possessed of such boundless ambition that he was able to see nothing except the impossible goal which he and his fellow-leaders had set before themselves.  I saw that this fellow Fernandez, at all events, had dwelt upon the mad scheme of conquest, first of Hayti, then of the West Indian Islands, and ultimately, as he had declared, of the whole world, until it had become an obsession with him in which all difficulties were swept away and his gorgeous dream had seemed to be a thing already almost within reach.  It occurred to me that by pretending to listen to this dreamer, to appear to treat his dreams as though it was possible for them to eventually materialise, and to seem to weigh the proposal seriously which he had made to me, I might gain time enough to mature some plan of escape, and to put it into effect before the return of the _Tiburon_ and my arch-enemy Garcia; and while, as a general rule, I most emphatically disapprove of everything that savours of deception, I felt that, taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration, I should be perfectly justified in practising such dissimulation as might be necessary to extricate myself from the exceedingly awkward situation in which I now found myself.