a little apart, near one of the long windows, with an
air of old-fashioned neat old bachelorhood about him, slightly pompous,
in a white waistcoat, a little disregarded and unconscious of it;
utterly in the dark, and imagining himself to be in the thick of things.
The good man, having spent a clear thirty years of his life on the high
seas before getting what he called a "shore billet," was astonished at
the importance of transactions (other than relating to shipping) which
take place on dry land. Almost every event out of the usual daily
course "marked an epoch" for him or else was "history"; unless with his
pomposity struggling with a discomfited droop of his rubicund, rather
handsome face, set off by snow-white close hair and short whiskers, he
would mutter--

"Ah, that! That, sir, was a mistake."

The reception of the first consignment of San Tome silver for shipment
to San Francisco in one of the O.S.N. Co.'s mail-boats had, of course,
"marked an epoch" for Captain Mitchell. The ingots packed in boxes of
stiff ox-hide with plaited handles, small enough to be carried easily by
two men, were brought down by the serenos of the mine walking in careful
couples along the half-mile or so of steep, zigzag paths to the foot of
the mountain. There they would be loaded into a string of two-wheeled
carts, resembling roomy coffers with a door at the back, and harnessed
tandem with two mules each, waiting under the guard of armed and mounted
serenos. Don Pepe padlocked each door in succession, and at the signal
of his whistle the string of carts would move off, closely surrounded by
the clank of spur and carbine, with jolts and cracking of whips, with a
sudden deep rumble over the boundary bridge ("into the land of thieves
and sanguinary macaques," Don Pepe defined that crossing); hats bobbing
in the first light of the dawn, on the heads of cloaked figures;
Winchesters on hip; bridle hands protruding lean and brown from under
the falling folds of the ponchos. The convoy skirting a little wood,
along the mine trail, between the mud huts and low walls of Rincon,
increased its pace on the camino real, mules urged to speed, escort
galloping, Don Carlos riding alone ahead of a dust storm affording a
vague vision of long ears of mules, of fluttering little green and white
flags stuck upon each cart; of raised arms in a mob of sombreros with
the white gleam of ranging eyes; and Don Pepe, hardly visible in the
rear of that rattling dus