Bedient unearthed a companion at Treasure Island Inn, one whom he did not doubt for an instant to be the chief of Rey’s agents assigned to watch his every movement.  But even as a spy, old Monkhouse had helped him to sit tight, during that forty-eight hours.  For Monkhouse talked alluringly, incessantly,—­and asked only to be with the stranger—­and many a time, all unknowing, he banished for the moment some devouring anguish with a tale of disruption told to a turn.  The Island did not hold more loyal devotion than his for Dictator Jaffier, to hear Monkhouse tell it; and how Celestino Rey had reached his ripe years, with such hatred in the world, was by no means the least of Equatorian novelties....  Here was a desperado in the sere, shaking for the need of drink, when he first appeared to Bedient.  On the final forenoon of the latter’s stay at the Inn, he sat with Monkhouse in the big carriage doorway on the street-level.  The old man was elaborating a winsome plan to capture the Spaniard at sea; and though Bedient mildly interposed that he wouldn’t know what to do with Celestino if he had him,—­the conspiracy was unfolded nevertheless: 

“You’re a good lad,” Monkhouse communed.  “I belave in you to the seeds.  C’lestin’—­an’ may Heaven deefin’ the walls as I speak his name—­has nine an’ seventy ways of makin’ off with you.  Boy, I’ve known the day in these seas when he’d do it for practice.  But he’s old now an’ tender of hear-rt.  He laves it to your good sense to lave him alone.  ’Tis well, you trusted no one save old Monkhouse.  Adhere to it, lad, or I’ll be mournin’, one of these gay mornin’s, with you gone—­an’ your name on no passenger list save—­what’s the name of that divil of a pilot—­Charybdus?”

“Charon?”

“True for you, lad.  Charon it is.  What with drink an’ the sinful climate, I’ve forgot much that many niver knew.”

Monkhouse winked his red lashless lids, and meditated the while, as he pressed the juice of an orange into the third of a cup of white rum, and stirred in a handful of soggy brown sugar.

“Hark to you, boy—­come closer,” he whispered presently.  “Nothin’ that sails in these par-rts can scrape the paint of the Savonarola.  At the same time, you can do nothin’ by stayin’ ashore.  What’s the puzzle?  ‘Tis this, lad:  you must get one of thim gasolin’ launches that move like the divil and smell like the sleepin’ sickness!  You can get one at the Leeward Isles betchune here an’ sun-down....  Listen now, come back in good time, standin’ on your own deck, with old Monkhouse for a mate, and three or four clane-eyed American boys lookin’ for adventures—­an’ hang out at sea waitin’ for the Savonarola.  God save the day whin he comes!  We’ll meet him on the honest seaboard in the natural way, where he can’t spring the tricks of The Pleiad, nor use the slather of yellow naygurs that live off the cold sweat of him——­”