n a hearty voice. "We are
losing the glorious sea-breeze. _Vamanos!_ let us take a stroll to the
Tiger's Trap."

Hereupon Captain Brand entered the room, and gave the padre a violent
tweak of the nose, at the same time puffing a volume of cigar-smoke
into his beastly mouth, which combined effort brought the holy father
to life in a trice, choking and sputtering, as he arose, a jargon of
paternosters, which an indifferent hearer might have mistaken for a
volley of execrations, so savagely were they uttered.

"Take a sip of Geneva, my padre. There it is on the table. Ah! do you
call half a bottle a sip? Well! Come, doctor, let us be moving."

Down by the narrow gorge of the inlet, and over the smooth rocks and
shelly shore, the party took their way, Don Ignacio leading with the
amiable priest, on whom he glared with his malevolent eye as if--he not
being a person from whom money or its equivalent could be squeezed--the
greedy old Spaniard would like to transfix him with a glance. In the
rear came Captain Brand and the doctor, the former as gay as a bird--of
the vulture species--and his companion grave, severe, and preoccupied.
Stopping as they reached the Tiger Trap Battery, where, after Captain
Brand had made a close inspection of the guns, and held sharp confabs
with the men who rose to receive him, he moved away a few steps, and,
resting his body against the lee side of a projecting rock, removed the
cigar from his frozen lips, and said,

"The arguments you have urged, monsieur, and the views you entertain,
have a certain amount of reason in them. It is true you were deceived in
coming here, but yet you swore to remain and not betray us when you did
come. Well--ah! don't interrupt me; I divine what you are going to
say--you did not know what our real character was. Perhaps not.
Nevertheless, I can not consent to your going away with that old rascal,
Don Ignacio, there--that is, if he would take you, which I think he
would not, as your presence on board might compromise him with the Cuban
authorities; and," went on Captain Brand, as he crossed his legs, and
held his fine Panama hat on his head as a ruffle of the sea-breeze shot
around the rock, "with respect to your remaining here on the island, you
will only have that dumb old beast of a Babette for company; and it is
highly probable that the English or American cruisers will be down upon
you before a change of the moon, and they might--a--hang you, perhaps,
for a