"'But who is Black Pablo?' I demanded. 'Is he the head of this gang?'
"'Is he.... hell?' cried Dutchey. 'Dere ain't no one amounts to a row o' beans since El Cojo come along. Black Pablo, Neque, Mahon.... dere's not one of them dawg-gorn four-flushers dare open deir face when El Cojo's round. Dey shoot off deir mouth to me 'bout deir l'il island. Pretty goddam mysterious 'bout it, too. No blab to Dutchey, dey say. El Cojo won't have it. But Dutchey knows. Blarst me sowl....'
"Dutchey had a great flow of language. And he let it rip as he told me the way he meant to crow over El Cojo and his gang when he got back to San Salvador."
Adams had warmed to his story and a little red had crept into his cheeks. He was an excellent raconteur and he seemed to enjoy reproducing the extraordinary lingo of his friend Dutchey.
"We rowed over to the ship again," he resumed, "and as soon as I had a moment alone I had another look at the writing on the oilsilk. But I could make nothing of it. I thought I'd keep it, though, just for luck, so I strung it round my neck and forgot all about it until one day in the calaboose at San Salvador I overheard a very curious conversation. Can you reach the pannikin? Thanks!"
The outcast drank and wiped his mouth on the back of his dirty white cuff.
"You know the way they lock one up in these Dago jails—all in a common room together. Well, a day or two after I got in I was sitting on the floor with my back against the wall taking a bit of a siesta when suddenly I heard the name 'Neque.' I recollected at once that Dutchey had spoken of 'Neque' as one of El Cojo's gang because once, years ago, I had a Spanish pal whose nickname was 'Neque'—I used to play polo with him in Madrid—and the name was familiar to me.
"I opened my eyes and saw two of the prisoners sitting on the floor within a yard of me talking together in Spanish. Everybody else was asleep. The one whom I discovered to be Neque was a young fellow of about twenty-five, very slim and wiry. His companion was a dark man with a yellow face, a broken nose, and a patch over one eye. I closed my eyes quickly again and pretended to be asleep.
"'Such accursed luck!' the younger man said, 'five hundred thousand dollars in gold and you and I will not be there to share it!'
"'Caraco!' replied the fat man, 'but who shall say it is there?'