“You paid me off for that bit, sir,” he said bashfully. “It was in the way of duty.” “I’m uncommon glad you didn’t squeeze the ghost out of me,” I said; “a morning like this is enough to make you glad you can breathe.” To this day I remember the beauty of that rugged, grizzled, hairy seaman’s eyelashes. They were long and thick, shadowing the eyes softly like the lashes of a young girl. “I’m sure, sir, we wish you luck--to you and the young lady--all of us,” he said shamefacedly; and his bass, half-concealed mutter was quite as sweet to my ears as a celestial melody; it was, after all, the sanction of simple earnestness to my desires and hopes--a witness that he and his like were on my side in the world of romance. “Well, go forward now, Mike,” Sebright said, as I took the pistol. “It’s a blessing to talk to one’s own people,” I said, expansively, to him. “He’s a fine fellow.” I stuck the pistol in my belt. “I trust I shall never need to use barrel or butt again, as long as I live.” “A very sensible wish,” Sebright answered, with a sort of reserve of meaning in his tone; “especially as on board here we couldn’t find you a single pinch of powder for a priming. Do you notice the consort we have this morning?” “What do I want with powder?” I asked. “Do you mean that?” I pointed to the white sail of the schooner. Sebright, looking hard at me, nodded several times. “We sighted her as soon as day broke. D’you know what she means?” I said I supposed she was a coaster. “It means, most likely, that the fellow with the curls that made me think of my maiden aunt, has managed to keep his horse-face above water.” He meant Manuel-del-Popolo. “What mischief he may do yet before he runs his head into a noose, it’s hard to say. The old Spaniard you brought with you thinks he has already been busy--for no good, you may be sure.” “You mean that’s one of the Rio schooners?” I asked quickly. That, with all its consequent troubles forme, was what he did mean. He said I might take his word for it that, with the winds we had had, no craft working along the coast could be just there now unless she came out of Rio Medio. There was a calm almost up to sunrise, and it looked as if they had towed her out with boats before daylight.... “Seems a rather unlikely bit of exertion for the lazy brutes; but if they are as much afraid of that confounded Irishman as you say they are, that would account for their energy.” They would steal and do murder simply for the love of God, but it would take the fear of a devil to make them do a bit of honest work--and pulling an oar _was_ honest work, no matter why it was done. This was the combined wisdom of Sebright and of Tomas Castro, with whom he had been in consultation. As to the fear of the devil, O’Brien was very much like a devil, an efficient substitute. And there was certainly somebody or something to make them bestir themselves like this....