e man.

"Ah-h, but how can you say that truly?" says the gen'ral, and turns to
me and says: "Is it not just, senor admiral, that I should have one
opportuni-ty to see her?"

By this time I'd filled a little jug with some rum, and there was lemons
and brown sugar and a little ice, and I thought 'twas kind o' rough on
him, and so I says: "Yes, I think y'oughter, 'specially while you got
that uniform on. But where is she?"

"Ah-h, that is it, where is she? On this ship I have thought, but
evident-ly not so."

"Maybe she's here at that, hidden somewhere," I says, "and if she is,
believe me, gen'ral, I'll find her," and leavin' a lemon swizzle to cool
I begins to search the schooner again. And this time I takes a good look
into the little captain's stateroom. I didn't find the fair lady, but
packed cutely away under the old fellow's bunk was about a cord o'
money! Nothing less than a thousand-dollar bill, but five and
ten-thousand dollar bills mostly, and all new. Lord knows how much there
was there, but I hauled a bushel or so of it out on the cabin floor by
way of a sample. And the little man never stirred when he saw it; and as
for the gen'ral, "Bah!" he said--"Red moneys!"

I was thinkin' I'd done a fine stroke, and that made me feel kind o' put
out. "I'll find that girl if she's on the ship," I says then, and I
steps over to a corner of the cabin where there'd been a fresh
boarding-up of the bulkhead.

I gazes steady at it. And I could almost feel the little man's eyes
borin' into my back! And I whirls around quick; there he was--paying no
attention to the gen'ral, but starin' at me. And to myself I says: "If
losin' all that money in his room don't jar him, it must be somethin'
good behind that bulkhead for him to worry over." And with that in my
mind I looks again at the old fellow, and now I know what it is, and the
old man knew I knew, and into his eyes came such a look that I stopped
dead. You mustn't forget that I was a big, loose, rangy 180-pounder, and
standin' there--I can see it now; I didn't then--but me standin' there,
with the heat of warm exercise and three West Indian rum swizzles oozing
out of me on that tropic afternoon, I c'n see now I wasn't any winged
angel to look at.

But I had no notion of that then, only that I was beginnin' to like the
little captain; and with that new feelin' I spoke to the gen'ral.
"Here," I says, "let's step on deck for a minute." And we went up,
leaving the old fello