Johnnie recognised Hull.
"I thought you had been asleep," he said, "but thou art very welcome. We are talking of grave matters dealing with the foreign parts to which we go, and the Señor Don here hath been telling us much. Still, thou wouldst not have understood hadst thou been with us, for Don Perez speaks naught but the Spanish and the French."
The little Spaniard, standing up against the bulwarks, looked uneasily towards Commendone and his servant, comprehending nothing of what was said.
"This man is safe?" he asked in a trembling voice.
"Safe!" Johnnie answered. "This is my faithful servant, who would die for me and the lady who is sleeping below."
A freakish humour possessed him, a bitter, freakish humour, in this fantastic, brilliant moonlight, this ironic comedy upon the southern-growing seas.
"Take him by the hand, Señor," he said in Spanish, "take him by his great, strong right hand, for I'll wager you will not easily shake a hand so honest in the dominions of the King of Spain to which we sail."
The little man looked round him as if in fear. There was an obvious suggestion in his eyes and face that he was somehow trapped.
"Hold out thy hand, John Hull, and shake that of this honest gentleman," Johnnie said.
The big brown hand of the Englishman went out, the little yellow fingers of the Spaniard advanced tentatively towards it.