"_Caballeros!_" interposed Rafael, passionately, "you seem inclined to doubt my word. Perhaps you are no longer disposed to regard me as your chief? We have broken bread together during four months; we have shared the same dangers and divided our spoils fairly: am I _now_ to be charged to my face with a lie?" "Ha!" said he, rising from the table and striding through the apartment with violent gestures, "who dares doubt my word, and impute to me the meanness of a lie? Are ye drunk? Can this wine have made you mad?" and seizing a bottle, he dashed it to the ground, stamping with rage. "Has the blood of last night unsettled your nerves and made you delirious? _Basta! basta!_ Let me not hear another word of doubt as to this youth. The first who utters a syllable of incredulity shall kill me on the spot or fall by my hand!" This sounds, I confess, very melo-dramatically, yet, my experience has taught me that it is precisely a bold and dashing tone of bravado, adopted at the right moment, which is always most successful among _such_ ruffians as surrounded my preserver. The speech was delivered with such genuine vehemence and resolution that no one could question his sincerity or suppose him acting. But, as soon as he was done, the leader of the other gang, who had been very unconcernedly smoking his cigar, and apparently punctuating Don Rafael's oration with his little puffs, advanced to my new uncle, and laying his hand on his arm, said:-- "_Amigo_, you take a joke too seriously. No one here certainly desires to harm the boy or disbelieve you. Take my advice,--calm yourself, light a cigarillo, drink a tumbler of claret, and drop the subject." But this process of pacification was too rapid for my excited uncle. Men of his quality require to be let down gradually from their wrath, for I have frequently noticed that when their object is too easily gained, they interpose obstacles and start new subjects of controversy, so that the most amiable and yielding temper may at last become inflamed to passionate resistance. "No, _caballeros_!" exclaimed Don Rafael, "I will neither light a _cigarillo_, drink claret, calm myself, nor accept satisfaction for this insult, short of the self-condemnation you will all experience for a mean suspicion, when I _prove_ the truth of my assertions about this boy. A doubted man has no business at the head of such fellows as you are. Begone out of my hearing, Theodore," continued he, pointing to the canvas door, "begone till I convince these people that I am your uncle!" As soon as I was out of the chamber, I afterwards learned, that Rafael announced my name, place of birth, and parentage to the wreckers, and desired the other _patron_, Mesclet, who spoke Italian, to follow and interrogate me as to his accuracy.