“Has she no other relatives?” asks the Don, in the same quiet tone; and Jack shakes his head, still looking down, and answers lowly: 

“Only me.”

Then after another pause the Don asks: 

“What will become of her?”

And that thought also must have been in Jack Dawson’s mind; for without seeming surprised by the question, which appeared a strange one, he answers reverently, but with a shake in his hoarse voice, “Almighty God knows.”

This stilled us all for the moment, and then Don Sanchez, seeing that these reflections threw a gloom upon us, turned to me, sitting next him, and asked if I would give him some account of my history, whereupon I briefly told him how three years ago Jack Dawson had lifted me out of the mire, and how since then we had lived in brotherhood.  “And,” says I in conclusion, “we will continue with the favour of Providence to live so, sharing good and ill fortune alike to the end, so much we do love one another.”

To this Jack Dawson nods assent.

“And your other fellow,—­what of him?” asked Don Sanchez.

I replied that Ned Herring was but a fair-weather friend, who had joined fortunes with us to get out of London and escape the Plague, and how having robbed us, we were like never to see his face again.

“And well for him if we do not,” cries Dawson, rousing up; “for by the Lord, if I clap eyes on him, though it be a score of years hence, he shan’t escape the most horrid beating ever man outlived!”

The Don nodded his satisfaction at this, and then Moll, awaking with the sudden outburst of her father’s voice, gives first a gape, then a shiver, and looking about her with an air of wonder, smiles as her eye fell on the Don.  Whereon, still as solemn as any judge, he pulls the bell, and the maid, coming to the room with a rushlight, he bids her take the poor weary child to bed, and the best there is in the house, which I think did delight Dawson not less than his Moll to hear.

Then Moll gives her father a kiss, and me another according to her wont, and drops a civil curtsey to Don Sanchez.

“Give me thy hand, child,” says he; and having it, he lifts it to his lips and kisses it as if she had been the finest lady in the land.

She being gone, the Don calls for a second bowl of spiced wine, and we, mightily pleased at the prospect of another half-hour of comfort, stretch our legs out afresh before the fire.  Then Don Sanchez, lighting another cigarro, and setting his chair towards us, says as he takes his knee up betwixt his long, thin fingers: 

“Now let us come to the heart of this business and understand one another clearly.”

CHAPTER III.

Of that design which Don Sanchez opened to us at the Bell.

We pulled our pipes from our mouths, Dawson and I, and stretched our ears very eager to know what this business was the Don had to propound, and he, after drawing two or three mouthfuls of smoke, which he expelled through his nostrils in a most surprising unnatural manner, says in excellent good English, but speaking mighty slow and giving every letter its worth: