He might indeed have decided to pretend not to understand me, so as to avoid all discussion while he held me prisoner.
In that case, what did he mean to do with me?
Did he intend to dispose of me without further ceremony?
Was he only waiting for night to throw me overboard?
Did even the little which I knew of him, make me a danger of which he must rid himself?
But in that case, he might better have left me at the end of his anchor line.

That would have saved him the necessity of drowning me over again.
I turned, I walked to the stern, I stopped full in front of him.
Then, at length, he fixed full upon me a glance that burned like a flame.
"Are you the captain ?" I asked.
He was silent.
"This boat! Is it really the 'Terror ?'" To this question also there was no response.

Then I reached toward him; I would have taken hold of his arm.
He repelled me without violence, but with a movement that suggested tremendous restrained power.
Planting myself again before him, I demanded in a louder tone, "What do you mean to do with me ?" Words seemed almost ready to burst from his lips, which he compressed with visible irritation.

As though to check his speech he turned his head aside.

His hand touched a regulator of some sort, and the machine rapidly increased its speed.
Anger almost mastered me.