follow his
inclinations and order the fellow thrown overboard. Yet it was the
soldier boy who had assumed the ascendancy, and it could not have been
more natural were the boat's owner a scullion and the intruder an
admiral.

"And why _don't_ we start to-night?" the complacent usurper
demanded in that plaintive drawl which so irritated the other. "You went
for your passports, didn't you get 'em?"

"Si--si, senor."

"Good! Then to-night it is, eh?--Can't you speak out, _my_
gracious!"

"_You_ might go to-night," the trader suggested timidly.

"Alone?--N-o, parting isn't the sweet sorrow it's cracked up to be.
Besides, I don't know the roads, but of course that's nothing to losing
a jovial old mate like you, Murgie."

Don Anastasio smirked at the pleasantry. "But _I_ can't go
to-night, senor. I--I have to see--someone--first."

The trooper betrayed the least impatience. "Now look here--usurer,
viper, blanketed thief, honorable sir, you _know_ I'm in a hurry!"

That his haste could be any concern of Murguia's was preposterous, and
Murguia would have liked nothing better than to tell him so. But he did
not, and suffered inwardly because somehow he could not. He harbored a
dim but dreadful picture of what might happen should the amiable
cavalryman actually lose his temper. Loss of patience had menace enough,
though the Southerner had not stirred from his lazy posture in the
doorway nor overlooked a single contented puff from the Missouri
meerschaum.

"I'm sorry," Don Anastasio paid out the hard-found words through his
teeth, "but possibly we can leave to-morrow. Will, will that suit Your
Mercy, Senor Coronel?"

"Oh perhaps. Anyhow, don't go to forgetting, now, that I'm in a hurry."

Don Anastasio breathed easier, and he even grew so bold as to recall a
certain suspicion he had entertained. "Your errand down here must be of
considerable importance, Senor Coronel?" he ventured.

"There you are again--crawling again." It was evident that the trooper's
normal condition was a great, hearty, calm good humor.

But the Mexican's shriveled features grew sharper and his moist eyes
more prying. His suspicion had tormented him ever since fate had thrown
the Confederate in his way. This had happened one stormy night at
Mobile. The night in question was pitch dark. The tide was favorable,
too, but a norther was blowing, the very same norther that had turned
the _Imperatrice Eugenie_ off her course. Murguia's skipper had
c