tate halfway between Rio Medio and
Havana, and a relay of riding mules was kept there for quickness when
His Excellency of holy memory found occasion to write his commands to
the capital. The news of our escape would reach the _Juez_ next day at
the latest. Manuel would take care of that--unless he were drowned. But
he could swim like a fish. Malediction!

"I cried out to you to kill!" he addressed me directly; "with all my
soul I cried. And why? Because he had seen you and the senorita, too,
alas! He should have been made dumb--made dumb with your pistol, Senor,
since those two stupid English mariners were too much for an old man
like me. Manuel should have been made dumb--dumb forever, I say. What
mattered he--that gutter-born offspring of an evil _Gitana_, whom I have
seen, Senor! I, myself, have seen her in the days of my adversity in
Madrid, Senor--a red flower behind the ear, clad in rags that did not
cover all her naked skin, looking on while they fought for her with
knives in a wine-shop full of beggars and thieves. Si, senor. That's his
mother. _Improvisador--politico--capataz_. Ha.... Dirt!"

He made a gesture of immense contempt.

"What mattered he? The coach would have returned from the cathedral, and
the Casa Riego could have been held for days--and who could have known
you were not inside. I had conversed earnestly with Cesar the
major-domo--an African, it is true, but a man of much character and
excellent sagacity. Ah, Manuel! Manuel! If I------But the devil himself
fathers the children of such mothers. I am no longer in possession of my
first vigour, and you, Senor, have all the folly of your nation...."

He bared his grizzled head to me loftily.

"... And the courage! Doubtless, that is certain. It is well. You may
want it all before long, Senor... And the courage!"

The broken plume swept the deck. For a time he blinked his creased,
brown eyelids in the sun, then pulled his hat low down over his brows,
and, wrapping himself up closely, turned away from me to look at the
sail to leeward.

"What an old, old, wrinkled, little, puffy beggar he is!" observed
Sebright, in an undertone...

"Well, and what is your worship's opinion as to the purpose of that
schooner?"

Castro shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows?"... He released the gathered
folds of his cloak, and moved off without a look at either of us.

"There he struts, with his wings drooping like a turkey-cock gone into
deep mourning," said Se