nd after Mrs. Marston had had an hour's
rest, she and Villari told me their story.

"The _Esmeralda_ is Marston's own ship, and left Valdivia, in Chile, for
Manila about seven weeks ago. She is almost a new ship, only having been
built at Aberdeen last year. Marston, who had just married, brought out
a general cargo from London to Valdivia and other South American ports,
and sold it at a very handsome profit. Whilst on the coast, fever broke
out on board, and he lost his second mate and five A.B.'s, and the third
mate and two others had to go into hospital. In their places he shipped
a new second mate--a man named Juan Almanza--and twelve seamen, ten of
whom were either Chilenos or Peruvians, and the remaining two Greeks.
The former boatswain he promoted to the third mate's birth. Almanza
proved to be a good officer, and the new men gave him satisfaction,
though his agent at Valdivia had urged him not to take the two Greeks,
who, he said, were likely to prove troublesome. Unfortunately he did not
take the agent's advice, and said that he had often had Greeks with him
on previous voyages, and found them very fair sailormen--much better
than Chilenos or Mexicans.

"He had been paid for his cargo mostly in silver dollars, and the money
was brought on board in as quiet a manner as possible, and he believed
without the new hands knowing anything about it. Poor fellow; he was
fatally mistaken! In all it amounted to thirty-five thousand dollars,
and in addition to this there was a further sum of two thousand pounds
in English gold on board--Marston, I must tell you, is, I imagine, a
fairly wealthy man, for his wife told me that he had the _Esmeralda_
built at a cost of six thousand pounds.

"He had been informed at Valdivia that a cargo of Chile flour, which
could be bought very cheaply at Valparaiso, could be sold at a huge
profit in Manila, and he thereupon bought a full cargo--six hundred
tons--and sailed, as I have said, about seven weeks ago. All went well
on board from the very first, although the English seamen did not much
care about their foreign shipmates, who, however, did their duty after
a fashion. Almanza, Mrs. Marston says, was in all respects an able
and smart officer, and both she and her husband took a great liking to
him--the scoundrel!

"The two Greeks--who, by the way, called themselves and shipped under
the English names of John Foster and James Ryan--the Levantine breed
do that trick very often--were