"Come, De Walden," said I; "let us hear the story, since we can get nothing out of Listado there." "Out of me, Brail? you are mighty unreasonable; how the devil can you get any thing out of an empty vessel, which I am at this blessed"--nuzzle--nuzzle--nuzzle. Here, in his zeal to stow his cargo, he became quite unintelligible, and I again asked the midshipman to enlighten us. "Why, sir," said he, "I know nothing regarding it, saving what Monsieur Listado _told_ me." "Well, tell what I told you, then; that's a good fellow"--mumble, mumble, munch, munch, quoth our amigo. "Brail, some of that ham;--go on, De Walden, will ye--devil take the fellow;--bread, if you please, Monsieur Duquesné--thank you. How deucedly hungry I am, to be sure;--that claret, Brail--and the _monkey_ of cool water--thank you--work along, Henry." The handsome boy laughed. "Really, Mr Brail, I don't know that any thing I have heard can interest you--Monsieur Listado there has been frequently at the prison confabulating with the hangman." "Bah, you be hanged yourself, Henry," shouted our uproarious friend, with his mouth full of bread and butter. "Well, he is the jailer at the genteelest, then--and he, it seems, told him first of all that Adderfang had been unexpectedly better--then, that he grew worse--then better again, until yesterday, when he told our accomplished friend"---- "Henry, do you value your life, you villain?" said Listado, threatening him with his knife in one hand, and the bread in another, as if he would have cast it at his head, but still munching away. "To be sure I do, Listado, so let me get on. As I was saying, when he called yesterday--lo! the prison had been broken into some weeks ago, and the villain stolen--that's all." "All!" echoed I; "so you were really right as to the man we saw being Adderfang." "I never had a doubt of it in my own mind," said the midshipman. "Why," I continued, "there must have been connivance." M. Duquesné smiled. "Ah, Monsieur Brail, de road--way you call, of dis country, and de habitants, you not know--I make no vonder not large at all--it has happen very customary." "And so it has," said Mr Hudson; "the truth is, Mr Brail, that here in Havanna few people are inimical to the trade Adderfang was engaged in; on the contrary, it is all but openly encouraged; nor have they any great horror even to a piratical cruise now and then, _if_ successful; and where could they get such a determined fellow for a leader as this same Adderfang, who, I learn, was bred a sailor in early life, although for some years after his father's death he remained at home and studied for the bar? at least so said your man Lennox."