“The matter! why, the skipper said he’d never seed a more hang-dog lookin’ lot; a man with a crew like that ought to be hanged on general principles, he ought. Some was half-castes; there was two Spaniards with murder scribbled all over ’em, and a Portuguese hunchback with a face like a wild gorilla; but the worst and curst of the whole swag was a grey-headed, skinny wisp of a nigger what gave our skipper fantods, and made him think of Thugs and Areois, and them sort of uncanny sarpints.”
“The skipper evidently didn’t care for Señor Cazotl and his crew,” I said.
“You’re right there, sir. He ups anchor an’ gets away the very next mornin’ before the Mexican had a chance of returning his visit.”
By this time we were abreast of the yacht, but we could not discern anyone on board; and, after weighing the remarks of the sailors, I did not feel greatly inclined to have anything to do with the strangers. But it fell out contrary to our inclinations, for, having avoided the yacht, we had no sooner reached the next bend than we nearly ran into its owner and two of his crew in a small boat coming down from the upper part of the sound. We were within twenty yards, when the man who was steering, evidently Cazotl himself, called upon his two rowers to cease pulling, and waved his hand to us, evidently wishing to speak. The sailors reluctantly obeyed the intimation, and, as we drew up within two oars’ lengths of each other I observed the huge, ungainly proportions of Cazotl sitting in the stern, and his evil face, whose low forehead, square protruding jaw, and leering lips were half concealed by a wealth of glossy black hair. His long, flat nose lent a peculiar interpretation to his face, and filled me with the strange fancy that if one of his first parents may have been a fiend, the other might certainly have been a giant ape. Moreover, there was a peculiar suggestion of red fire in his eyes which riveted my attention. As he drew nearer and was about to speak, I found myself wondering where I had seen that face before. The general cast and expression were familiar to me, but I could not recall where or when I had seen it.
“Good day to you,” he said. “Do you live in these parts, or are you a wandering star like myself?”
“Going to the head of the Sound for a time,” I replied shortly; “got a friend living there. Just come off a small sailing craft outside. That’s your yacht down there, isn’t it? You, I presume, are Señor Cazotl?”
“Yes, at your service. I should be very pleased if you and your friend at the head of the Sound would do me the honour of looking me up some evening.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I will mention your kind invitation to my friend, but his house is some miles up the Sound. We must push on if we hope to reach it before dark.”
The two sailors were not slow to ply their oars, and, as we began to move off, Señor Cazotl said: “I shall be very pleased to see you, if you care to come.”
But I did not reply, for my glance had fallen for the first time on the two who were handling the oars in his boat—and what I saw deprived me of speech for the moment. The one was a Spaniard with “murder scribbled all over him,” and the other was the white-haired, skinny, Thug-like wisp of a negro. I stared in amazement, for I recognised his wizened face as that which I had seen in the moonlight at the window of the hut on the bank of the river. In another moment I jerked out some reply—I cannot remember what—and we passed on towards the head of the Sound, while Cazotl’s boat continued its way towards the yacht.