“So far as I can gather,” he said, “Mr. Boyle had a narrow escape. These half-breeds have a nice anatomical knowledge of the situation of the lung; they also know the easiest way to reach it with a sharp instrument. Captain Courtenay fired as the knife fell, otherwise our first mate would have attended his own funeral this evening.” “What was the cause of the affair?” Isobel asked. “The man is not one of the ship’s crew, I understand. His name is Frascuelo, and it appears that he was engaged to place some bunker coal aboard early this morning. He says that he was drugged, and his clothes stolen; that he came off to the ship at a late hour, and that some one flung him headlong into a hold which, luckily for him, was nearly full of cotton bales. He was stunned by the fall, and were it not for Captain Courtenay’s custom of having all hatches taken off and a thorough examination of the cargo made before the holds are finally battened down for the voyage, Frascuelo might now be in a tight place in more than one sense.” Dr. Christobal was proud of his idiomatic English. He spoke the language with the careless freedom of a Londoner. “Frascuelo seems to have passed an eventful day,” said the little French Comte, who had been waiting anxiously for a chance to join in the conversation. “But why should he want to kill poor Mr. Boyle?” inquired Isobel, after giving the Frenchman an encouraging glance. Incidentally, she smiled at Elsie. “Why puzzle one’s brains over foreign tongues when all the world speaks English?” she telegraphed. “Mr. Boyle is a peculiar person,” said the doctor dryly. “I happen to have known him during some years. You and I might regard him as a man of few words, but he has acquired a wonderful vocabulary for the benefit of sailor-men. I believe he can swear in every known lingo. His accomplishment in that direction no doubt annoyed Frascuelo, who became frantic when he heard that the ship would not call at any South American port. I imagine, too, that the unfortunate fellow is still suffering from the drug which, he says, was administered to him. Anyhow, you know how the affair terminated.” “I, for one, think some consideration might have been shown him,” said Elsie. “There is no time for argument when a Chilean draws a knife, Miss Maxwell.” “But, if his story is true—” “There never yet was a stowaway who did not invent a plausible yarn. Nevertheless, I believe, and Mr. Boyle agrees with me, that the man is not lying.” They felt the ship swing round on a new course, and the rays of the setting sun lit up the saloon table through the open starboard ports.