"Who knows," continued the speaker, "but Senor Benito, though strong and sound and har'ly thirty-seven"—here all smiled—"may be taken ill tomorrow?"
Martinez smiled across to the tall, gray Benito on Galahad's left, and he, in turn, smilingly showed to the company a thin, white line of teeth between his moustachios like distant reefs.
"Who knows," the young Irishman proceeded to inquire, "I say, who knows but Pedro, theyre, may be struck wid a fever?"
Pedro, a short, compact man of thoroughly mixed blood, and with an eyebrow cut away, whose surname no one knew, smiled his acknowledgments.
"Who knows?" resumed Galahad, when those who understood English had explained in Spanish to those who did not, "but they may soon need the services not only of our good doctor heer, but of our society; and that Fernandez and Benigno, and Gonzalez and Dominguez, may not be chosen to see, on that very schooner lying at the Picayune Tier just now, their beloved remains and so forth safely delivered into the hands and lands of their people. I say, who knows bur it may be so!"
The company bowed graciously as who should say, "Well-turned phrases,
Senor—well-turned."
"And amigos, if so be that such is their approoching fate, I will say:"
He lifted his glass, and the rest did the same.
"I say, I will say to them, Creoles, countrymen, and lovers, boun voyadge an' good luck to ye's."
For several moments there was much translating, bowing, and murmured acknowledgments; Mazaro said: "Bueno!" and all around among the long double rank of moustachioed lips amiable teeth were gleaming, some white, some brown, some yellow, like bones in the grass.