Diego drooped his head and was silent. Martin Alonzo thought he was obstinate, when in fact he was torn between doubt and anguish. What was his duty? The great muscular hand of the captain fell upon his shoulder and gripped it tight, the angry man not realizing perhaps his own energy, and causing Diego severe pain.
“Will you speak? You had tongue enough a while since. Speak, I warn you!”
Martin Alonzo was doubly angry now. Angry at what he believed was Diego’s obstinacy, and angry that he should meet with a check before the crew. If he had doubted his ability to make Diego speak he would not have essayed it so publicly; but, since he had essayed it, he was determined to succeed; for Martin Alonzo was a man who at all times would have his own way, and who was used to being supreme and undisputed when at sea on his own vessel.
Diego was well satisfied that nothing on the score of relationship would stand between him and the wrath of his cousin should he refuse to speak and tell what he knew. It was true, he might lie. How should any one know that he had cognizance of what had happened? Was it not more likely, indeed, that his denial would be the more readily credited in view of the fact that he had been a sort of outcast among the crew? Well, he did not even think of lying. A lie is the coward’s refuge, and he was not a coward.
He was pale, he trembled, and his voice was unsteady; but when he looked up at his cousin his eye did not quail.
“I had naught to do with it, and I have naught to say,” were his words.
Martin Alonzo’s face grew gray with sudden wrath. He was in no mood then to credit Diego with the courage he had before denied him. He only knew, or believed, that his vessel had been put in jeopardy by some miscreant, and that the boy before him knew who it was and refused to divulge his knowledge. Diego was no more to him than any other boy on the vessel would have been.
“You know, and you refuse to tell!” he said, hoarsely. “Now I ask you again, and I bid you think twice ere you answer.”
Even at that moment—a terrible moment to him, with his fear of his cousin—the picture rose in his mind of Fray Antonio bidding him think twice ere he set foot to ground. Ah, the good fray! the sweet, peaceful days forever lost! It had been so funny then; it was so pathetic now!