raving
through the streets like a mad dog. I guess that's what I'm like,
Roseta, a dog; so good-natured, so harmless, ordinarily, but able to
clean the town up when he goes mad, so's they have to kill him. Well,
that's the point! They'd better let me alone, and not go monkeying with
my happiness, nor with what I've got together with my own hard work...."

There was a drawn expression on his face as he looked at Roseta after
this tirade, a veritable oration for the phlegmatic Rector; and the poor
girl felt as if she were being accused of the attempted theft of
Dolores.

But Pascualo suddenly, with a gesture of disdain, seemed to come out of
his abstraction; and it was evident he felt ashamed at having lost hold
on his tongue so far, in a moment of baseless alarm. He had had enough
of Roseta, however. And, in fact, they could separate there. "Remember
me to mother!" he said, as he turned down to the beach, leaving his
sister to go on alone along the road toward the tavern-boat. But it was
late that night before the influence of that disquieting conversation
was lifted from Pascualo's mind. Tonet was at home when he arrived, but
did not seem at all embarrassed in his presence. All a lie, of course!
One look at the boy was enough to show that! The Rector looked
searchingly into his own heart, and could find no trace of suspicion
there. Nothing to it, absolutely, absolutely, nothing! And when, the men
of the crew dropped in to get their final orders for the next day, he
had forgotten the matter completely.

He had hired a boat to work in team with the _Mayflower_, though, with
dog's luck, he would some day be able to build another just like her!
Among the men was an old sailor whom the Rector listened to with
profoundest respect. _Tio_ Batiste was the oldest tar in the whole
Cabanal. Seventy years of sailoring were stuffed into that sun-dried
crackling hide of his, whence they issued, smelling to heaven of strong
tobacco, in the form of practical suggestions and maritime prophecy.
Pascualo had taken him on, not so much for the help his aged arms could
give, as for the exact knowledge he had of the coast thereabouts. From
the Cabo de San Antonio to the Cabo de Canet, the gulf did not have a
hole nor a shallow that _tio_ Batiste did not know all about. Turn him
into a smelt and toss him overboard, and he'd tell you where he was, the
minute he got to the bottom! The top of the water might be a closed book
to other people; bu