"Will you answer me, sir," resumed the stout lady.
"Señorita," Gladsden responded, with all the self-possession possible, "I do not know what you are driving at. I have nothing to do with your bucket of tar—I mean your family affairs, and I do not want to dip into it. If your kinswoman has left your agreeable society, I daresay she had her grounds of action. It is no lookout of mine, and I shall keep my fingers clear of it, I tell you. Whether you go around rummaging for her or not, I shall pay no heed, so long as you do not flounce about my ship, hardly of your burthen for such carasolling, telling me your troubles. As for this gentleman," he went on, spinning round so fiercely on Master Matasiete, with the new log line of nominatives, "I warn him charitably that if he does not stick his long cabbage cutter between his legs and scuttle off instanter, I will hurl him, his names and titles, his long nose and long moustache, clean over the side to regale the harbour scavenger. This little programme being clearly laid down, I rather think you twain had better drop back into your boat."
He thereupon turned his back on my lady as if to give his men the order. She retreated a step, but, turning as red in the gills as a turkey-cock, blurted out—
"Stay, stay, master Captain. You shall not slide out of it thus. I have an order of the secretary of the colonel governor to take my dear child back from any place whatever."
"Suppose you are good enough to let me inspect this warrant, madam?" said Mr. Lyons, quietly.
"I have no objections. You are not a boor. Your residence here has civilised you. Is it not perfectly in order?"
"Beautifully inscribed, madam," replied the pro-consul; "only that writ does not run here!"
"Why not, pray?" she exclaimed, haughtily, bridling up at the implied slight to Mexico.
"Simply because the Port Governor himself has no right to issue search warrants for foreign vessels, even though the application is backed up by so noted a banker as don Stefano Garcia. In the first place, your complaint ought to have been laid before me—from the moment an Englishman is accused. I would have then opened an inquiry, and if it appeared proper that the British shipping in port should be examined I would have so advised Colonel Fontoro, and my chancellor would have been charged to accompany you in the investigation. I do not say that, on account of the somewhat slow movements of that peculiar creature, the 'red tape worm,'" he added, smiling softly, "all these indispensable regulations would not have tried your ladyship's patience, but, I believe, our office is credited with more celerity than your own government houses. At all events, as the forms have been ignored, this order has no value. I also think you had better retire, for this captain, as he notified you very kindly, has the right to tumble you neck and crop over the board, and what little I know of him makes it certain that he will not hesitate to carry out his warning if either of you continue obstinately to stay here contrary to his will!"
It is impossible to depict the rage which swayed the stout woman as she heard this speech, in a firm voice and peremptory tone. She flew out against the speaker, the captain and all the grinning crew, to the Chinese cook and cabin boy themselves, with all the strongest insults and threats in her resonant Castilian tongue, to which had been added the native additions not found in dictionaries of the Spanish Academy, which glanced off blunted from the frigid Englishman, however.