was amazed at
my own words.

Tomas Castro sprang up, and placed his rough, hot hand over my lips.

"Be quiet, John Kemp, you fool!" he hissed with sudden energy.

He had spruced himself, but I seemed to see the rags still nutter about
him. He had combed out his beard, but I could not forget the knots that
had been in it.

"I told your worship how foolish and wrong-headed these English are," he
said sardonically to Carlos. And then to me, "If the senor speaks loudly
again, I shall kill him."

He was evidently very frightened of something.

Carlos, silent as an apparition at the foot of the ladder, put a finger
to his lips and glanced upwards.

Castro writhed his whole body, and I stepped backwards. "I know what Rio
Medio is," I said, not very loudly. "It is a nest of pirates."

Castro crept towards me again on the points of his toes. "Senor Don Juan
Kemp, child of the devil," he hissed, looking very much frightened, "you
must die!"

I smiled. He was trembling all over. I could hear the talking and
laughing that went on under the break of the poop. Two women were
kissing, with little cries, near the hatchway. I could hear them
distinctly.

Tomas Castro dropped his ragged cloak with a grandiose gesture.

"By my hand!" he added with difficulty.

He was really very much alarmed. Carlos was gazing up the hatch. I was
ready to laugh at the idea of dying by Tomas Castro's hand while, within
five feet of me, people were laughing and kissing. I should have laughed
had I not suddenly felt his hand on my throat. I kicked his shins hard,
and fell backwards over a chest. He went back a step or two, flourished
his arm, beat his chest, and turned furiously upon Carlos.

"He will get us murdered," he said. "Do you think we are safe here? If
these people here heard that name they wouldn't wait to ask who
your worship is. They would tear us to pieces in an instant. I tell
you--_moi_, Tomas Castro--he will ruin us, this white fool-------"

Carlos began to cough, shaken speechless as if by an invisible devil.
Castro's eyes ran furtively all round him, then he looked at me. He made
an extraordinary swift motion with his right hand, and I saw that he was
facing me with a long steel blade displayed. Carlos continued to cough.
The thing seemed odd, laughable still. Castro began to parade round
me: it was as if he were a cock performing its saltatory rites before
attacking. There was the same tenseness of muscle. He stepped wit