y extensive thinking. It was
not of a gloomy cast. The old sailor, with all his small weaknesses
and absurdities, was constitutionally incapable of entertaining for
any length of time a fear of his personal safety. It was not so much
firmness of soul as the lack of a certain kind of imagination--the kind
whose undue development caused intense suffering to Senor Hirsch; that
sort of imagination which adds the blind terror of bodily suffering and
of death, envisaged as an accident to the body alone, strictly--to all
the other apprehensions on which the sense of one's existence is based.
Unfortunately, Captain Mitchell had not much penetration of any kind;
characteristic, illuminating trifles of expression, action, or movement,
escaped him completely. He was too pompously and innocently aware of
his own existence to observe that of others. For instance, he could
not believe that Sotillo had been really afraid of him, and this simply
because it would never have entered into his head to shoot any one
except in the most pressing case of self-defence. Anybody could see he
was not a murdering kind of man, he reflected quite gravely. Then
why this preposterous and insulting charge? he asked himself. But his
thoughts mainly clung around the astounding and unanswerable question:
How the devil the fellow got to know that the silver had gone off in the
lighter? It was obvious that he had not captured it. And, obviously, he
could not have captured it! In this last conclusion Captain Mitchell
was misled by the assumption drawn from his observation of the weather
during his long vigil on the wharf. He thought that there had been much
more wind than usual that night in the gulf; whereas, as a matter of
fact, the reverse was the case.

"How in the name of all that's marvellous did that confounded fellow get
wind of the affair?" was the first question he asked directly after the
bang, clatter, and flash of the open door (which was closed again
almost before he could lift his dropped head) informed him that he had a
companion of captivity. Dr. Monygham's voice stopped muttering curses in
English and Spanish.

"Is that you, Mitchell?" he made answer, surlily. "I struck my forehead
against this confounded wall with enough force to fell an ox. Where are
you?"

Captain Mitchell, accustomed to the darkness, could make out the doctor
stretching out his hands blindly.

"I am sitting here on the floor. Don't fall over my legs," Captain
Mitche