His air was so gay, so uncomplaining, that it was hard to believe it came from him. “You could not have acted worse if you had owed me a grudge, Carlos,” I said. “I want an explanation. But I don’t want to kill you....” “Oh, no, oh, no,” he said; “in a minute I will tell.” He dropped a gold ball into a silver basin that was by the bedside, and it sounded like a great bell. A nun in a sort of coif that took the lines of a buffalo’s horns glided to him with a gold cup, from which he drank, raising himself a little. Then the religious went out with Tomas Castro, who gave me a last ferocious glower from his yellow eyes. Carlos smiled. “They try to make my going easy,” he said. “_Vamos!_ The pillow is smooth for him who is well loved.” He shut his eyes. Suddenly he said, “Why do you, alone, hate me, John Kemp? What have I done?” “God knows I don’t hate you, Carlos,” I answered. “You have always mistrusted me,” he said. “And yet I am, perhaps, nearer to you than many of your countrymen, and I have always wished you well, and you have always hated and mistrusted me. From the very first you mistrusted me. Why?” It was useless denying it; he had the extraordinary incredulity of his kind. I remembered how I had idolized him as a boy at home. “Your brother-in-law, my cousin Rooksby, was the very first to believe that I was a pirate. I, a vulgar pirate! I, Carlos Riego! Did he not believe it--and you?” He glanced a little ironically, and lifted a thin white finger towards the great coat-of-arms. “That sort of thing,” he said, “_amigo mio_, does not allow one to pick pockets.” He suddenly turned a little to one side, and fixed me with his clear eyes. “My friend,” he said, “if I told you that Rooksby and your greatest Kent earls carried smugglers’ tubs, you would say I was an ignorant fool. Yet they, too, are magistrates. The only use I have ever made of these ruffians was to-day, to bring you here. It was a necessity. That O’Brien had gone on to take you when you arrived. You would never have come alive out of Havana. I was saving your life. Once there, you could never have escaped from that man.” I saw suddenly that this might be the truth. There had been something friendly in Tomas Castro’s desire not to compromise me before the people on board the ship. Obviously he had been acting a part, with a visible contempt for the pilfering that he could not prevent. He _had_ been sent merely to bring me to Rio Medio. “I never disliked you,” I protested. “I do not understand what you mean. All I know is, that you have used me ill--outrageously ill. You have saved my life now, you say. That may be true; but why did you ever make me meet with that man O’Brien?”