side all hands seemed to have
mustered on deck. Evidently they had been taking matters easy aboard
her to celebrate their return to harbour. Almost immediately after the
arrival of the new captain and his lieutenant on board, the boatswain's
whistle sounded, and a minute later both gigs and the cutter were
lowered, and all hands apparently got into them and gave way for the
shore. Ten minutes later they landed on the wharf and drew themselves
up into some semblance of rank and file. I noticed that every man
carried a brace of pistols, as well as the usual long, murderous-looking
knife, in his belt. Then Juan stepped forward and started to ring a
large bell that was suspended from a gallows-like arrangement, and
immediately a number of men came swarming out from the various sheds and
formed up facing their comrades, who had just come ashore from the brig.
I carefully counted these last, and found that, including Dominique and
Juan, they mustered forty-two. The others totalled up to fifty-six.

When the last man appeared to have presented himself, Dominique gave the
order:

"Call over the roll, if you please, Senor Juan."

And therewith Juan, drawing the roll from his pocket, proceeded to call
each man by name. Each briefly responded by declaring himself to be
"Present!" Then, every man apparently having been accounted for,
Dominique stepped forward and said:

"My lads, I have called you off from your regular work this morning to
engage in a man hunt, or rather a hunt for two women and two men. You
will not need to be reminded by me that one of our chief and most recent
causes of dissatisfaction with Ricardo was his extraordinary behaviour
in connection with that young sprig of a naval officer whom we captured
when we engaged the British war schooner _Francesca_. Instead of
heaving the young cub overboard to the sharks, as he ought to have done,
our late chief, for some extraordinary reason which he never
condescended to explain to us, chose to keep the young fellow alive, and
not only so, but also to give the surgeon the strictest injunctions to
nurse him back to health. This was so totally at variance with his
usual practice that, as I have already explained to some of you, there
could only be one reason for it, and that reason, I have never had the
slightest doubt, was that he had formed a plan to betray us all into the
hands of the British. By saving the young officer's life he hoped not
only to use h