he schooner with her dirty decks looked to me, now, very sinister
and very sordid.

Then I remembered Castro's extraordinary words; they suggested infinite
possibilities of a disastrous nature, I could not tell just what. The
explanation seemed to be struggling to bring itself to light, like a
name that one has had for hours on the tip of a tongue without being
able to formulate it. Major Cowper rose stiffly, and limped to my side.
He looked at me askance, then shifted his eyes away. Afterwards, he took
his coat from my arm. I tried to help him, but he refused my aid, and
jerked himself painfully into it. It was too tight for him. Suddenly, he
said:

"You seem to be deuced intimate with that man--deuced intimate."

His tone caused me more misgiving than I should have thought possible.
He took a turn on the deserted deck; went to the skylight; called down,
"All well, still?" waited, listening with his head on one side, and then
came back to me.

"You drop into the ship," he said, "out of the clouds. Out of the
clouds, I say. You tell us some sort of cock-and-bull story. I say it
looks deuced suspicious." He took another turn and came back. "My wife
says that you took her rings and--and--gave them to------"

He had an ashamed air. It came into my head that that hateful woman had
been egging him on to this through the skylight, instead of saying her
prayers.

"Your wife!" I said. "Why, she might have been murdered--if I hadn't
made her give them up. I believe I saved her life."

He said suddenly, "Tut, tut!" and shrugged his shoulders. He hung his
head for a minute, then he added, "Mind, I don't say--I don't say that
it mayn't be as you say. You're a very nice young fellow.... But what
I say is--I am a public man--you ought to clear yourself." He was
beginning to recover his military bearing.

"Oh! don't be absurd," I said.

One of the Spaniards came up to me and whispered, "You must come now.
We are going to cast off." At the same time Tomas Castro prowled to the
other side of the ship, within five yards of us. I called out, "Tomas
Castro! Tomas Castro! I will not go with you." The man beside me said,
"Come, senor! _Vamos!_"

Suddenly Castro, stretching his arm out at me, cried, "Come, _hombres_.
This is the _caballero_; seize him." And to me in his broken English he
shouted, "You may resist, if you like."

This was what I meant to do with all my might. The ragged crowd
surrounded me; they chattered like mon