"No, sah, and I dun wan' to. Her laugh make my blood creep. It's wuss dan her singing, sah. Now and agin she laugh, but now she sings no mo'."
"How is she watched at night, do you know?"
He twisted his hand to indicate the turning of a key in its lock, by which I gathered that madame by night was locked up in her cabin.
"Is she watched?"
"Mariana him sometime sleep and sometime sit at her door. When him sleep, den Don Christoval keep watch. When Don Christoval sleep den t'odder gent keep watch. Dey makes tree watches ob it, sah."
I asked him how he knew this. He answered in his negro speech that he had found it out by looking and listening.
"But what are you to find out by listening?" said I. "You don't understand Spanish, and those three men among themselves talk in no other language."
"Mariana, him say to me in de galley, 'Tom,' him say, 'you look to de sailors' pudden. De massa wan' me to keep watch in de cabin.' I say, 'Why you no sleep now in the fok'sle?' and he say he hab business in de cabin."
Here the boy ceased; the poor fellow conveyed his meaning with difficulty, yet I could see his face working with the intelligence of an explanation which lay in his brain, but which his tongue wanted English to impart. That he knew the lady was watched by the three Spaniards in the manner described by him—that is to say, in three watches, by night at all events, if not by day—was certain.