demand--coffee, sugar, rice, tobacco, cotton
stuffs, and gunpowder--and being at all times ready to barter, and
prepared to deal in secondhand wares, he had contrived to amass
considerable wealth.

On the eventful night of the 1st of January the _Hansa_ had been at
Ceuta, the point on the coast of Morocco exactly opposite Gibraltar. The
mate and three sailors had all gone on shore, and, in common with
many of their fellow-creatures, had entirely disappeared; but the
most projecting rock of Ceuta had been undisturbed by the general
catastrophe, and half a score of Spaniards, who had happened to be
upon it, had escaped with their lives. They were all Andalusian majos,
agricultural laborers, and naturally as careless and apathetic as men of
their class usually are, but they could not help being very considerably
embarrassed when they discovered that they were left in solitude upon
a detached and isolated rock. They took what mutual counsel they could,
but became only more and more perplexed. One of them was named Negrete,
and he, as having traveled somewhat more than the rest, was tacitly
recognized as a sort of leader; but although he was by far the most
enlightened of them all, he was quite incapable of forming the least
conception of the nature of what had occurred. The one thing upon which
they could not fail to be conscious was that they had no prospect of
obtaining provisions, and consequently their first business was to
devise a scheme for getting away from their present abode. The _Hansa_
was lying off shore. The Spaniards would not have had the slightest
hesitation in summarily taking possession of her, but their utter
ignorance of seamanship made them reluctantly come to the conclusion
that the more prudent policy was to make terms with the owner.

And now came a singular part of the story. Negrete and his companions
had meanwhile received a visit from two English officers from Gibraltar.
What passed between them the Jew did not know; he only knew that,
immediately after the conclusion of the interview, Negrete came to him
and ordered him to set sail at once for the nearest point of Morocco.
The Jew, afraid to disobey, but with his eye ever upon the main chance,
stipulated that at the end of their voyage the Spaniards should pay for
their passage--terms to which, as they would to any other, they did not
demur, knowing that they had not the slightest intention of giving him a
single real.

The _Hansa_ had weigh