e gasped as though his heart had burst. The seamen, open-mouthed, were
slowly narrowing their circle.

"Can't he gabble!" remarked someone patiently.

His eyes were starting out of his head. He spoke with fearful rapidity.

"... There's no refuge from the anger of the _Juez_ but the grave--the
grave--the grave!... Ha! ha! Go into thy grave, Domingo. But you,
Senor--listen to my supplications--where will you go? To Havana. The
_Juez_ is there, and I call the malediction of the priests on my head if
you, too, are not doomed. Life! Liberty! Senor, let me go, and I shall
run--I shall ride, Senor--I shall throw myself at the feet of the
_Juez_, and say... I shall say I killed you. I am greatly trusted by
the reason of my superior intelligence. I shall say, 'Domingo let
him go--but he is dead. Think of him no more--of that _Inglez_ who
escaped--from Domingo. Do not look for him. I, your own Manuel, have
killed him.' Give me my life for yours, Senor. I shall swear I had
killed you with this right hand! Ah!"

He hung on my lips breathless, with a face so distorted that, though it
might have been death alone he hated, he looked, indeed, as if impatient
to set to and tear me to pieces with his long teeth. Men clutching at
straws must have faces thus convulsed by an eager and despairing hope.
His silence removed the spell--the spell of his incredible loquacity. I
heard the boatswain's hoarse tones:

"Hold on well, ma'am. Right! Walk away steady with that whip!"

I ran limping forward.

"High enough," he rumbled; and I received Seraphina into my arms.

CHAPTER FOUR

I said, "This is home, at last. It is all over"; and she stood by me on
the deck. She pushed the heavy black cloak from over her head, and her
white face appeared above the dim black shadow of her mourning. She
looked silently round her on the mist, the groups of rough men, the
spatterings of light that were like violence, too. She said nothing, but
rested her hand on my arm.

She had her immense griefs, and this was the home I offered her. She
looked back at the side. I thought she would have liked to be in the
boat again. I said:

"The people in this ship are my old friends. You can trust them--and
me."

Tomas Castro, clambering leisurely over the side, followed. As soon as
his feet touched the deck, he threw the corner of his cloak across
his left shoulder, bent down half the rim of his hat, and assumed the
appearance of a short, dark conspirator