t sufficient blood to leave me as weak as a babe. I simply clung
there desperately, hopelessly, yet the salt water soon served to
revive me physically, and even my brain began to arouse from its daze
to a faint realization of the conditions. The small dory to which I
clung, caught in some mysterious current, floated at the very
extremity of its slender towline, and in consequence the sloop
appeared little more than a mere smudge, when my eyes endeavored to
discover its outlines. Evidently the bloody work had been completed,
for now all was silent on board. I could not even detect the sound of
a footstep on the deck. Then, clear enough to be distinctly heard
across the narrow strip of water, came the voice of Estada, in a gruff
inquiry:

"So you are hiding here, Cochose? What are you looking for in the
sea?"

"What? Why that damned Englishman." The response was a savage growl,
intensified by husky dialect. "Mon Dieu! He fought me like a mad rat."

"The Englishman, you say? He was here then? It was he you battled
with? What became of the fellow?"

"He went down there, Senor. The dog stabbed me three times. It was
either he or I to go."

"You mean you threw him overboard?"

"Ay, with his ribs crushed in, and not a breath left in his damned
body. He's never come up even--I've watched, and there has not been so
much as a ripple where he sank."

The two must have hung in silence over the rail staring down. I dared
not advance my head to look, nor even move a muscle of my body in the
water, but both were still standing there when Estada finally gave
utterance to an oath.

"How know you it was the man?"

"Who else could it have been? You have the others."

"Ay, true enough; yet it will go hard with you, Cochose, when the
Captain learns of this--he would have the fellow alive."

"As well attempt to take a tiger with bare hands--see, the blood yet
runs; a single inch to the left, and it would be I fed to the fishes.
Pah! what is the difference, Senor, so the man dies?"

"Right enough, no doubt; anyway it is not I who must face Sanchez, and
it is too late now to change fate. Let's to the rest of our task. You
can still do your part?"

The giant negro growled.

"Ay; I have been worse hurt, yet a bit of cloth would help me."

"Let Carl see to that, while I gain glimpse at this map of the house
up yonder. Come forward with me to the cabin, till I light a candle.
How came you aft here?"

"Because that fellow leap