"Most seriously."
"Then our bargain is made. The conditions lie thus: ask me whatsoever you will, my Englishman, and I will do my best to gratify it. On your part, let me be accompanied on the voyage by my wife, doña Dolores de Miranda."
"Is that all! Delighted to turn myself out of my cabin for the young lady."
"Afterwards you will land me and her where I indicate."
"Right, but about your remuneration?"
"Not a seed of a pearl. I shall consider myself sufficiently rewarded, if you loyally keep this arrangement, on which depends the happiness of all my life."
"Señor Benito Vázquez de Bustamente," said Gladsden, rising and gravely holding out his hand. "I read in some old newspaper which beguiled the dreary watch, that your father, in resigning the Presidency of these Mexican States, said: He retired with nothing but his family, whom he would rear to be like himself, content with the grand but simple ambition to be good Mexicans. You are worthy your father, who must have been a fine gentleman! And I tell you, one such Mexican suffices to make me reckon very little in the opposing balance a thousand mongrels like that don Aníbal, the robber chief, and his citizen allies. Bring the young lady aboard—she shall be the Queen of the Sea here, my very sister!"
"By my soul!" cried the young Mexican: "You have a gallant heart, and I anticipated little less from a seaman and an Englishman! So, the lady is alongside at this very moment, in the dugout that I paddled out in, awaiting the result of my pleading."
"Enough, the young lady shall have a stateroom, and even a sitting room apart, for the carpenter can soon knock up a partition here. No one but you and I, if I may be considered a guest now and then, may enter there, and I never without you. It is needless to say that Madam Bustamente shall be treated on my ship with all the respectful consideration which is her due."
"Then the sooner we are off soundings the better. Both of us have active enemies ashore."