'you're a wonderful mannie wi' your way o't! And
what a lot you've come through! I wonder you have a hair in your heed!'

'But the senora believes vot I say?'

'Believe ye? If a' stories be true, yours are no lees, and I'm not goin'
ahint your back to tell ye, sir.'

Once, on deck, he was drawing the long-bow, as the Yankees call it, at a
prodigious rate. He was telling how, once upon a time, he had caught a
young alligator; how he had tamed it and fed it till it grew a monster
twenty feet long; how he used to saddle it and bridle it, and ride through
the streets of Tulcora on its back--men, women, and children screaming and
flying in all directions; how, armed only with his good sabre, he rode it
into a lake which was infested with these dread saurians; how he was
attacked in force by the awful reptiles, and how he had killed and wounded
so many that they lay dead in dozens next day along the banks.

'Humph!' grunted old Jenny when he had finished.

The little captain put the questions,

'Ah! de aged senora not believe! De aged senora not have seen much of de
world?'

Jenny had grasped her umbrella.

'Look here, my mannie,' she said, 'I'll gie ye a caution; dinna you refer
to my age again, or I'll "aged-snorer" you. If ye get the weight o' my
gingham on your shou'ders, ye'll think a coo has kick't ye--so mind.'

And the Spanish captain had slunk away very unlike a lion-hunter, but he
never called Jenny old again.

To-night, however, even before we had gone below, Jenny had given proofs
that she was in an extra good temper, for being a little way behind
Bombazo--as if impelled by some sudden and joyous impulse--she lifted that
everlasting umbrella and hit him a friendly thwack that could be heard
from bowsprit to binnacle.

'Tell as mony lees the nicht as ye like, my mannie,' she cried, 'and I'll
never contradict ye, for I've seen the promised land!'

'And so, captain, you must stay at Rio a whole week?' said my aunt at
dessert.

'Yes, Miss M'Crimman,' replied the captain. 'Are you pleased?'

'I'm delighted. And I propose that we get up a grand picnic in "the
promised land," as good old Jenny calls it.'

And so it was arranged. Bombazo and Dr. Spinks, having been at Rio de
Janeiro before, were entrusted with the organization of the 'pig-neeg,' as
Bombazo called it, and held their first consultation on ways and means
that very evening. Neither I nor my brothers were admitted to this
meeting, though aunt