“What, what?” he said. “Oh, heavens and earth! there’s your girl. Of course.... Hey, bo’sun, rig a whip and chair on the yardarm to take a lady on board. Bear a hand. A lady! yes, a lady. Confound it, don’t lose your wits, man. Look over the starboard rail, and you will see a lady alongside with a Dago in a small boat. Let the Dago come on board, too; the gentleman here says he’s a good sort. Now, do you understand?” He talked to me a good deal more; told me that they had made a prisoner--“a tall, comical chap; wears his hair like an old aunt of mine, a bunch of curls flapping on each side of his face”--and then said that he must go and report to Captain Williams, who had gone into his wife’s stateroom. The name struck me. I said: “Is this ship the _Lion?_” “Aye, aye. That’s her. She is,” several seamen answered together, casting curious glances from their work. “Tell your captain my name is Kemp,” I shouted after Sebright with what strength of lung I had. What luck! Williams was the jolly little ship’s captain I was to have dined with on the day of execution on Kingston Point--the day I had been kidnapped. It seemed ages ago. I wanted to get to the side to look after Seraphina, but I simply couldn’t remember how to stand. I sat on the hatch, looking at the seamen. They were clearing the ropes, collecting the lamps, picking up knives, handspikes, crowbars, swabbing the decks with squashy flaps. A bare-footed, bare-armed fellow, holding a bundle of brass-hilted cutlasses under his arm, had lost himself in the contemplation of my person. “Where are you bound to?” I inquired at large, and everybody showed a friendly alacrity in answer. “Havana.” “Havana, sir.” “Havana’s our next port. Aye, Havana.” The deck rang with modulations of the name. I heard a loud, “Alas,” sighed out behind me. A distracted, stricken voice repeated twice in Spanish, “Oh, my greatness; oh, my greatness.” Then, shiveringly, in a tone of profound self-communion, “I have a greatly parched throat,” it said. Harshly jovial voices answered: “Stow your lingo and come before the captain. Step along.” A prisoner, conducted aft, stalked reluctantly into the light between two short, bustling sailors. Dishevelled black hair like a damaged peruke, mournful, yellow face, enormous stag’s eyes straining down on me. I recognized Manuel-del-Popolo. At the same moment he sprang back, shrieking, “This is a miracle of the devil--of the devil.” The sailors fell to tugging at his arms savagely, asking, “What’s come to you?” and, after a short struggle that shook his tatters and his raven locks tempestuously like a gust of wind, he submitted to be walked up repeating: “Is it you, Señor? Is it you? Is it _you?_”