He lowered his tone to impress us more, and the point of the knife, as it were an emphatic forefinger, tapped the open palm forcibly. Did we think that a man was not already riding along the coast to Havana on a fast mule?--the very best mule from the stables of Don Balthasar himself--that murdered saint. The Captain-General had no such mules. His late excellency owned a sugar estate halfway between Rio Medio and Havana, and a relay of riding mules was kept there for quickness when His Excellency of holy memory found occasion to write his commands to the capital. The news of our escape would reach the _Juez_ next day at the latest. Manuel would take care of that--unless he were drowned. But he could swim like a fish. Malediction! “I cried out to you to kill!” he addressed me directly; “with all my soul I cried. And why? Because he had seen you and the senorita, too, alas! He should have been made dumb--made dumb with your pistol, Señor, since those two stupid English mariners were too much for an old man like me. Manuel should have been made dumb--dumb forever, I say. What mattered he--that gutter-born offspring of an evil _Gitana_, whom I have seen, Señor! I, myself, have seen her in the days of my adversity in Madrid, Señor--a red flower behind the ear, clad in rags that did not cover all her naked skin, looking on while they fought for her with knives in a wine-shop full of beggars and thieves. Si, senor. That’s his mother. _Improvisador--politico--capataz_. Ha.... Dirt!” He made a gesture of immense contempt. “What mattered he? The coach would have returned from the cathedral, and the Casa Riego could have been held for days--and who could have known you were not inside. I had conversed earnestly with Cesar the major-domo--an African, it is true, but a man of much character and excellent sagacity. Ah, Manuel! Manuel! If I------But the devil himself fathers the children of such mothers. I am no longer in possession of my first vigour, and you, Señor, have all the folly of your nation....” He bared his grizzled head to me loftily. “... And the courage! Doubtless, that is certain. It is well. You may want it all before long, Señor... And the courage!” The broken plume swept the deck. For a time he blinked his creased, brown eyelids in the sun, then pulled his hat low down over his brows, and, wrapping himself up closely, turned away from me to look at the sail to leeward. “What an old, old, wrinkled, little, puffy beggar he is!” observed Sebright, in an undertone... “Well, and what is your worship’s opinion as to the purpose of that schooner?” Castro shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows?”... He released the gathered folds of his cloak, and moved off without a look at either of us.