"I will hope so, though it's a thing of indifference," replied the master of the Little Joker. "Anyway, I rely on you."
"That's the best."
So the cabin boy removed the weapons, while his captain, accompanied by the British sub-consul, strode to the gangway thrown open in the low waist, arriving just in time to offer his hand to the lady passenger of the shallop. Behind her the drolly accoutred sham Chilian commodore scrambled aboard.
Doña Josefa de Miranda was of elephantine form, with her hair, neck, ears, and arms literally laden with gems, gold eagles, and Mexican coins, pierced and strung in the shape of collars and bracelets. A thousand dollar China crape shawl showed all its florid pattern in embroidery, spread on her broad shoulder. A figured muslin dress, much too short, was caught in at what she probably flattered herself was a waist, by a sash sprinkled with precious stones. A profusion of costly rings shone on her gloved hands. It was manifest that don José de Miranda in his flight had left some valuables which his kinswoman had forestalled the executors in securing.
Nothing could be more repulsive in its uncomeliness than the swarthy lineaments of this corpulent being, whose carping physiognomy and small glistening coffee coloured eyes wore an expression of indescribable spitefulness.
Close to her escort, captain Gladsden undoubtedly recognised the scarred hook nose, hatchet face, and lank figure of his gambling opponent. It was the same grotesque uniform which had been donned to astonish the natives at the supper table of don Stefano.
When this precious pair came in upon the deck of the Little Joker, the armed men attempted to follow. But Mr. Holdfast—whose enforced stay in the fort, penniless, scornfully used by the Guaymasians, had filled him with terrible detestation of all Mexicans in general, and Western ones in particular—gleefully obeyed his orders by bidding them keep their distance. At once the corporal seemed indisposed to bow to this injunction, and seized the Turk's head at the end of the rope guard of the gangplank, thus railed to assist the lady, the first officer, without losing an atom of his habitual coolness, shoved the skiff head off so roughly with his foot as to make the soldier lose his balance and fall between the two gunnels into the water. This, to the laughter of the seamen, who cherish an animosity towards soldiers, and, furthermore, against the armed police, always seeking an excuse to be manifested. Luckily, the soldier had kept his hold of the main ropes, and hung long enough to be lifted up into the boat to the disapproval, if a certain splash of a tail in the water not remote, signified anything, of a shark which had immediately prepared to sup on him instead of the cook's waste.
Meanwhile, without deigning to attach the least interest to this suggestive episode, the massive dame, giving the new master of the brigantine a lofty look, used her most cutting tone to demand, haughtily, if she were addressing the commander of the bark.
"Yes, madam," replied Gladsden, bowing stiffly, "for which recent coming into possession I am happy, because it procures me the honour of receiving on my deck as weighty a personage as your ladyship appears to be. To whom have I the favour of speaking?"
The proud woman announced herself, sonorously, as "Doña Maria Josefa Dolores Miranda y Pedrosa y Saltabadil de la Cruz de Carbaneillo y Merlusa." The hearer bowed deeply at each bead on the string, darting a look aslant as if he feared the little brigantine was rather top-heavy with all these names. Then she pointed to her companion, who had been eyeing the ship's new crew with an annoyed face which was diverting enough to anyone in the secret of his interest, like an exhibition of a curious wild beast.