"Wherefore, I tell you, my lily, my white pearl, that those accursed seamen and soldiers--this Rooke, who chased me once so that I lost all my goods in my flight--are tricked, hoodwinked, embustera; flanqués comme une centaine d'escargots! Done for--and so is this white-livered Englishman over there in t'other cabin--who I do believe is an English spy. Ho! that we had him in Maracaibo or Guayaquil. Hein! Hey! my snowball?"
"Hoop! Hoop!" grunted the brute, his companion. "Hoop! Maracaibo! Hoop! But, but, John"--"John," thinks I, "and to his master!"--"don't speak so loud. Perhaps they hear you."
"Let them hear and be damned to them. What care I?" Yet still he lowered his voice, though not so low but what I made out his words:
"Fitted out a fleet, did they, to intercept the galleons? Oh! the beautiful galleons! Oh! the sweet and lovely galleons! Oh, my beautiful Neustra Senora de Mercedes. You remember how she sits on the water like a swan, Cæsar? And the beautiful Santa Susanna! What ships! what lading! Oh! I heard it all in London. I know. Thought they would catch 'em in Cadiz, did they? Ha! Very well. Now, see, my lily white. They have been too quick; got in too soon--and--and what's the end on't? Those are the galleons going out--back again to the sea--and the English fleet can stop in Cadiz till the forts sink 'em or they rot. Give me some more drink. 'Of all the girls that there can be, the Indy girl's the girl for me,'" and he fell a-singing.
"If he is right, my Lord Marlborough has been deceived," I whispered to myself. "Yet which knows the most? Still this old ruffian must be right. Who else could be putting to sea but the galleons?" and I went back once more to my cabin to ponder over matters.
But now--all in a moment--there arose such an infernal hubbub from that other cabin that one might have thought all the fiends from below had been suddenly let loose; howls from the negro, so that I thought the other must be killing of him in his drunken frenzy; peals of laughter from the old man, bangings and kickings of bulkheads and the crash of a falling glass. And, in the middle of it all, down ran Tandy from the deck above, with, as I thought, a more concerned look upon his face than even such an uproar as this called for. Then he made at once for the cabin where those two were; yet, even as he advanced swiftly, he paused to ask me if I had heard him speak a passing picaroon a quarter of an hour back.
"Not I," I replied. "Who could hear aught above in such a din as this below? What did they tell you?"
"Bad! Bad news. But first to quell these brutes," and he ran on as he spoke, and kicked against the fast-closed cabin door.
"Bad news!" I repeated to myself, even as I followed him. "Bad news. My God! the old villain is right and the galleons have escaped. Farewell, my hopes of promotion; I may as well get back to the regiment by the first chance that comes."
But now I had to listen to Tandy setting his other passenger to his facings, which he did without more ado, since, the cabin door not being opened quick enough, he applied his brawny shoulder to it and soon forced it to slide back in its frame, the lock being torn out by his exertion. Then after a few oaths and curses, which need not be set down here, he roared as follows: