“Why don’t you go and fight by his side?” Jacket demanded.

“God forbid!” Morin flung up his hands.  “I’m a loyal subject.”

“Well, we are going back to fight.  We are going to escape and join Gomez once more!” Jacket made the announcement calmly.

“’S-Sh!  What talk!” Morin was in a nervous panic lest they be overheard.  “As if anybody could escape from Matanzas!  What made you come here if you are so eager to fight?”

“I’ll tell you.”  O’Reilly assumed direction of the conversation.  “There are three of us brothers, we two and Esteban, a pretty little fellow.  He was captured by Cobo’s men and driven in, and we came to find him.”

“You came here—­here to Matanzas?” Old Morin was incredulous.  He muttered an oath.  “That was a very nice thing to do.  And did you find him?”

“Oh yes!  That was easy enough, for the lad is deformed.”

“Tse!  Tse!  What a pity!”

“But he is sick—­dying—­”

“Of course.  They’re all dying—­the poor people!  It is terrible.”

“We—­” O’Reilly faltered slightly, so much hung upon the manner in which Morin would take what he was about to say.  “We want to get him out of here—­we must do so, or we’ll lose him.”

Sensing some hidden significance, some obscure purpose behind this confession, the Spaniard looked sharply at the speaker.  His leathery countenance darkened.

“Why are you telling me this?” he inquired.  “What makes you think I won’t betray you?”

“Something tells me you won’t.  You have a good heart, and you have kept Narciso from starving, for the sake of your own boy.”

“Well?”

“Will you help us?”

“I?  In Heaven’s name, how?”

“By taking us away in your charcoal-schooner.”

“You’re mad!” Morin cast another apprehensive look over his shoulder.  “I’m a poor man.  All I have is my two boats, the vivero, which brings fish, and the volandra, which sails with charcoal.  Do you think I’d forfeit them and my life for strangers?”

“There wouldn’t be much risk.”

“Indeed?  Perhaps I know something about that.”

O’Reilly leaned closer.  “You say you’re a poor man, I will pay you well.”

Morin eyed the ragged speaker scornfully; it was plain that he put no faith in such a promise, and so O’Reilly took a piece of gold from his pocket, at sight of which the fisherman started.

“What kind of pacificos are you?” Morin queried.  His mouth had fallen open, his eyes protruded.

“I, too, am a poor man, but I’m willing to buy freedom for my little brothers and myself.”

“How many coins like that have you?”

“Um—­m—­more than one; enough to pay you for several cargoes of coal.”

“And I have given you fish to eat!” Morin rolled his eyes at Jacket.  He pondered the marvel of what he had seen, he muttered something to himself.