"He who was shot," said he, grinning.
"And who fell into the ventana?"
"Si, hombre!" (yes, man) replied the Cubano, with a shout of fierce laughter.
Absurd as this statement was, it was not without a horrid effect upon me for a moment, as he added,—
"Par los Santos! it is not so easy to kill Antonio!"
"Then I actually met you on the mountain side in Teneriffe?"
"So it would seem. A few of us had been ashore from the Costa Rican brig, the Marshal Serrano, in search of a diamond which is said to shine at night in the rocks there; but as our search was vain, we thought of raising a few silver dollars on you and your companions, as all our trouble had gone for nothing."
"But how did you reach this island?" I asked, willing, if possible, by conversing with him to gain his better mood.
"I was swept astern of the brig when the studding-sail boom parted, but I clung to it with a death clutch, and the waves, as they rose and fell, soon hid the Eugenie from me; but before that, every time I rose, half blinded, winking and spluttering on the summit of a wave, and saw her sails and spars and cabin windows glittering and looming large in the clear twilight, I sent a bitter malediction after her. However, I soon wearied of that, as it spent my breath, and when that went, the water always closed over my head."
"Had you no fear, Antonio?"