were the absolute conditions of
our existence. But I hadn't the heart to remonstrate with him for the
danger he caused Seraphina and myself. The fog was so thick now that
I could not make out his outline, but I could smell the tobacco very
plainly.

The acrid odour of _picadura_ seemed to knit the events of three years
into one uninterrupted adventure. I remembered the shingle beach; the
deck of the old _Thames_. It brought to my mind my first vision of
Seraphina, and the emblazoned magnificence of Carlos' sick bed. It all
came and went in a whiff of smoke; for of all the power and charm that
had made Carlos so seductive there remained no such deep trace in
the world as in the heart of the little grizzled bandit who, like a
philosopher, or a desperado, puffed his cigarette in the face of the
very spirit of murder hovering round us, under the mask and cloak of the
fog. And by the serene heaven of my life's evening, the spirit of
murder became actually audible to us in hasty and rhythmical knocks,
accompanied by a cheerful tinkling.

These sounds, growing swiftly louder, at last induced Castro to throw
away his cigarette. Seraphina clutched my arm. The noise of oars rowing
fast, to the precipitated jingling of a guitar, swooped down upon us
with a gallant ferocity.

"_Caramba_," Castro muttered; "it is the fool Manuel himself!"

I said, then: "We have eight shots between us two, Tomas."

He thrust his brace of pistols upon my knees.

"Dispose of them as your worship pleases," he muttered.

"You mustn't _give_ up, yet," I whispered.

"What is it that I give up?" he mumbled wearily. "Besides, there grows
from my forearm a blade. If I shall find myself indisposed to quit this
world alone.... Listen to the singing of that imbecile."

A carolling falsetto seemed to hang muffled in upper space, above the
fog that settled low on the water, like a dense and milky sediment of
the air. The moonlight fell into it strangely. We seemed to breathe at
the bottom of a shallow sea, white as snow, shining like silver, and
impenetrably opaque everywhere, except overhead, where the yellow disc
of the moon glittered through a thin cloud of steam. The gay truculence
of the hollow knocking, the metallic jingle, the shrill trolling, went
on crescendo to a burst of babbling voices, a mad speed of tinkling, a
thundering shout, "_Altro, Amigos!_" followed by a great clatter of oars
flung in. The sudden silence pulsated with the ponderous