in striped red and
white pajamas--clum up in that bally pulpit, with the ship's
Shakespeare in his hands, an' let us have--'The quality o' mercy isn't
strained; it droppeth as the genteel dew from heavun.' Laugh, I tell
you I was sore with it. Lord, how we guyed him! An' the more we guyed
and the more we laughed, the more serious he got and the madder he
grew. He said he was interpretin' the hidden meanin' of the lines."

And so the Captain ran through that wild, fiery tale--of fighting and
loving, buccaneering and conspiring; mandolins tinkling, knives
clicking; oaths mingling with sonnets, and spilled wine with spilled
blood. He told them of Isham's knife duel with the Mexican lieutenant,
their left wrists lashed together; of the "battle of the thirty" in the
pitch dark of the Custom House cellar; of Senora Estrada's love for
Isham; and all the roll and plunge of action that make up the story of
"In Defiance of Authority."

At the end, Blix's little eyes were snapping like sparks; Condy's face
was flaming, his hands were cold, and he was shifting his weight from
foot to foot, like an excited thoroughbred horse.

"Heavens and earth, what a yarn!" he exclaimed almost in a whisper.

Blix drew a long, tremulous breath and sat back upon the upturned box,
looking around her as though she had but that moment been awakened.

"Yes, sir," said the Captain, rolling a cigarette. "Yes, sir, those
were great days. Get down there around the line in those little,
out-o'-the-way republics along the South American coast, and things
happen to you. You hold a man's life in the crook of your forefinger,
an' nothing's done by halves. If you hate a man, you lay awake nights
biting your mattress, just thinking how you hate him; an' if you love a
woman--good Lord, how you do LOVE her!"

"But--but!" exclaimed Condy, "I don't see how you can want to do
anything else. Why, you're living sixty to the minute when you're
playing a game like that!"

"Oh, I ain't dead yet!" answered the Captain. "I got a few schemes
left that I could get fun out of."

"How can you wait a minute!" exclaimed Blix breathlessly. "Why don't
you get a ship right away--to-morrow--and go right off on some other
adventure?"

"Well, I can't just now," returned the Captain, blowing the smoke from
his cigarette through his ears. "There's a good many reasons; one of
'em is that I've just been married."

Chapter X

Mum--mar--married! gasped Condy, s