The prudent captain of salteadores and pirates, as the case might be, took care not to intervene while under don Jorge Federico's eye. His own wandered after he had secured an open way to retreat, and he managed, unseen by the others, to exchange a glance with Ignacio, whose head just peeped up out of the fore hatch, where he was ensconced.
"This is all very well," cried the enormous virago at last, "I do withdraw because you are all in the plot against me, and I have no power, poor little weak woman (afeniquita) that I am to enforce my rights! But I'll spend half my fortune to punish this outrage. Oh, that the guns of the island would blow you over the little stars if you seek to escape me. We shall meet again, you puppy; come, Don Aníbal Cristobal de Luna y Pizarro y Amalgro de Cortes, follow me. I have taken a vow that you shall be my son-in-law; and you shall wear that title though it cost me my own name."
"You are not likely to lose yours by marriage," observed Mr. Gladsden, accompanying her to the side opening. "At least, I'll back that opinion roundly."
"Vulgar buffoon!" she exclaimed, shrugging her shoulders till her jewels jingled like a head mule's bells. "Come, dear Don Aníbal; let us leave this Indian canoe. I repeat that you shall be the husband of my daughter."
The Mexican had stepped into the boat, spite of the rule to give place to the dame, and omitted to offer his hand, as a fresh arrival shocked his sight. It was Benito Vázquez Bustamente, coming off with his baggage in a shore boat, managed by a couple of Indians, one young enough to be the grandchild of the other. Both had those bloodshot eyes which are the living tokens of a life as a pearl diver.
"You may bestow your daughter on whom you like," interposed the young Mexican, at one spring impatiently clearing the shallop and the ducking heads of the startled soldiers, and alighting between the robber captain and that of the Burlonilla, who seemed about to step into the flat boat and cuff the Mexican even there. "But doña Dolores is only your niece, and you lie after the most shameful pattern when you pretend to the honour of being her mother."
This unexpected address so dumbfounded the huge señora, that she almost fell back upon the soldier, and would have done so only that the prick of a bayonet, "peaking up," broke into her absence of mind, due to the consternation.
Amid a roar of laughter as she floundered upon the nearly crushed soldier, trying to right her upon her feet, the shallop was pushed off, and the Indians of Benito aiding the movement and from it glancing to the brigantine's side, their little boat took its place, and began to discharge the baggage which the pearl diver had collected to make his wife's voyage more comfortable.
A little while after the deputy-consul, thanked warmly by all parties concerned, entered his longboat, and was rapidly transported to land, even before the infuriated don Aníbal and the lady whom he had so feebly cavaliered arrived at the pier side. It seemed to him, as he glanced amusedly into it, that a strange face had been added to the crew, but his attention was immediately diverted by smoke beyond the breakwater, denoting the coming of a steamer, and he forbore to increase the humiliation of the two Mexicans by dwelling on them.
Not a quarter of an hour afterwards, as the steamer was signalled, and showing her private emblem, was telegraphed to don Stefano Garcia as the Casta Susana, of Acapulco, direct from the Sandwich Islands, consigned to him, the goleta left the port, speeding under all sail, right through the steamer's trailing smoke.