d, during which Franci sauntered to the side with easy
grace. "Shall I put a knife into him, Patron?" he asked, indicating Mr.
Bill Hen with a careless nod. "How well he would stick, eh? The fatness
of his person! It is but to say the word, Patron."

Mr. Bill Hen recoiled with a look of horror, and prepared for instant
flight; but the Skipper's gesture reassured him. "Franci, look if there
is a whale on the larboard bow!" said the latter.

"Perfectly, Patron!" replied Franci, withdrawing with his most courtly
bow. "When I say that no one will be killed at all in this cursed place,
and I shall break my heart! but as you will."

Again there was a pause, while Mr. Bill Hen wondered if this were a
floating lunatic asylum or a nest of pirates, that had come so easily up
their quiet river and turned the world topsy-turvy. At length--"Your
force, Senor Pike," the Skipper said, "I perceive it not, for to take
away this child. Have you the milizia--what you call soldiers,
police--have you them summoned and concealed behind the rocks, as in the
theatres of Havana? I see no one but your one self. Surely you have no
thought to take the child of your own force from me?"

Mr. Bill Hen gasped again. "Look here!" he broke out at last. "What kind
of man are you, anyway? you aint no kind that we're used to in these
parts, so now I tell you! When a man hears what is law in this part of
the world, he gives in, as is right and proper, to that law and
that--and--and in short to them sentiments. Are you going to stand out
against the law, and keep that child? and who give you a right to do for
that child? I suppose I can ask that question, if you are a grandee, or
whatever you are. Who give you a right, I ask?"

"Who shall say?" replied the Skipper. "Perhaps--" He said no more, but
raised his hand with a gesture that was solemn enough; and Mr. Bill Hen
Pike decided that he was beyond doubt a madman. But now the Skipper
dropped his tone and attitude of smiling ease, and, throwing away his
cigar, stood upright. "Enough, Senor!" he said. "You are a good man, but
you have not the courage. Now, you shall see Colorado." He turned toward
the cabin and called: "Colorado, my son, come to me!" Then, after a
pause, "He sleeps yet. Rento, bring to me the child!" Rento, who had
been hovering near, lending a careful ear to all that was said, now
vanished, and reappeared, bearing the boy John in his arms. The child
was but newly awake, and was still rub