much the same as it has been at your
home--after the first days. Hard work and a great sameness." He began to
cough violently.

I said bitterly enough, "Yes. It will be always the same with me. I
shall never see life. You've seen all that there is to see, so I suppose
you do not mind settling down with an old uncle in a palace."

He answered suddenly, with a certain darkness of manner, "That is as God
wills. Who knows? Perhaps life, even in my uncle's palace, will not be
so safe."

The second mate was bearing down on us again.

I said jocularly, "Why, when I get very tired of life at Horton Pen, I
shall come to see you in your uncle's town."

Carlos had another of his fits of coughing.

"After all, we are kinsmen. I dare say you would give me a bed," I went
on.

The second mate was quite close to us then.

Carlos looked at me with an expression of affection that a little shamed
my lightness of tone:

"I love you much more than a kinsman, Juan," he said. "I wish you could
come with me. I try to arrange it. Later, perhaps, I may be dead. I am
very ill."

He was undoubtedly ill. Campaigning in Spain, exposure in England in a
rainy time, and then the ducking when we came on board, had done him no
good. He looked moodily at the sea.

"I wish you could come. I will try------"

The mate had paused, and was listening quite unaffectedly, behind
Carlos' back.

A moment after Carlos half turned and regarded him with a haughty stare.

He whistled and walked away.

Carlos muttered something that I did not catch about "spies of that
pestilent Irishman." Then:

"I will not selfishly take you into any more dangers," he said. "But
life on a sugar plantation is not fit for you."

I felt glad and flattered that a personage so romantic should deem me a
fit companion for himself. He went forward as if with some purpose.

Some days afterwards the second mate sent for me to his cabin. He had
been on the sick list, and he was lying in his bunk, stripped to the
waist, one arm and one leg touching the floor. He raised himself slowly
when I came in, and spat. He had in a pronounced degree the Nova Scotian
peculiarities and accent, and after he had shaved, his face shone like
polished leather.

"Hallo!" he said. "See heeyur, young Kemp, does your neck just _itch_ to
be stretched?"

I looked at him with mouth and eyes agape.

He spat again, and waved a claw towards the forward bulkhead.

"They'll do it for yeh," he sa