I noticed him looking at me rather curiously, and at last he said, 'You know Señor Geraldio Wilson?'
'Old Gerald! he's my brother. Why?' I asked.
'You have the same,' and he pointed to his face and hair. Old Gerald has the same yellowish hair and grey eyes that I have.
Funny that he'd spotted me, wasn't it, for we never thought each other much alike?
'You know Gerald?' I asked him.
'All peoples know Señor Geraldio,' he replied, very courteously, but with an expression on his face as if he wasn't going to say any more.
We took them on deck, and whilst their boat was being brought alongside, and they were waiting for the Governor to come up from the Captain's cabin, they were awfully keen on the after 9.2 gun.
'Make shoot many kilometres?' the fat chap asked.
'About thirty,' I told him, doing a rough calculation in my head, and he told his black pal, and they jerked their thumbs towards the mountains. It didn't take much brains to guess that they were wondering whether we could shell the city of Santa Cruz itself. They looked at that gun jolly respectfully after that.
Later on that day, we learnt a lot about local politics from two English merchants, who came off to call and feel English 'ground'—as they expressed it—under their feet again. They looked jolly cool in their white clothes and pith sun-helmets.