's outfit, were--as we
know--generally presented to him, so that he was enabled to stow away
the cash for future gratification.

Don Ignacio Sanchez was likewise a moneyed man, and came provided with a
long pouch of solid gold, which he made into little piles before him of
the exact size of those of the captain. The doctor, however, declined to
play, and sat an indifferent spectator of the game.

"Let us begin, _senores_!" exclaimed the Don, as he rapidly shuffled the
cards, and his keen, black spark of fire lit up with animation at the
rich prospect before him. "We are losing precious time. I'll be
_banquero_! _Vamanos!_"

So they began. The cards were dealt, and the betting went on. The padre
forgot breviary and beads in his excitement, and as his little pointings
were swept away, he forgot, too, the sacred ejaculations he was wont to
lard his discourse with, and he became positively profane. The captain
won largely in the beginning, and jeered his _compadre_ with great zest
and enjoyment; but that one-eyed, rapacious old Spanish rascal was not
in the least disturbed, and bided his time. At first the conversation
was light and jovial, Captain Brand insisting upon the doctor describing
minutely how he had hacked his friend Gibbs's leg off with a hand-saw,
laughing hugely thereat, and wiping the icy tears from his cold blue
eyes with his delicate cambric handkerchief. Then the fascinating game
began to fluctuate, and the luck set back with a steady run into the
piles of the banker. Captain Brand liked as little to lose his money as
any other gambler in cards, stocks, or dice, and he was somewhat chafed
in spirit; but what especially irritated him was losing it to that
wrinkle-faced, one-eyed, greedy old scoundrel, with no possible hope of
ever seeing a dollar of it again. As for the padre, he was dead broke;
and since his friends would not lend him a real, and the banker did not
play upon credit, he sat moodily by, and gloated over the winnings of
the Tuerto, cursing his own luck and that of his companions likewise.

"Ho!" growled Captain Brand, "_maldito a la sota!_ I have lost my last
stake!"

Even while he spoke the poor little boy murmured in a sobbing voice,
"Mamma, _chere_ mamma!" and turned uneasily in his little nest from his
fitful slumber.

"That crying imp again!" said the now angry pirate, as he hurled the
padre's half empty gin jug in the direction of the couch, which crashed
against the wall, and fe