I am your man, but not for a day or two, until I have made
some official calls here on the authorities. Meanwhile, gentlemen, you
all dine with me this evening on board the frigate, every mother's soul
of you! Coxswain, go on board and tell my steward to have dinner for
six. Stop at the schooner as you go off, and say to Mr. Darcantel that I
shall expect him to join us. Now, my friends, that matter is arranged,
and we will all go off in the barge at sunset."

"Dry talking, isn't it, Stingo?" said Piron; "so, commodore, come, and
we'll have a sip of sangaree and a deviled biscuit to keep our mouths in
order. But, halloo! where is your friend, Cleveland? that tall man in
black? Parson or chaplain, eh?"

"No," replied the officer; "an old friend of mine, my brother-in-law,
who takes a cruise with me occasionally; but he never goes in society,
and has taken himself off, as he always does when we get in port. He is
a glorious fellow, though, and I hope to present him to you yet. Never
mind him now."

Arm in arm went the blue coat and bullion, locked in white grass
sleeves, along the busy quays, crowded with mule-carts and drays for
stores or shipping. Spanish dons, dapper Frenchmen, burly John Bulls,
standing at warehouse and posadas, all with cigars in their teeth, which
they puffed so lazily that the smoke scarcely found its way beyond the
brims of their wide sombreros. Negroes, too, with scanty leg gear, and
still scantier gingham shirts, having bales, or boxes, or baskets of
fruit on their heads, never any thing in their hands, chattering and
laughing one with another as they danced and jostled along the busy
mart; then through the hot, sandy ruts of streets, pausing now and then
to shake hands with some old acquaintance beneath the overhanging
piazzas; sedan-chairs moving about, with a negro in a glazed hat and red
cockade at either end of the poles, in a long easy trot, as they bore
their burdens of Spanish matron, or English damsel, or maybe a portly
old judge, or gouty admiral, on a shopping or business excursion to the
port; so on to the upper town, where the dwellings stand in detachments
by themselves--single or in pairs--with spacious balconies and bright
green Venetian blinds, all surrounded by gardens and vines; with noble
tamarind-trees, and cocoa-nuts swaying their lofty trunks, and rattling
their branches and leaves over the negro huts and offices below. Here
the party stopped, and, entering a house, were