dly, divided by faction, incapable, by themselves, of combining
for any length of time, and still less of following a plan requiring
perseverance and hardihood.

"They can't mean anything in the nature of open attack," I affirmed.
"They may have attempted something of the sort in Nichols' time, but it
isn't in their nature."

Sebright said that was practically Castro's opinion, too--except that
Castro had emphasized his remarks by spitting all the time, "like an old
tomcat. He seems a very spiteful man, with no great love for you, Mr.
Kemp. Do you think it safe to have him about you? What are all these
grievances of his?"

Castro seemed to have spouted his bile like a volcano, and had rather
confused Sebright. He had said much about being a friend of the Spanish
lord--Carlos; and that now he had no place on earth to hide his head.

"As far as I could make out, he's wanted in England," said Sebright,
"for some matter of a stolen watch, years ago in Liverpool, I think. And
your cousin, the grandee, was mixed up in that, too. That sounds funny;
you didn't tell us about that. Damme if he didn't seem to imply that
you, too... But you have never been in Liverpool. Of course not...."

But that had not been precisely Castro's point. He had affirmed he had
enemies in Spain; he shuddered at the idea of going to France, and now
my English fancifulness had made it impossible for him to live in Rio
Medio, where he had had the care of a good _pad-rona_.

"I suppose he means a landlady," Sebright chuckled. "Old but good, he
says. He expected to die there in peace, a good Christian. And what's
that about the priests getting hold of his very last bit of silver? I
must say that sounded truest of all his rigmarole. For the salvation of
his soul, I suppose?"

"No, my cousin's soul," I said gloomily.

"Humbugs. I only understood one word in three."

Just then Tomas himself stalked into sight among the men forward. Coming
round the corner of the deck-house, he stopped at the galley door like
a crow outside a hut, waiting. We watched him getting a light for his
cigarette at the galley door with much dignified pantomime. The negro
cook of the _Lion_, holding out to him in the doorway a live coal in
a pair of tongs, turned his Ethiopian face and white ivories towards
a group of sailors lost in the contemplation of the proceedings.' And,
when Castro had passed them, spurting jets of smoke, they swung about
to look after his short figur