e might probably be prolonged for a few days more."

"And into h----, perhaps," said the doctor, with a hollow voice and a
calm cold eye.

"Oh no, my friends, certainly nothing so bad as that. Possibly to
heaven! but, _quien sabe_? no one can tell!

"However," pursued the captain, "I soon succeeded in allaying her
apprehensions, and then I threw myself at her feet, and implored her to
risk her father's displeasure and to marry me at once; that she knew her
father was cold, stern, and obdurate, and should he frown upon my suit I
should die of despair!"

"_Cierto!_" murmured Ignacio, with the grin of a skeleton.

"I used these passionate appeals and many more, until at last the fond
girl yielded her consent to my entreaties.

"'But the priest, _querido mio_!' she exclaimed, as she rose and
disengaged herself from my arms. I told her that I chanced to have one
on board as a passenger, who would perform the ceremony.

"And so I had," added Captain Brand, "or at least a very near approach
to one, for my ugly boatswain, Pedillo, had been bred up--as an
acolyte--you comprehend--in the house of a rich old prelate of San Paulo
Cathedral in Trinidad, to whom Pedillo, one fine morning, gave about
eight inches of his cuchillo!"

"_Jesus Maria!_" exclaimed Padre Ricardo, starting back with horror, and
telling his beads.

"Ay, _mi padre_! Pedillo assassinated the holy father, and plundered his
cash-box besides; and so you see Pedillo was just the man I wanted."

Don Ignacio nodded his wicked old head through a cloud of cigar smoke as
a sign of approval.

"Accordingly, _senores_, the next day I made the trusty Pedillo cut off
all the bushy beard about his ugly face, and had the crown of his head
shaved besides--quite like that round, oily spot there on the top of
good Ricardo's poll--and then he rigged himself out in a clerical gown,
to which the trunks of my bride's old mother contributed, and, take my
word for it, he was as proper and rascally a looking priest as could be
found on the island of Cuba. He performed the ceremony, too, by way of
practice, on Lascar Joe and the second cook beforehand, with as much
decorum and solemnity, and gave as pious a benediction, as his old
Trinidad uncle, the prelate, ever did. Well, that evening we were
married."

"How many times has the _capitano_ been married?" grunted out Don
Ignacio.

"Why, let me reflect," as he threw his cold, icy look at the frame of
miniatures on the oppo