At this uproar I could hear Don Ricardo striking a light, and presently he appeared with a candle in his hand, more than half naked, with la senora peering through the half-opened door behind him. “Ave Maria purissima--what is the matter? Where is el Senior Bang?” “Mucho, mucho,” shouted Bang from below the table. “Send for a doctoribus, Senor Richarsum. I am dead and t’other thing help!--help!” “Dios guardo usted,” again ejaculated Campana. “What has befallen him?” addressing the skipper, who was by this time on his head’s antipodes in bed, rubbing his eyes, and in great amazement. “Tell him, my dear Transom, that a scorpion fell from the roof, and stung me on the nose.” “What says he?” enquired the Spaniard. Poor Transom’s intellect was at this time none of the clearest, being more than half asleep, and not quite so sober as a hermit is wont to be; besides, he must needs speak Spanish, of which he was by no means master, which led to a very comical blunder. Alacran, in Spanish, means scorpion, and Cayman, an alligator, not very similar in sound certainly, but the termination being the same, he selected in the hurry the wrong phrase. “He says,” replied Transom in bad Spanish, “that he has swallowed an alligator, or something of that sort, sir.” Then a loud yawn. “Swallowed a what?” rejoined Campana, greatly astonished. “No, no,” snorted the captain--“I am wrong--he says he has been stung by an alligator.” “Stung by an alligator!--impossible.” “Why, then,” persisted the skipper, “if he be not stung by an alligator, or if he has not really swallowed one, at all events an alligator has either stung or swallowed him--so make the most of it, Don Ricardo.” “Why this is absurd, with all submission,” continued Campana; “how the deuce could he swallow an alligator, or an alligator get into my house to annoy him?” “D--n it,” said Transom, half tipsy and very sleepy, “that’s his look out. You are very unreasonable, Don Ricardo; all that is the affair of friend Bang and the alligator; my purpose is solely to convey his meaning faithfully”--a loud snore. “Oh,” said Campana, laughing, “I see, I see; I left your friend sobre mesa, [on the table,] but now I see he is sub rosa.” “Help, good people, help!” roared Bang--“help, or my nose will reach from this to the Moro Castle--Help!”