“Garotte Cape.”
The listener slowly raised the mutilated hand, and put the finger with the sapphire ring to his throat, evidently not liking the name of that cape, for it caused a choking sensation to utter it––“Ho! Cape Garotte!”
“Yes, sir; and Darcantel’s father here once chartered a vessel, and went all the way down there to explore the place, and was gone fifteen months! Wasn’t he, Darky?” said the boy, familiarly.
“Mouse, I tell you what it is, if you don’t shut up that little flytrap of yours, I’ll make Rat lick you when you go on board!”
“Rat lick me?” said Tiny, as he jumped straight up in the cot; “I gave him and Martin a black eye apiece only on our last boat-duty day for saying your father, the doctor, had killed his brother-in-law in a duel!”
“Hush, my dear little fellow! you did a very foolish thing. There, say no more on that subject; it gives me pain, my Tiny. So talk on as much as you like.”
“My dear friend,” exclaimed the lad, in a broken voice; as he plunged through his net and put his arms around Darcantel, “I wouldn’t grieve you for the world; but do you suppose, little as I am, that I wouldn’t fight for the doctor, who is so kind to me, and has done so much for my poor dear sweet mother?”
Here there was a sob as he wound his arms closer round his friend’s neck, and cried like a child, as he was.
“Well, never mind, Tiny; go to sleep, now! I am not angry. There, turn in!”
“I won’t speak another word to-night, Harry, for any soul breathing––little fool that I am!”