Her lips moved, but she did not speak. I knelt and kissed her clasped hands. They were cold to my lips. “Where are you going?” she whispered. “Into what danger are you going? I—I—take me with you!”
I rose, with a laugh at my own folly that could have rested brow and lips on those hands, and let the world wag. “Another time,” I said. “Rest in the sunshine now, and think that all is well. All will be well, I trust.”
A few minutes later saw me almost upon the party gathered about the grave. The grave had received that which it was to hold until the crack of doom, and was now being rapidly filled with sand. The crew of deep-dyed villains worked or stood or sat in silence, but all looked at the grave, and saw me not. As the last handful of sand made it level with the beach, I walked into their midst, and found myself face to face with the three candidates for the now vacant captaincy.
“Give you good-day, gentlemen!” I cried. “Is it your captain that you bury or one of your crew, or is it only pezos and pieces of eight?”
CHAPTER XXII
In which I Change my Name and Occupation
“THE sun shining on so much bare steel hurts my eyes,” I said. “Put up, gentlemen, put up! Cannot one rover attend the funeral of another without all this crowding and display of cutlery? If you will take the trouble to look around you, you will see that I have brought to the obsequies only myself.”
One by one cutlass and sword were lowered, and those who had drawn them, falling somewhat back, spat and swore and laughed. The man in black and silver only smiled gently and sadly. “Did you drop from the blue?” he asked. “Or did you come up from the sea?”
“I came out of it,” I said. “My ship went down in the storm yesterday. Your little cockboat yonder was more fortunate.” I waved my hand toward that ship of three hundred tons, then twirled my mustaches and stood at gaze.
“Was your ship so large, then?” demanded Paradise, while a murmur of admiration, larded with oaths, ran around the circle.
“She was a very great galleon,” I replied, with a sigh for the good ship that was gone.