“I shall not touch it, boy. But if you wish I will keep it safe.”
So they gave him their gold to keep. Then Juan spoke to him.
“I crave your pardon, Martin Alonzo, but I wish to speak in behalf of Miguel.”
“The knave!” said Martin Alonzo, frowning.
“He tried to save me, cousin. He did, indeed,” said Diego.
“Why, so he has always sworn, but I believed him not. Why, then, he must be freed; but he is a scurvy fellow at best. If he had been half in earnest he might have saved you, it seems to me,” said Martin Alonzo, who, as Diego and Juan afterwards discovered, had not grown less obstinate during their absence.
Being in some measure the cause of his imprisonment, Diego went with Juan to see the man unchained. Miguel was in a strange mood. At first he refused to speak to Juan at all; but afterwards thawed and was as friendly as ever, not only to him, but to Diego, acting as if he had forgotten that he had ever seemed to dislike the latter. And, indeed, it never was certain that he did remember; for, to make an end of his part in this story, he was never himself again, and, in fact, died before ever the Pinta reached Spain, nobody rightly knowing what his ailment was.
“DIEGO WENT WITH JUAN TO SEE THE MAN UNCHAINED.”