"Verdaderamente" (Truly), added Louis. "But don't you be alarmed."
"The Pacha will put me in the prison!" gasped poor Felipe.
"Not a bit of it!" protested Captain Scott. "You belong to the Guardian-Mother, and Captain Ringgold will protect you."
It required some minutes to overcome the tribulation of the Spanish engineer. He had obtained an interior view of Mohammedan institutions, and he had a mortal terror of being restored to the service of his former master.
"We must run away from him, Felipe," said the captain.
"I don't know," added the engineer, shaking his head to intensify his doubt.
"Do you know how much water the Fatimé draws, Felipe?" asked Scott, as he looked through the back windows of the pilot-house over the promenade deck at the Pacha's steamer.
"Draws?" queried Felipe, who did not comprehend the meaning of the question, as he looked to his instructor for further light. "Ella no es caballo" (She is not a horse).
"How deep in the water does she set?" Louis interpreted the expression, and resorted to other paraphrases of the question till he made him understand it.
"Quince piés" (Fifteen feet), he answered, directing his reply to his teacher.