wever. "Good-by, Rosario," said Dolores, smiling
graciously. "You know, we are friends now." And she climbed in after her
aunt. The wagon creaked under these two solid additions to its burden,
but finally drove off with a music of squeaking joints and loose wheels.
Rosario stood looking after it as if she were awakening from a dream.
Could it all be true? Had she really made friends again with that
hateful thing?

CHAPTER VI

THE SMUGGLERS

It was deep night; but the beacon on the Cabo de San Antonio, winking
with a blinding glare like the eye of a Cyclops, broke the foam curling
under the _Garbosa's_ bow into spangles of colored radiance and sent a
seething, restless, dancing pathway of fire out over the troubled
waters. The adventurers were sailing close in shore before a faint land
breeze. To starboard lowered the gigantic battlements of the Point,
precipitous, weather-beaten, blackened by storm and sea. Inland against
the starlit sky the somber Mongo reared its lofty head.

It had taken a whole day to cross the Gulf of Valencia; but now beyond
the Cape the fair road to Algiers was opening, and the _Garbosa_ would
soon be out on the deep sea. Astern at the tiller, his eye studying the
black outline of the promontory and checking up his bearings on the
murky glass face of an old compass of _tio_ Mariano's, sat the Rector,
anxiously consulting Tonet, the experienced hand on board, the only
member of the crew who had been "across the way."

"Easy as could be. The Cape, and then Southeast, Southeast, without
swerving. Set her right, and she'll get there by herself, if this wind
holds!"

The Rector gave a pull at the tiller with both hands. The _Garbosa_,
groaning like an invalid turning over in bed, swung around to the
course. The gentle swell that had been roiling her slightly from abeam
she now caught full under the bow, and she began to pitch, setting the
foam aboil. The light now came from dead astern, dousing its white sweep
in the rippling wake of the vessel.

"And now for a bit of sleep!" Tonet stretched out on a coil of line at
the foot of the mast and pulled a piece of canvas over him. His brother
would steer till midnight, when it would be his turn till dawn.

The Rector was now the only one awake on board the _Garbosa_. The
thrashing of the water forward was not loud enough to drown the snores
from the crew sleeping almost at his feet. For the first time in his
life, Pascualo was uneasy. He c