“I like to stay here more than anywhere else in the world.  If—­if I didn’t think Mr. Scraper would be angry and frightened about me, and not know where I was, I should like to stay on board all my life.”

“That is right!” said the Skipper, heartily.  “That is the prisoner that I like to have.  I am not a cruel pirate, as some; I like to make happy my captives.  Franci, lemonade, on the after-deck here!” He spoke in Spanish, and Franci replied in the same language, with a faint voice expressive of acute suffering.

“I am very sick, Patron.  I go to my bed in a desolated condition.”

“Come here, and let me look at you!” said the Skipper, imperatively.

“Am I a dog, to fetch drink for this beggar brat?” was Franci’s next remark, in a more vigorous tone.  “Was it for this that I left San Mateo?  Rento is a pig, let him do the pig things.  I go to my bed.”

He made a motion to go, but the Skipper reached out a long arm, and the next moment the bold youth was dangling over the side of the vessel, clutching at the air, and crying aloud to all the saints in the calendar.

“Shall I let go?” asked the Skipper, in his quiet tone.

“Ah! no, distinguished Patron!” cried Franci.  “Let me not go!  This water is abominable.  Release me, and I will get the lemonade.  It is my wish that you may both be drowned in it, but I will get it,—­oh, yes, assuredly!”

He was set down, and vanished into the cabin; the Skipper, as if this were the most ordinary occurrence in the world, led the way to the after-rail, and seated himself, motioning to John to take a place beside him.

“What is the matter with him?” asked the boy, looking after Franci.

“I think him slightly a fool,” was the reply, as the Skipper puffed leisurely at his cigar.  “His parents, worthy people, desired him to be a sailor, but that he can never be.  The best sailor is one born for that, and for no other thing; also, a sailor can be made, though not of so fine quality; but of Franci, no.  I return him after this voyage, with compliments, and he sails no more in the ‘Nautilus.’  And you, Colorado?  How is it with you?  You love not at all a vessel, I think?”

There certainly could be no doubt this time that the Skipper was making fun; his face was alive with it, and John could have laughed outright for pleasure.

“I don’t believe you are a Malay, one bit!” said the child.  “I’m not sure that you are a pirate at all, but I know you aren’t a Malay.”

“Why that, my son?” asked the Skipper, waving the smoke aside, that he might see the child’s face the clearer.  “Why do you think that?  I am not dark enough for a Malay, is it that?”

“No, not that,” John admitted.  “But—­well, you have no creese, and you are not wild, nor—­nor fierce, nor cruel.”

“But I have the creese!” the Skipper protested.  “The creese, would you see it?  It is in the cabin, behind the door, with other arms of piracy.  Still, Colorado, it is of a fact that I was not born in Polynesia, no.  As to the fierceness and the cruelty, we shall see, my son, we shall see.  If I kept you here on the ‘Nautilus’ always, took you with me away, suffered you no more to live with your gentle Sir Scraper, that would be cruelty, do you think it?  That would be a fierce pirate, and a cruel one, who would do that?”