“Will ye look at the Gorham man?” said Captain O’Shea to the chief engineer who had joined him. “He is bristlin’ up to the nigger like a terrier pup. And Jiminez would make no more than two bites of him.” “How can the soldier do anything else?” exclaimed Johnny Kent. “He’s the only white man in the bunch.” “I may as well let him know that I am backin’ his game,” observed the other. He sang out to Gorham, and the veteran infantryman climbed to the bridge, where he stood with heels together, hat in hand. His pensive, freckled countenance failed to respond to the captain’s greeting smile. “Unless I am mistaken, Gorham, ye have it in mind to tackle a job that looks a couple of sizes too large for you. Will ye start a ruction with Jiminez?” “Until the colonel gets on his legs I’m the man to take charge of the party, sir,” answered the soldier, reflectively rubbing the bald spot which shone through his thinning thatch of sandy hair. “But I expect to take a hand,” petulantly declared the captain. “This is my ship.” “Excuse me, sir,” and Gorham’s accents were most apologetic. “This is your ship, but it ain’t your party. The patriots are a separate command. The big nigger belongs to me. If I don’t discourage him, I lose all chance of winnin’ promotion in the Cuban army. If he downs me, I’ll be called a yellow dog from one end of the island to the other. I intend to earn my shoulder-straps.” “And you will climb this big, black beggar, and thank nobody to interfere?” asked the admiring Captain O’Shea. “It is up to me, sir.” “You strain me patience, Gorham. If ye have any trinkets and messages to send to your friends, better give them to me now.” Said the chief engineer when the soldier was out of ear-shot: “Does he really mean it, Cap’n Mike? He’ll sure be a homely-lookin’ corpse.” “Mean it? That lantern-jawed lunatic wouldn’t know a joke if it hit him bows on.” “Will you let him be murdered?” “We will pry the big nigger off him before it goes as far as that. Have ye not learned, Johnny Kent, that it is poor business to come between a man and his good intentions, even though they may be all wrong?” Later in the day Captain O’Shea sought the state-room of the prostrate Colonel Calvo. The sea was a relentless foe and showed him no mercy. Feebly moving his hands, he turned a ghastly face to the visitor and croaked: “I have no interes’ in my mens, in my country, in nothings at all. I am dreadful sick. I will not live to see my Cuba. She will weep for me. The ship, she will sink pretty soon? I hope so.” “Nonsense, colonel,” bluffly returned O’Shea. “The weather couldn’t be finer. A few days more of this and ye will be wading in Spanish gore to your boot-tops. I want to ask about your stores. Your men are growlin’. Who is in charge of the commissary?” “Talk to me nothings about eats,” moaned the sufferer. “Why do anybody want eats? Come to-morrow, nex’ day, nex’ week. Now I have the wish to die with peace.”