Before he went up he turned to the sailors.
"Two of you follow me," he commanded.
He climbed quickly up the ladder and stepped out on the deck, gazing about him eagerly.
He saw about a dozen dark-faced Spaniards gathered together and glaring at him; one of them, wearing the uniform of the captain, stepped forward toward him.
He was a surly, ill-looking man, with a heavy dark mustache. He bowed stiffly to the cadet.
"The senor takes possession," he said, in a low voice.
Clif was so busy watching this man that he did not look around the vessel. But we must do so.
We must glance for one instant at the capstan, which was just behind where the jaunty young cadet was standing. There was an interesting person near the capstan.
Clif did not see him; and neither did the sailors, nor even the Spaniards on the vessel. For he was crouching behind the capstan, out of sight.
He was a small man, dark and swarthy. He was the same one we noticed glaring at Clif; he had recognized him, and realized in a flash that the issue between them was death—death for one or else death for the other.