In instant obedience to my words the priest stretched himself at full length behind the low wooden gutter.  Rising cautiously to my feet, I passed the cord with utmost care through my fingers, testing its strands again, making certain it remained perfectly free for the toss.  For a moment I stood thus, swaying forward at the very edge of the roof, my eyes measuring again and again the hazy, uncertain distance stretching away toward that slight undulating shadow.  It was practically impossible to determine where the extreme end of the spar terminated in air, yet as nearly as possible I made selection for my point of aim, and, with three noiseless circles about my head to give it impetus, shot the rope forth into the dense gloom.  I heard the opening noose strike something which rattled sharply in the intense silence.  Then the line slipped, hung limp, and finally fell dangling down over the edge of the roof.  It had failed to catch, and I crouched low, making no effort to draw the loose end back.  With the first sound of the blow against the spar the steady tramping across the deck ceased.  A moment, and a gruff voice hailed in vigorous Spanish from out the darkness: 

“Aloft there!  Who is on the foreyard?”

For a brief space there came no answer, although we were made aware of other movements more directly below us.  Then some one answered: 

“The watch are all here on the forecastle, Senor.  It must have been a loose block that rattled.”

“Two of you jump into the foretop, and make all fast.”

The steady tramping was resumed, while a moment later we became aware of the approach of men climbing through the darkness toward us.  We were unable to perceive their shadows, yet their muttered conversation, as they lay out upon the yard, served to fix its actual position more clearly in my mind.  I believed I knew where I had so grievously overshot the mark.

“Boca del Dragon!” grumbled one of the fellows hoarsely, seemingly in our very ears.  “The Captain is as nervous over those cursed frog-eaters down between decks as if we were anchored off Paree.”

“Think you that is the trouble, Jose?” returned the other in the sprightly voice of a younger man.  “I tell thee, comrade, ’tis only that bloody demon of an O’Reilly he is fearful of.  I have sailed with the ‘old man’ in many seas since first I left Sargon, and never expect to see him affrighted of any Johnny Frenchman.  But I heard the Admiral say two days agone, as I hung over his boat in the main chains, that if the Captain lost so much as a single prisoner it should cost him his ship.  That, I make it, comrade, is why he has n’t taken so much as a glass of wine since first they were put aboard of us. Bastante! but he must have acquired a thirst by this time to make his temper red-hot.”

The other laughed sourly.

“Poh!  I know even a better reason for his going dry than that, Juan.  He does n’t have chance for a drink alongside of that gray-bellied French priest below. Caramba! it takes him to polish off the red liquor.”