the ship, and
who sits there eating his supper; he is more of a man than you. Give me
the wretch who has beaten men to death before my eyes; there's something
great about a monster like that, there's something to loathe. His
assistant is only little--mean--despicable!" Loud and hurried in its
wrath, low and deliberate in its contempt, all this was uttered with a
furious and abnormal eloquence, which would have struck me, loving her,
to the ground. On Rattray it had a different effect. His head lifted as
she heaped abuse upon it, until he met her flashing eye with that of a
man very thankful to take his deserts and something more; and to mine he
was least despicable when that last word left her lips. When he saw that
it was her last, he took her candle (she had put it down on the ancient
settle against the door), and presented it to her with another bow. And
so without a word he led her to the door, opened it, and bowed yet lower
as she swept out, but still without a tinge of mockery in the obeisance.

He was closing the door after her when Joaquin Santos reached it.

"Diablo!" cried he. "Why let her go? We have not done with her."

"That doesn't matter; she is done with us," was the stern reply.

"It does matter," retorted Santos; "what is more, she is my
step-daughter, and back she shall come!"

"She is also my visitor, and I'm damned if you're going to make her!"

An instant Santos stood, his back to me, his fingers working, his neck
brown with blood; then his coat went into creases across the shoulders,
and he was shrugging still as he turned away.

"Your veesitor!" said he. "Your veesitor! Your veesitor!"

Harris laughed outright as he raised his glass; the hot young squire
had him by the collar, and the wine was spilling on the cloth, as I rose
very cautiously and crept back to the path.

"When rogues fall out!" I was thinking to myself. "I shall save her
yet--I shall save my darling!"

Already I was accustomed to the thought that she still lived, and to the
big heart she had set beating in my feeble frame; already the continued
existence of these villains, with the first dim inkling of their
villainy, was ceasing to be a novelty in a brain now quickened and
prehensile beyond belief. And yet--but a few minutes had I knelt at the
window--but a few more was it since Rattray and I had shaken hands!

Not his visitor; his prisoner, without a doubt; but alive! alive! and,
neither guest nor prisoner for many h