al to his lips. "I suppose they got drunk on
the sherry, my friend?"

"Ah, yes, los maladettos--the cursed devils!" replied the Spanish
captain, his eyes flashing with anger. "If the brutes had only got
drunk, neither my brother nor I would have minded it much, although they
might have done so at our expense, it being our wine which they wasted,
the brutes!"

He then went on to state that the men became so violent and
insubordinate, that when his brother and himself battened down the
hatches to prevent their broaching any more of the casks, they broke
into open mutiny.

The mate was the ringleader of the conspiracy.

It was this rascal, he said, who informed the crew that they had specie
aboard, which the mutineers now demanded should be given up to them and
they be allowed to leave the ship in one of her boats, the mate telling
them that the vessel was almost in sight of Vigo--a fact which he, the
captain, had only disclosed to him in confidence that very day within an
hour or so of the outbreak, so that the mutiny appeared to be a planned
thing.

"Well," said Captain Farmer, "what did you do then?"

"We refused their insolent demand, of course," he answered, "in spite of
the mate and another scoundrel drawing their knives and making for us.
My brother knocked down Gomez at once, and the sailor I kicked into the
scuppers; the two of us then retreated to the cabin, where we kept them
at bay for the whole of that night and all the following day, as we had
with us all the firearms in the ship, and it was out of their power to
dislodge us."

"And how was it then you did not succeed in getting the upper hand of
them in the end, instead of the affair turning out as it did?"

In reply to this question from our captain, the Spaniard's emotion again
overcame him.

"Ay, it was all my fault, and I of all men am the most miserable!" he
cried. "Yo, I it was who caused the death of those I loved best!"

"Carramba, Senor Capitano," said Captain Farmer, trying to soothe him.
"You do yourself an injustice. I can't see where you were to blame!"

"Ah, but I do," he answered doggedly, as if he had made up his mind on
the point and no argument would persuade him to the contrary. "I ought
to have recollected that there was no water or provisions in the cabin,
the steward, who had joined the mutineers, keeping these always in the
fore part of the ship; and, there was the poor senora, who had her
little baby to nurse, suffe