plexion.

These maundering cogitations must have spread themselves over a
considerable time, for when Haigh roused me up, he said that I had
slept very nearly round the clock. I pulled myself together and stared
at him. He was looking distinctly excited; and this, seeing that he was
usually a very calm sort of fish, was remarkable.

"Never say our luck has broken," said he. "I've just performed a
regular four-cornered miracle. That port-authority person called again
about two hours back, and it began to dawn upon me that we were done
for. He fairly bristled with suspicion. I could see it even in the set
of his clothes. If I'd told him that as soon as our fleet was gone you
and I were going to take possession of the island in the name of the
king of Ireland, he'd have believed it. But I temporized, having no
yarn ready, and luck came down in a tornado. Not one Spaniard in a
thousand has a soul above a single miserable liqueur--glass; but this
one was the exception. He supped down that vermouth, pannikin after
pannikin; and as he got more drunk, so did I get more eloquent. I
believe at my strongest then I could have blarneyed Old Nick into
giving me a draughty corner."

"But what in the plague did you say to the man? How could you get over
the fact of having no clearance papers, and all the rest of it?"

"Simplest thing in the world, my dear chap, when once I'd grasped the
idea. The cutter put out of Savona some two months ago--this being a
fact, as I put documentary evidence under his nose to prove. Then she
sailed to Corsica, and lay in a tiny coaster's harbour where there was
no Captain of the Port or any one else who could scribble on stamped
paper. There we stayed all the time till the crew deserted, and we
ourselves were evilly entreated, the yacht being gutted by unprincipled
natives. _Apres_, you and I brought her across here alone, knowing
this to be the abode of bliss. Of course, in his sober senses he'd
never have believed a word of it; but, thanks to that lovely vermouth,
he swallowed the whole yarn, lock, stock, and barrel, and wrote me out
the wherewithal, and then tumbled off to sleep, swearing by three local
saints that he wanted to go to the same heaven I landed at."

"But," said I, "when he's sober, he'll be down on us like a thousand of
bricks."

"Not a bit of it, my dear boy. Don't you know that all Spaniards can
look upon a murder without emotion, but no Spaniard can see a drunken
man without b