“Well, I’m glad to see you again, Capt. Spike,” cried Wallace, after the greetings were passed, “if it be only to ask where you flew to, the day we left you in the Mona Passage? We look’d out for you with all our eyes, expecting you would be down between San Domingo and Jamaica, but I hardly think you got by us in the night. Our master thinks you must have dove, and gone past loon-fashion. Do you ever perform that manœuvre?” “No, we’ve kept above water the whole time, lieutenant,” answered Spike, heartily; “and that is more than can be said of the poor fellow alongside of us. I was so much afraid of the Isle of Pines, that I went round Jamaica.” “You might have given the Isle of Pines a berth, and still have passed to the northward of the Englishmen,” said Wallace, a little drily. “However, that island is somewhat of a scarecrow, and we have been to take a look at it ourselves. All’s right there, just now. But you seem light; what have you done with your flour?” “Parted with every barrel of it. You may remember I was bound to Key West, and a market. Well, I found my market here, in American waters.” “You have been lucky, sir. This ‘emporium’ does not seem to be exactly a _commercial_ emporium.” “The fact is, the flour is intended for the Havanna; and I fancy it is to be shipped for slavers. But I am to know nothing of all that, you’ll understand, lieutenant. If I sell my flour in American waters, at two prices, it’s no concern of mine what becomes of it a’terwards.” “Unless it happen to pass into enemy’s hands, certainly not; and you are too patriotic to deal with Mexico, just now, I’m sure. Pray, did that flour go down when the schooner turned turtle?” “Every barrel of it; but Don Wan, below there, thinks that most of it may yet be saved, by landing it on one of those Keys to dry. Flour, well packed, wets in slowly. You see we have some of it on deck.” “And who may Don Wan be, sir, pray? We are sent here to look after Dons and Donas, you know.” “Don Wan is a Cuban merchant, and deals in such articles as he wants. I fell in with him among the reefs here, where he was rummaging about in hopes of meeting with a wrack, he tells me, and thinking to purchase something profitable in that way; but finding I had flour, he agreed to take it out of me at this anchorage, and send me away in ballast at once. I have found Don Wan Montefalderon ready pay, and very honorable.”