But in spite of the one white man in the launch below it did not go with the speed the mate would have desired. The crew of the alternating launch was demoralized and worthless to the last degree. “Half dead--and it’s a _fiesta_ besides, so they’re half drunk, too,” he remarked upon it to the captain. He pushed his cap back with the visor on his crown, and ran across his wet forehead the sleeve of a coat which had begun the day white. It was two o’clock of an October afternoon, and the heat was one of these things the fullness whereof can only be realized from having been experienced, which mere imagination is powerless to present. The _lancheros_ were fumbling aimlessly at a load of steel rails. There was no white man in this lighter, and the management of it showed as much. Three rails were swung clashing together down on some crates that smashed like match-boxes under them. The mate raised his shoulders. It was not his business--so long as the breakage was not done on the ship, he was not accountable for it. Checky and the _capitan_ of the “lanch” could settle that on shore. “What’s in those crates?” the captain inquired. “Merchandise--breakable,” answered the first-officer, cheerfully. “Brutes,” commented the captain. He gave expression to his views on black-and-tan _lancheros_ in general. The mate nodded. He bent over the hatchway. “Quartermaster,” he called, “send up somebody with a marlinspike to mend this sling.” Then he went over and looked down into the launch. “_Despacio abajo_, hurry up--eh?” he shouted by way of suggestion to four _lancheros_ who were pulling two ways on every rail, and had managed to drop into the water a rope sling, which it was affording them much concern and confusion, and the others much chattering and amusement, to fish out again. Marsden did not appear to be in a communicative mood, but the captain was oblivious to moods after the manner of the insistently good-humored and talkative. “It must be infernally unpleasant for that white fellow to work with the dogs,” he opined. “I expect so,” said Marsden. It was not a tone encouraging a pursuance of the subject. But the captain did not know it. “The _capitan_ won’t stand his bossing some time,” he kept it up; “there’ll be a row, and the whole crew’ll take only too much pleasure in sticking their knives into him. He looks steady. Must be in a pretty bad way to come to that. Don’t know that I ever saw a white man in the fix along here before. He’d better get out of it while his skin’s whole.” “Wonder who he is?” he asked, presently. It was in the nature of an inquiry addressed to no one in general, and the mate in particular. The mate did not answer. He was concerning himself about a delay in the hold, and called down some orders which were superfluous, in view of the fact that the boatswain had just gone scuttling down the ladder to attend to things himself.