"Oh, this rascally Spanish Creole has been swearing at the men again, and threatening old Roberts."
"He vows, sir, he will burn the ship," said Roberts, who seemed considerably excited.
"Burn the ship," reiterated Weston. "I have a great mind to put him in the bilboes for the remainder of the voyage."
"'Twere best for all concerned, sir," said Tom Lambourne, touching his forelock with his right hand, and giving the deck a scrape with his left foot; "or set him adrift with some provisions in the jolly-boat."
"Come, come, Antonio," said Weston, with greater severity than I had hitherto seen expressed in his open and honest countenance, "you must haul your wind—for some time you have been going too far. I can't spare my jolly-boat, and, thank heaven! the days of marooning are past among British sailors, but beware you, shipmate, or the bilboes it shall be, and we have a pretty heavy pair below. And as for you, Marc Hislop," he added, in a low voice, when we walked aft, "take care of yourself, for these Spanish Creoles are as slippery and treacherous as serpents."
"I'll keep my weather eye open," said Hislop.
"You will require to do so, I think."
"You do?" exclaimed the Scotsman, with growing anger. "If he proceeds thus, I'll break either his heart or his neck."
Next morning, Roberts the old man-o'-war's man, who had always been Antonio's chief accuser concerning his dreams, was nowhere to be found on board!
All the hands were turned up; the whole brig was searched, the forecastle berths, the cable-tier, and every place below from the fore to the after peak, but there was no trace of Roberts, save his old tarpaulin-hat, lying crushed and torn in the lee scuppers.