uniform dress, in readiness to roll up the sail when the
anchor was down. There was a long brass gun, too, burnished like gold,
on a pivot slide, with all its equipment, trained muzzle forward in
front of the main-mast. No sooner had she sagged into the open basin,
with her immense sail hanging flat and heavy in the light air, than a
boat from the schooner boarded her, and presently she let go an anchor.
There were a few coarse compliments and greetings exchanged between the
crews of the two vessels, and some rough jokes made, as the last comer
veered out the cable, rolled up his sails, and set taut his running gear
in quite a tidy and man-of-war style.

"Go on board the felucca, Jose, and give my compliments to Don Ignacio,
and say I shall be happy to see him," cried Captain Brand from the
piazza to a man at the cove; "and tell him," continued he, "that I
should have called in person, but I can't bear the hot sun since I
caught the fever. Take my gig."

This was said in Spanish, and when he had finished speaking he shaded
his face behind the curtain and scowled.

"You're a bird of ill omen, my one-eyed friend; but one of these days
I'll wipe out old scores, and new ones too, perhaps," Captain Brand
muttered to himself; and, from his murderous expression of face, he
seemed just the man to carry out his threat. Meanwhile, a light
whale-boat of a gig, manned by four men and a coxswain, pushed off from
the shore, and in three strokes of the oars she was alongside the
felucca. The coxswain stepped over the low rail, and, walking aft,
turned down a cuddy of a cabin, took off his hat, and delivered his
message. A minute later he again got into the boat, and pulled to the
cove, where he said to the captain,

"Don Ignacio says he'll come in his own boat when he's ready."

"_Bueno!_" was responded aloud; and then to himself: "Don't ask or
receive favors, eh? What an old file the brute is!"

He said no more, but watched. Presently a small man came up out of the
cabin of the "Panchita," but so very slow, and with such a quiet motion
did he emerge, that one might suppose it was a wary animal rather than a
human being. He was scrupulously neat in attire--a brown pair of linen
trowsers, a Marseilles vest with silver filigree buttons, an embroidered
shirt-bosom with gold studs, and a dark navy-blue broadcloth coat, with
standing collar and anchor gilt buttons. His head-gear was simply a
white chip hat, with a very narrow brim a