"Ha! ha! ha! _morte de Dios_; how well he does it!" exclaimed the black-whiskered Pedro, slapping his huge thigh with a great brown, hairy hand, and showing a row of strong white teeth that a shark might envy. "But it won't do, capitano--_caramba!_ it won't do!" "I do not comprehend you, fellow!" said Hawkshaw, with an assumption of dignity. "Oho! hallo, mates, he doesn't comprehend. Shall I make him?" "Aye, aye; pitch into the cork-sucker!" growled several of the crew, bent upon mischief. "Step with me this way," said Hawkshaw, with growing perturbation, drawing Pedro Barradas towards the bow of the long-boat. "I assure you that I am quite at a loss to know what you mean." "Mean!" thundered the other, with a scowl on his dark visage, so terrible that Hawkshaw expected next moment to see a sharp knife glittering at his throat; "do you pretend to say that you have forgotten our old South American life, _camarado_, and how well you handled your lasso in the Barranca Secca, between Orizaba and the Puebla de Perote?" "You are labouring under some strange mistake." "If I were, would you take it so quietly, unless you were a coward? Mistaken! _Por vida del demonio_, I am not!" "You are, fellow!" "Oh, no, we are not mistaken," sneered the seaman. "We?" "Yes, we--Zuares and I. We knew you at once, and have known you ever since we cleared the Thames; so you may as well let your beard grow, and leave off skulking below when we take our trick at the wheel, or our spell at church on Sunday. You may as well leave off your blasted quarter-deck airs, too, for they won't go down with either of us." "Scoundrel!" began Hawkshaw. "Hah! is it to be _guerra al cuchillo_ between us?" said the half Spaniard, touching his knife with a grim smile; "if so, _cuidar con el lobo!_"--(beware of the wolf.) "Let me pass," said Hawkshaw, choking with rage. "Not yet. I see you have still on your finger the ring we cut off the hand of the old padre, whom we lured into the Barranca, by sending, in the name of our Lady of Guadaloupe, a message that he must hasten to a dying man." "Liar!" hissed Hawkshaw, while the crew drew nearer. "He bent down to hear the confession of the expiring sinner--you, capitano--YOU, who sprang up and cut his throat. Ho! ho! Demonio, I knew from the first that we were _companeros de viage_." "Villain and fiend!" muttered Hawkshaw, while drops of shame and rage rolled over his damp, pale visage, and his hands longed to clutch the muscular throat of the brawnier, mocking, and malevolent Barradas; "villain and fiend! so you are here?" "Yes, and Zuares, too, Senor Capitano, as you have known well by the skulking aft; so civility is best. Oh, neither of us have forgotten that pleasant afternoon which we spent together in the Barranca Secca." "Was I to blame for your mistake, or your brother's crime?"