“’You see that ugly little red star about eight inches above and to the right of Saturn?’ Kearny asked me.  ’Well, that’s her.  That’s Phoebe.  She’s got me in charge.  “By the day of your birth,” says Azrath to me, “your life is subjected to the influence of Saturn.  By the hour and minute of it you must dwell under the sway and direct authority of Phoebe, the ninth satellite.”  So said this Azrath.’  Kearny shook his fist violently skyward.  ’Curse her, she’s done her work well,’ said he.  ’Ever since I was astrologized, bad luck has followed me like my shadow, as I told you.  And for many years before.  Now, Captain, I’ve told you my handicap as a man should.  If you’re afraid this evil star of mine might cripple your scheme, leave me out of it.’

“I reassured Kearny as well as I could.  I told him that for the time we would banish both astrology and astronomy from our heads.  The manifest valour and enthusiasm of the man drew me.  ’Let us see what a little courage and diligence will do against bad luck,’ I said.  ‘We will sail to-morrow for Esperando.’

“Fifty miles down the Mississippi our steamer broke her rudder.  We sent for a tug to tow us back and lost three days.  When we struck the blue waters of the Gulf, all the storm clouds of the Atlantic seemed to have concentrated above us.  We thought surely to sweeten those leaping waves with our sugar, and to stack our arms and lumber on the floor of the Mexican Gulf.

“Kearny did not seek to cast off one iota of the burden of our danger from the shoulders of his fatal horoscope.  He weathered every storm on deck, smoking a black pipe, to keep which alight rain and sea-water seemed but as oil.  And he shook his fist at the black clouds behind which his baleful star winked its unseen eye.  When the skies cleared one evening, he reviled his malignant guardian with grim humour.

“’On watch, aren’t you, you red-headed vixen?  Out making it hot for little Francis Kearny and his friends, according to Hoyle.  Twinkle, twinkle, little devil!  You’re a lady, aren’t you?—­dogging a man with your bad luck just because he happened to be born while your boss was floorwalker.  Get busy and sink the ship, you one-eyed banshee.  Phoebe!  H’m!  Sounds as mild as a milkmaid.  You can’t judge a woman by her name.  Why couldn’t I have had a man star?  I can’t make the remarks to Phoebe that I could to a man.  Oh, Phoebe, you be—­blasted!’

“For eight days gales and squalls and waterspouts beat us from our course.  Five days only should have landed us in Esperando.  Our Jonah swallowed the bad credit of it with appealing frankness; but that scarcely lessened the hardships our cause was made to suffer.

“At last one afternoon we steamed into the calm estuary of the little Rio Escondido.  Three miles up this we crept, feeling for the shallow channel between the low banks that were crowded to the edge with gigantic trees and riotous vegetation.  Then our whistle gave a little toot, and in five minutes we heard a shout, and Carlos—­my brave Carlos Quintana—­crashed through the tangled vines waving his cap madly for joy.