rque; I had
just one exulting sight of it, and then Major Cowper uprose before
my eyes and knocked me back on board the schooner, tumbling after me
himself.

Twenty men flung themselves upon my body. I made no movement. The
end had come. I hadn't the strength to shake off a fly, my heart was
bursting my ribs. I lay on my back and managed to say, "Give me air." I
thought I should die.

Castro, draped in his cloak, stood over me, but Major Cowper fell on his
knees near my head, almost sobbing: "My papers! My papers! I tell you
I shall starve. Make them give me back my papers. They ain't any use to
them--my pension--mortgages--not worth a penny piece to you."

He crouched over my face, and the Spaniards stood around, wondering.
He begged me to intercede, to save him those papers of the greatest
importance.

Castro preserved his attitude of a conspirator. I was touched by the
major's distress, and at last I condescended to address Castro on his
behalf, though it cost me an effort, for I was angry, indignant, and
humiliated.

"Whart--whart? What do I know of his papers? Let him find them." He
waved his hand loftily.

The deck was hillocked with heaps of clothing, of bedding, casks of rum,
old hats, and tarpaulins. Cowper ran in and out among the plunder, like
a pointer in a turnip field. He was groaning.

Beside one of the pumps was a small pile of shiny cases; ship's
instruments, a chronometer in its case, a medicine chest.

Cowper tottered at a black dispatch-box. "There, there!" he said; "I
tell you I shall starve if I don't have it. Ask him--ask him-------" He
was clutching me like a drowning man.

Castro raised the inevitable arm towards heaven, letting his round black
cloak fall into folds like those of an umbrella. Cowper gathered that
he might take his japanned dispatch-box; he seized the brass handles and
rushed towards the side, but at the last moment he had the good impulse
to return to me, holding out his hand, and spluttering distractedly,
"God bless you, God bless you." After a time he remembered that I had
rescued his wife and child, and he asked God to bless me for that too.
"If it is ever necessary," he said, "on my honour, if you escape, I will
come a thousand miles to testify. On my honour--remember." He said he
was going to live in Clapham. That is as much as I remember. I was held
pinned down to the deck, and he disappeared from my sight. Before the
ships had separated, I was carried below in