In the darkness of early evening, before the moon rose, we would sit on deck munching sugar-cane while the Captain told us many a tale of his young days, when he was the prosperous owner of a schooner twice the size of the “Josefa Jacinta” and when smuggling brought adventure and yellow gold in abundance. He was full of legend and superstition. He told us of aged men and women, both among the Indians and the Spaniards, who he declared can by a peculiar whistle call together all the snakes in the vicinity and then by incantations so hypnotize them that they can be handled with impunity. The owner of a hacienda will sometimes employ one of these charmers to call together the snakes, which can then be killed. The performers themselves, however, will never harm a snake. He told many a story of black magic arts, in which he firmly believed, of sending to one’s enemies scourges of rats or deadly diseases or departed spirits to make life unendurable. [Illustration: FIG. 45. GUARAUNO INDIANS COMING TO TRADE AT CAÑO COLORADO.] Finally the crew would roll up in their blankets in the bow, the Captain would disappear beneath his _mosquitaro_, which would tremble and quake in the moonlight until he lay quiet in his hammock. We would creep beneath our tent of netting to write up the last notes of the day or to listen to the sounds of the night. From the bow would come a low murmur of voices in some weird chanting song until the Captain roared out for all hands to go to sleep. But he would not practice what he preached for he always talked himself to sleep, sometimes in English, or in Spanish or again in Creole, while now and then he would mingle all three. By day one would not have suspected Filo, the mate, of being a person of romance; but under the spell of the tropical moonlight he would often tell stories to the crew; stories in which the heroine was always “_Muy preciosa, muy joven, muy linda_,”—very charming, very young and very beautiful. She would set difficult tasks for her many lovers, and her favored suitor would be the one who most bravely bore himself under the tests. I remember one tale to which the crew listened with awe; in which one of the lovers was to lie all night in the cathedral, stiff and still like a corpse; another was to go to the same cathedral on the same night dressed in winding sheets like a ghost; another was to represent the angel of death, while a fourth impersonated the devil; and a fifth was sent as an ordinary man. Of course none of them were to know of the others having been sent by the fair heroine of the story; and of course the fortunate lover was the one who showed no terror and passed the night quietly in the church, returning in the morning to claim his bride.