I thought no worse of him for his revelations. In a country where the head of the custom-house lives like a prince on the salary of a beggar, smuggling is no sin. But I was angry with him, and vexed with myself for the haste with which I had met his advances. I disliked and distrusted him. Whether he was mad, or took me for another smuggler--which seemed the most probable hypothesis--or had conceived some false idea of me, whatever the key to the enigma of his manner might be, I felt that I should do well to avoid him. Like should mate with like, and I am not a violent man. I should not feel at home in a duel, though the part were played with the most domestic of fire shovels, much less with a horrible thing out of a stoke-hole. About half-past ten the _San Miguel_ began to roll, and I took the hint and went below. The small saloon was empty, the lamp turned down. As I passed the steward's pantry I looked in and begged a couple of biscuits. I am a tolerable sailor, but when things are bad my policy is comprised in "berth and biscuits." With this provision against misfortune, I retired to my cabin, happy in the knowledge that it was a four-berth one, and that I was its sole occupant. In truth I came near to chuckling as I looked round it. I did not need the experience I had had of a cabin three feet six inches by six feet three, shared with a drunken Spaniard, to lead me to view with contentment my present quarters. A lamp in a glass case lighted at once the cabin and the passage outside, and gave assurance that it would burn all night. On my right hand were an upper and lower berth, and on my left the same, with standing room between. A couch occupied the side facing me. The sliding door was supplemented by a curtain. What joy--to one who had known other things--to arrange this and stow that, and fearlessly to place in the rack sponge and tooth-brush! What wonder if I blessed the firm of Segovia Quadra and Company as I sank back upon my well-hung mattress. I sleep well at sea. The motion suits me. A slight qualm of sea-sickness does but induce a pleasant drowsiness. I love a snug berth under the porthole, and to hear the swish and wash of the water racing by, and the crisp plash as the vessel dips her forefoot under, and the complaint of the stout timbers as they creak and groan in the bowels of the ship. Cosy and warm, I fell asleep, and dreamed that I was again in the engine-room, seated opposite to the other Englishman. "Haven't you something to tell me? Haven't you something to tell me?" he droned monotonously, wagging his head from side to side, with the perplexing smile on his face which had distressed me waking. "Haven't you something to tell me?"