Profiting by her first moment alone—­Evangelina and her husband being still in ignorance of the contents of the treasure-box—­Rosa made a bundle out of the jewels and trinkets and fastened it securely inside her coat.  After a few experiments she adjusted it to her liking, then called O’Reilly once more.  This time he was better satisfied; he was, in truth, surprised at the effect of the disfigurement, and, after putting Rosa through several rehearsals in masculine deportment, he pronounced the disguise as nearly perfect as could be hoped for.  An application of Evangelina’s stain to darken her face, a few tatters and a liberal application of dirt to the suit, and he declared that Rosa would pass anywhere as a boy.

There came a night when the three of them bade good-by to their black companions and slipped away across the city to that section known as Pueblo Nuevo, then followed the road along the water-front until they found shelter within the shadows of a rickety structure which had once served as a bath-house.  The building stood partially upon piles and under it they crept, knee-deep in the lapping waves.  To their left was the illumination of Matanzas; to their right, the lights of the Penas Alias fort; ahead of them, empty and dark save for the riding-lights of a few small coasting-vessels, lay the harbor.

The refugees waited a long time; they were beginning ’to fear that old Morin’s nerve had weakened at the eleventh hour, when they beheld a skiff approaching the shore.  It glided closer, entered the shade of the bathhouse, then a voice cried: 

“Pset!  You are there?” It was Morin himself.

Hastily the three piled aboard.  Morin bent to his oars and the skiff shot out.  “You were not observed?” he inquired.

“No.”

Morin rowed in silence for a time, then confessed:  “This business is not to my liking.  There is too much risk.  Think of me putting my neck in peril—­”

“Ho!” Jacket chuckled.  “It is just the sort of thing that I enjoy.  If Miguelito was captain of his father’s boat we’d been in Cardenas by daybreak.”

“When do you sail?” O’Reilly asked.

“At dawn, God permitting.  You will have to remain hidden and you mustn’t even breathe.  I have told my men that you are members of my wife’s family—­good Spaniards, but I doubt if they will believe it.”

“Then you are to be my uncle?” Jacket inquired from his seat in the bow.  “Caramba!  That’s more than I can stand!  To be considered a Spaniard is bad enough, but to be known as the nephew of an old miser who smells of fish!  It is too much!”

Badinage of this sort did not displease the fisherman.  “It is not often they board us nowadays,” he said, more hopefully, “but of course one never can tell.  Perhaps we will sail out under their very noses.”

He brought the skiff alongside a battered old schooner and his passengers clambered aboard.  There was a tiny cabin aft and on it, sheltered from the night dew by a loose fold of the mainsail, were two sleeping men.  The new-comers followed Morin down into the evil little cabin, where he warned them in a stertorous whisper: