“By the shrine of Saint Gracia!” shouted this new arrival hoarsely, glaring about in the dim light as if half awakened from a bad dream.  “What meaneth this aboard my ship? Caramba! is this a travelling show—­a place for mountebanks and gypsies?  Shut the door, you shrieking gray-back of a monk, or I ’ll have you cat-o’-nine-tailed by the guard, in spite of your robe.  Get up, you drunken brute!”

The crestfallen soldier to whom these last affectionate words were addressed limped painfully away, and then the justly irate commander of His Christian Majesty’s flag-ship “Santa Maria” glowered down on me with an astonishment that for the moment held him dumb.

“Where did this dirty nigger come from?” he roared at last, applying one of his heavy sea-boots to me with vehemence.  “Who is the villain who dared bring such cattle on board my ship?”

Gonzales, now thoroughly sobered by the seriousness of the situation, attempted to account for my presence, but before he had fairly begun his story, the Captain, who by this time was beyond all reason, burst roaring forth again: 

“Oh, so you brought him!  You did, hey?  Well, did n’t I tell you to let no lazy, loafing bumboat-man set foot on board?  Do you laugh at my orders, you good-for-nothing scum of the sea?  And above all things why did you ever drag such a creature as this down between decks to disgrace the whole of His Majesty’s navy?  Get up, you bundle of rags!”

I scrambled to my feet, seeking to shuffle to one side out of his immediate sight, but a heavy hand closed instantly on my ragged collar and held me fronting him.  For a moment I thought he meant to strike me, but I appeared such a miserable, dejected specimen of humanity that the fierce anger died slowly out of his eyes.

“Francisco,” he called sternly, “heave this thing overboard, and be lively about it!  Saints of Mercy! he smells like a butcher-boat in the tropics.”

Hustled, dragged, cuffed, mercilessly kicked, the fellows got me out upon the open deck at last; I caught one fleeting glimpse of the great masts, the white, gleaming planks under foot, the horrified, upturned, face of Alphonse in the little boat beneath, and then, with a heave and a curse, over I went, sprawling down from rail to river, as terrified a darky as ever made hasty departure from a man-of-war.

CHAPTER IV

WE HOLD A COUNCIL OF WAR

The last object I remember seeing was the white face of the Capuchin monk peering at me over the rail, and my earliest thought as I arose to the surface, was that as the water had probably cleansed my skin it would be wise to keep well out of sight from the deck.  Fortunately the boat floated close at hand.  Laying hasty grasp upon it, but remaining well immersed in the river, I bade the thoroughly frightened black paddle with diligence out of that neighborhood.  This was a task he was not slow in accomplishing, fear lending strength to trained muscles, and we soon had the good fortune to discover a safe landing-place beneath the lee of a long molasses shed, where our plight was unobserved by any one.