Carlos said, “The señor, my cousin, wishes for a Mr. Macdonald. You know him, senor?”
Ramon made a dry gesture of perfect acquaintance. “I think I have seen him just now,” he said. “I will make inquiries.”
All three of them had followed him, and became lost in the crowd. It was then, not knowing whether I should ever see Carlos again, and with a desperate, unhappy feeling of loneliness, that I had sought out Barnes in the dim immensity of the steerage.
In the square of wan light that came down the scuttle he was cording his hair-trunk—unemotional and very matter-of-fact. He began to talk in an everyday voice about his plans. An uncle was going to meet him, and to house him for a day or two before he went to the barracks.
“Mebbe we’ll meet again,” he said. “I’ll be here many years, I think.”
He shouldered his trunk and climbed unromantically up the ladder. He said he would look for Macdonald for me.
It was absurd to suppose that the strange ravings of the second mate had had an effect on me. “Hanged! Pirates!” Was Carlos really a pirate, or Castro, his humble friend? It was vile of me to suspect Carlos. A couple of men, meeting by the scuttle, began to talk loudly, every word coming plainly to my ears in the stillness of my misery, and the large deserted steerage. One of them, new from home, was asking questions. Another answered:
“Oh, I lost half a seroon the last voyage—the old thing.”
“Haven’t they routed out the scoundrels yet?” the other asked.
The first man lowered his voice. I caught only that “the admiral was an old fool—no good for this job. He’s found out the name of the place the pirates come from—Rio Medio. That’s the place, only he can’t get in at it with his three-deckers. You saw his flagship?”