“That I have never seen any such thing myself, Don Esteban, and consequently know nothing about it.”
“So I supposed; I find it hard to believe it, I do. It may be a warning to keep us from-coming any more to the Dry Tortugas; and I must say I have little heart for returning to this place, after all that has fell out here. We can go to the wreck, fish up the doubloons, and be off for Yucatan. Once in one of your ports, I make no question that the merits of the Molly will make themselves understood, and that we shall soon agree on a price.”
“What use could we put the brig to, Don Esteban, if we had her all ready for sea?”
“That is a strange question to ask in time of war! Give me such a craft as the Molly, with sixty or eighty men on board her, in a war like this, and her 'arnin's should not fall short of half a million within a twelvemonth.”
“Could we engage you to take charge of her, Don Esteban?”
“That would be ticklish work, Don Wan. But we can see. No one knows what he will do until he is tried. In for a penny, in for a pound. A fellow never knows! Ha! ha! ha! Don Wan, we live in a strange world—yes, in a strange world.”
“We live in strange times, Don Esteban, as the situation of my poor country proves. But let us talk this matter over a little more in confidence.”
And they did thus discuss the subject. It was a singular spectacle to see an honourable man, one full of zeal of the purest nature in behalf of his own country, sounding a traitor as to the terms on which he might be induced to do all the harm he could, to those who claimed his allegiance. Such sights, however, are often seen; our own especial objects too frequently blinding us to the obligations that we owe morality, so far as not to be instrumental in effecting even what we conceive to be good, by questionable agencies. But the Señor Montefalderon kept in view, principally, his desire to be useful to Mexico, blended a little too strongly, perhaps, with the wishes of a man who was born near the sun, to avenge his wrongs, real or fancied.
While this dialogue was going on between Spike and his passenger, as they paced the quarter-deck, one quite as characteristic occurred in the galley, within twenty feet of them—Simon, the cook, and Josh, the steward, being the interlocutors. As they talked secrets, they conferred together with closed doors, though few were ever disposed to encounter the smoke, grease, and fumes of their narrow domains, unless called thither by hunger.
“What you t'ink of dis matter Josh?” demanded Simon, whose skull having the well-known density of his race, did not let internal ideas out, or external ideas in as readily as most men's. “Our young mate was at de light-house beyond all controwersy; and how can he be den on dat rock over yonder, too?”