Before the Señor Montefalderon exhausted all he had to communicate, he was interrupted by Jack Tier with a singular proposition. Jack’s great desire was to get on board the Swash; and he now begged the Mexican to let Mulford take the yawl and scull him off to the brig, and return to the islet before Spike and his companions should descend from the lantern of the light-house. The little fellow insisted there was sufficient time for such a purpose, as the three in the lantern had not yet succeeded in filling the lamps with the oil necessary to their burning for a night—a duty that usually occupied the regular keeper for an hour. Five or six minutes would suffice for him; and if he were seen going up the brig’s side, it would be easy for him to maintain that he had come ashore in the boat. No one took such precise note of what was going on, as to be able to contradict him; and as to Spike and the men with him, they would probably never hear any thing about it. Don Juan Montefalderon was struck with the boldness of Jack Tier’s plan, but refused his assent to it. He deemed it too hazardous, but substituted a project of his own. The moon would not rise until near eleven, and it wanted several hours before the time of sailing. When they returned to the brig, he would procure his cloak, and scull himself ashore, being perfectly used to managing a boat in this way, under the pretence of wishing to pass an hour longer near the grave of his countryman. At the expiration of that hour he would take Jack off, concealed beneath his cloak—an exploit of no great difficulty in the darkness, especially as no one would be on deck but a hand or two keeping the anchor-watch. With this arrangement, therefore, Jack Tier was obliged to be content. Some fifteen or twenty minutes more passed, during which the Mexican again alluded to his country, and his regrets at her deplorable situation. The battles of the 8th and 9th of May, two combats that ought to, and which will reflect high honor on the little army that won them, as well as on that hardly worked, and in some respects hardly used, service to which they belong, had been just fought. Don Juan mentioned these events without reserve, and frankly admitted that success had fallen to the portion of much the weaker party. He ascribed the victory to the great superiority of the American officers of inferior rank; it being well-known that in the service of the “Republic of the North,” as he termed America, men who had been regularly educated at the military academy, and who had reached the period of middle life, were serving in the stations of captains, and sometimes in that of lieutenants; men who, in many cases, were fitted to command regiments and brigades, having been kept in these lower stations by the tardiness with which promotion comes in an army like that of this country.