His brother, he said, had charge of the specie sent out in their ship; and, as his wife had been recommended change of air, he determined to take her with him on the voyage to Cuba, thinking the trip out and home would do her good, as well as the poor little baby, who had been only born two months to the very day on which they sailed from Cadiz. All went well with them until they were near the Azores, or Western Islands, where the ship sprang a leak and met with such baffling winds that she was driven back to the eastward, close in to the Portuguese coast; when the crew, who were tired out with keeping to the pumps, managed to broach the cargo and madden themselves with the liquor they found below. "What happened next?" asked Captain Farmer, on his pausing here to take breath and put the cordial to his lips. "I suppose they got drunk on the sherry, my friend?" "Ah, yes, los maladettos--the cursed devils!" replied the Spanish captain, his eyes flashing with anger. "If the brutes had only got drunk, neither my brother nor I would have minded it much, although they might have done so at our expense, it being our wine which they wasted, the brutes!" He then went on to state that the men became so violent and insubordinate, that when his brother and himself battened down the hatches to prevent their broaching any more of the casks, they broke into open mutiny. The mate was the ringleader of the conspiracy. It was this rascal, he said, who informed the crew that they had specie aboard, which the mutineers now demanded should be given up to them and they be allowed to leave the ship in one of her boats, the mate telling them that the vessel was almost in sight of Vigo--a fact which he, the captain, had only disclosed to him in confidence that very day within an hour or so of the outbreak, so that the mutiny appeared to be a planned thing. "Well," said Captain Farmer, "what did you do then?" "We refused their insolent demand, of course," he answered, "in spite of the mate and another scoundrel drawing their knives and making for us. My brother knocked down Gomez at once, and the sailor I kicked into the scuppers; the two of us then retreated to the cabin, where we kept them at bay for the whole of that night and all the following day, as we had with us all the firearms in the ship, and it was out of their power to dislodge us." "And how was it then you did not succeed in getting the upper hand of them in the end, instead of the affair turning out as it did?" In reply to this question from our captain, the Spaniard's emotion again overcame him. "Ay, it was all my fault, and I of all men am the most miserable!" he cried. "Yo, I it was who caused the death of those I loved best!" "Carramba, Senor Capitano," said Captain Farmer, trying to soothe him. "You do yourself an injustice. I can't see where you were to blame!"